It is a well-documented fact that by the age of 5 monolingual White children will have heard 30 million fewer words in languages other than English than bilingual children of color. In addition, they will have had a complete lack of exposure to the richness of non-standardized varieties of English that characterize the homes of many children of color. This language gap increases the longer these children are in school. The question is what causes this language gap and what can be done to address it?
The major cause of this language gap is the failure of monolingual White communities to successfully assimilate into the multilingual and multidialectal mainstream. The continued existence of White ethnic enclaves persists despite concerted efforts to integrate White communities into the multiracial mainstream since the 1960s. In these linguistically isolated enclaves it is possible to go for days without interacting with anybody who does not speak Standardized American English providing little incentive for their inhabitants to adapt to the multilingual and multidialectal nature of US society.
This linguistic isolation has a detrimental effect on the cognitive development of monolingual White children. This is because linguistically isolated households lack the rich translanguaging practices that are found in bilingual households and the elaborate style-shifting that occurs in bidialectal households. This leaves monolingual White children without a strong metalinguistic basis for language learning. As a result, many of these monolingual White children lack the school-readiness skills needed for foreign language learning and graduate from school having mastered nothing but Standardized American English leaving them ill-equipped to engage in intercultural communication.
1600s: most witch-hunts ended in this century. no witches were burned in North America; they were hanged or in one case pressed to death
1700s: the American Revolution. Marie Antoinette. the French Revolution. the crazy King George. most pirate movies
1800-1830: Jane Austen! Pride and Prejudice! those dresses where the waist is right under one’s boobs and men have a crapton of facial hair inside high collars
1830-1900: Victorian. Les Miserables is at the beginning, the Civil War is in the middle, and Dracula is at the end
1900-1920: Edwardian. Titanic, World War I, the Samantha books from American Girl, Art Nouveau
1920s: Great Gatsby. Jazz Age. Flappers and all that. most people get this right but IT IS NOT VICTORIAN. STUFF FROM THIS ERA IS NOT VICTORIAN. DO NOT CALL IT VICTORIAN OR LIST IT ON EBAY AS VICTORIAN. THAT HAPPENS SURPRISINGLY OFTEN GIVEN HOW STAGGERING THE VISUAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ERAS IS. also not 100 years ago yet, glamour.com “100 years of X” videos. you’re lazy, glamour.com. you’re lazy and I demand my late Edwardian styles
I just saw people referencing witch burning and Marie Antoinette on a post about something happening in 1878. 1878. when there were like trains and flush toilets and early plastic and stuff. if you guys learn nothing else about history, you should at least have vague mental images for each era
“Les Miserables is at the beginning, the Civil War is in the middle, and Dracula is at the end” sounds like the longest weirdest worst movie I’d pay to see in theatres five times.
“Victorian: Les Miserables is at the beginning, the Civil War is in the middle, and Dracula is at the end”
Agreed! I would pay good money to see this! XD
But it also brings up an important point, that’s kind of bugging me right now.
Which is that different things happen in different places during the same set of years. Which means “eras” are different in different places! I think people are usually pretty good at this when talking over large distances (say, China, Zimbabwe, and Western Europe), but it also happens in smaller grain sizes too. What we think of as “Victorian” is heavily, heavily influenced by what was going on culturally and historically in England ah the time.
So TL;DR – while
“Les Miserables is at the beginning, the Civil War is in the middle, and Dracula is at the end” is a pretty awesome way to remember how the dates fit together, France, the USA, and even to a certain extent Ireland (where Bram Stoker – author of Dracula was from) had their own shit going on that might not look a whole lot like the “Victoriana” you’re familiar with either.
(For instance, while the Victorian era was going on in England, France was in the middle of the “Long 19th century” aka a protracted “Revolution 2: Electric Boogaloo” because the first one really didn’t stick as well as hoped.)
Okay so I know everyone keeps wondering why the kids from Stranger Things and IT always leave their damn bikes everywhere so I asked my mom if kids in the 80’s really pulled that shit and she was like “well how else were we supposed to know where everyone was?!”
