True Story 10.06
The pupil who could be either deficient or sophisticated
The setting for this story
In an American elementary school, second-grade teacher Sara Biggs was working with a reading group whose members were taking turns reading aloud stories they had written.
A story of misaligned minds9
When it was Black pupil Marti’s turn to read the story she wrote, she began as follows:
Marti Once upon a time, there was an old lady, and this old lady ain’t had no sense.
Ms. Biggs Marti, great beginning! But can you tell me how to say that in standard English?
Marti [After some thought] There was an old lady who didn’t have any sense.
Ms. Biggs That’s right!
Marti [Hand on hip, indignant expression] But this old lady ain’t had no sense!
Sara’s question
Marti is able to use standard English when prompted, so why doesn’t she use it in the first place?
Critique of story 10.06
If your elementary school experience was like mine, you learned the rule that “two negatives make a positive.” It’s this rule (not Marti’s use of “ain’t”) that Sara is emphasizing. This rule fits well into American culture because it’s an example of analytic thinking. To see why this is so, one needs to logically analyze a sentence with two negatives. (Consider “I’ll never ride no motorcycle,” which grammatically means that you are willing to ride a motorcycle.) Doing this is coolly rational.
There are countless people in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia-Pacific who didn’t grow up learning to think analytically; instead, they deal with life relationally. So they aren’t bothered by nit-picking rules like avoiding the use of “double negatives.” If they want to emphasize a negative statement, they use two negatives: “ain’t had no sense!” Doing this is warmly emotional.
We analytic folks have other ways of adding emphasis. For example, a standard English-speaking child who wants to highlight the old lady’s stupidity might write, “Once upon a time, there was an old lady who really had very little sense.” Or we might instead write something more colorful such as, “That old lady is as dumb as a box of rocks!”
Writers admired by many Americans sometimes used double negatives to convey emphasis; among others, Charles Chesnutt, Alice Walker, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and Zora Neale Hurston. Depending on the situation, they could express themselves more analytically or more holistically. Some readers very much admire such mental flexibility.
As Sara was aware, Marti could write using both standard English (largely analytic) and Black English (largely relational or holistic). Was Marti revealing an unfortunate language deficiency? Or was she revealing admirable language flexibility?
For thought
Above, I discussed analytic and relational as though they are mutually exclusive, implying that someone’s mindset is either wholly one or the other. That’s convenient but it’s never accurate.
The distinction between analytic and relational or holistic perception and thought is best conceived as existing on a wide spectrum or continuum, such as that depicted in Figure 1 of Chapter 9, which emphasizes that every human being harbors, at least potentially, aspects of both mindsets. And the same individual can trend one way or the other depending on circumstances. (As noted under Figure 1, even rigorously analytical scientists can become warmly relational when near the person who’s the new love of their life!) Think of the differences this way:
- some individuals are strongly (but not totally) analytic;
- some are primarily analytic with noticeable holistic tendencies;
- some are a more or less balanced combination of the two;
- some are primarily holistic with noticeable analytic tendencies; and
- some individuals are strongly (but not totally) holistic.
Related stories
Like this story, several others among the seventy-six depict teachers in the U.S. striving to successfully instruct students from backgrounds that include minority-group, indigenous group, or immigrant-group membership.
Stories 1.03, 1.16, 4.02, 4.04, and 7.09 concern Native American, Native Alaskan, or Native Hawaiian students.
Stories 4.01 and 10.08 discuss Hmong immigrants.
Stories 1.01, 1.07, 4.11, 10.03, 10.09, and 10.14 involve minority-group students.
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Endnotes:
9 Delpit, 169–70. The location where this exchange occurred is not revealed.
Full citations are available at misalignedminds.info/References.