Teach Them Well

When teaching ESL, quality matters! Don’t let this be you.https://t.co/AgsxPvmaq8 #languagelearning pic.twitter.com/yLGhdMrccc

— Techworld Language Solutions (@Techworldinc) July 25, 2018

This little comic strip tweet reminds me of something I've noticed happens to the Disabled a lot. Nobody corrects us! Nobody respects us enough to tell us we're wrong, or to show us how to do it better. With VERY few exceptions in our daily lives. Maybe when we were kids being raised, our parents or other family were only too delighted to set us straight when we were on the wrong path. Although in my case that was not always the case either. Often I would file something incorrectly, or complete a task without supervision, and somebody "in charge" would redo the whole thing when I wasn't looking:( Let me tell you, it's maddening. And insulting. And it doesn't help the individual at all. Friends who didn't tell me they'd heard the same story from me 100 times before were ALSO walking a fine line. Letting me make a fool of myself repeating everything they'd heard before as if they'd never heard it--only to realize my error years later? Talk about embarrassing. Talk about an insult. I am NOT trying to say that not having a command of the English language--or any language for that matter--is a disability. No. I'm thinking more about the teachers who allow the students of these languages to continue speaking it poorly. Remember "The Disability of Stigma"? It's not so much the function itself that is disabling. What cripples the individual is the lack of confidence society inspires. Somebody (like me) whose ignorance is realized only years later after overthinking about her limited work experience as she agonizes over her future is not going to feel confident enough to re-enter the work force. Somebody who is belittled and humiliated by the sub-par "accommodations" society has made for her is not going to feel strong enough to rejoin the world that causes her pain. I stand in awe of Ace Ratcliff and Tanyalee Davis and everyone else like them, who suffer with physical disabilities AND the cruelties of the ignorant every day but still travel and put themselves out there for the world. In truth, NOBODY can "correct" you when you're that open and honest. Nobody can or even should try to change you so you fit a more acceptable mold.