“I asked my mom”
This is the first Tumblr post which ever made me feel old.
depressed kids in the media: I don’t wanna go to therapy! I don’t need help! I’m not some specimen for you to dissect!
me, rollin up to my therapist’s office and collapsing in relief: what is UP my homeboy I fuckin missed you,, hope ur ready to hear some Bull Shit that fuckin happened to me this week
families of depressed kids in media: okay sweetie we’ve researched depression for ten hours straight and signed you up for therapy and re-arranged your school schedule to be less stressful
actual parents of depressed kids: look i get you’re sad but someones gotta do the goddamn dishes stop being lazy get up. why didn’t you go to school today, what’s wrong with you, you’re such a burden on this family.
Therapists in the media: *understanding head tilt*
My real live therapist whom I adore: Natalie, that is the DUMBEST thing I’ve ever heard.
Man Im jelly. All my therapists aint been shit but narcs to my parents when I was younger. Havent trusted em since. I had 3 of em pull shit like outing me as gay, telling my mom I talked smack about her, reporting me for being interested in drugs. Therapy just became manditory “say nice things about your mother and accept that everything in life is your fault” hour twice a month.
sometimes I do physical things because I have to and other times I do things because I can and I don’t know how to easily explain it to people so that they understand the difference between when I’m pushing myself because there is literally no other option and when I am feeling slightly better and decide to do something because I feel up to it
didnt have keyboards yet so when you turned 16 they just tore your arms off
Ok kids, listen up. I’m about to tell you how utterly bored we often were and what very bad ideas we adopted to address that back in the day.
The above photo is my parents’ generation, not mine, but trust me we had a lot in common. Namely, figuring out something to do with ourselves when we weren’t being herded through school.
The above game is called “airplane”, and it consists of one person grabbing two limbs – limb choice optional but head frowned upon – of another person, then spinning quickly in a circle. Like a death spiral in ice skating pairs, but with the head usually higher off the ground. Side effects could include blood rushes, dizziness, mild concussions, and dislocated shoulders. Lots of fun.
Briefly, in the late 70s through the 80s, “airplane” was somewhat replaced by a contraption we called a merry go round, which was not at all like an actual merry go round/carousel. It was instead a mechanical death trap designed for children. We loved it.
These have been banned in a lot of places, but apparently you can still buy the slightly “safer” versions. Lol.
Side effects sometimes included: flying off at high speed, getting shoelaces wrapped around the safety bars, slipping while pushing and getting trampled by other pushers, and fights breaking out over choice seats on the edge. This was unironically my second favorite piece of playground equipment. Pretty sure I lost a tooth to one once. It was awesome.
In the wake of the banning/removal of a lot of these as lawsuit culture spread to playground injuries (seriously, the first time I saw foam padding under playground equipment, I think my eyes bugged out), kids went back to airplane. Now you all apparently have smartphones and no need for headrushes with a slight risk of trampling/dislocation. So sad. A piece of iconic American kid culture has been lost.
I’ve spent so much of this trip trying to explain chronic illness to family/friends, and as many of you know it’s an exhausting process to try and explain that you’ll…likely never get better.
And then my aunt and uncle completely floored me this week, when they found out all the shit I’m going through struggling to get a diagnosis, and they just…accepted it?
“Oh you have XYZ, is that kind of like ZYX? Right, well that’s a bugger innit…cuppa tea?”
And then my uncle, who struggled with technology just sent me a Facebook message, thanking me for making the trip and hoping I will have enough “spoons” to make the journey home okay.
He looked up my list of possible illnesses and found the spoon theory. And in the process realized that he is also a spoonie because he has chronic pain and other issues and now he’s just spamming me the spoon emoji like “here, have some of mine 🥄🥄🥄🥄” and it’s almost 2am and I need to wake up in 4 hours to get ready for my flight home and I’m just ;_;
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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