Teachers of Reddit, what are some positive trends you have noticed in today's youth?

I grew up poor in the hood, and am now a writer and literacy volunteer with inner-city students at Title 1 schools — I 1000% agree that misguided white educators like those commenting throughout this thread are so desperate to "affirm" dialects like AAVE that they set these kids up for failure.

Some of the students I volunteer with, their parents know I can code-switch/speak both dialects. But they ask me to "speak proper" to their kids. They know, like every poor person knows, speaking standard English is a major key to success. "Standard English" was literally the way I escaped the a life of poverty and hopelessness that trapped many of my classmates.

I'm all for diversity in education and being sensitive to students' backgrounds, but I consider myself lucky to have been educated before misguided ideas about the "equal value" of non-standard dialects infected academia and curricula. Trapping kids in poverty so white educators can congratulate themselves on how sensitive they are. To use some nonstandard English, fuck all that shit.

/r/AskReddit Thread Parent