 | | OCW Director, Curt Newton, served on a panel with New England Board of Higher Education on the value of open education resources during the pandemic. |
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| Chalk Radio: Unpacking Misconceptions about Language & Identities with Prof. Michel DeGraff |
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 | In this episode, Prof. Michel DeGraff discusses his goal to make linguistics accessible to a broader audience, to connect language to issues of culture and identity, and to show how language prejudices are rooted in hierarchies of power.
“We all hold dear certain attitudes about language,” Professor Michel DeGraff says in this episode centered on his course 24.908 Creole Languages and Caribbean Identities. Those attitudes can be positive for ourselves and for others, DeGraff says, but they can also have negative effects.
His goal is to make linguistics accessible to a broader audience, to connect language to issues of culture and identity, and to show how language prejudices are rooted in hierarchies of power. Specifically, he seeks to increase public awareness that the creoles of the Caribbean, like his native Haitian Creole (or Kreyòl), are fully developed languages worthy of as much respect as higher-prestige languages like French or English.
To pursue this goal, he promotes dual-language education for Haitian-American students, and he himself speaks Kreyòl in as many public forums as possible—including in the videos on the OpenCourseWare site for his course, and at various points in this podcast itself!
At the same time, as he explains, he encourages his students to examine their own backgrounds to see how their attitudes about the languages they speak have been shaped by explicit or implicit attitudes about culture and identity.
> Listen to the episode. |
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| Resources For Self-Education on Race Relations in America |
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 | Photo of Ferguson sign courtesy of Light Brigading on flickr.
MIT OpenCourseWare offers a variety of freely available, open-access MIT course materials on race and the history of race relations in the United States.
A few notable courses are outlined in the link below.
> Read the complete article |
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 | | "I don't have the words to say. You have done everything perfectly. A lot of your materials help people all over the world [to get] an education, even though they can't afford it. You are truly changing the world through education and knowledge."
-Albi, Independent Learner, Albania
>We'd love to hear from you. Tell us your OCW Story. |
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| For free resources for high school teachers and students, check out:
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| More free resources from MIT are available at:
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