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Lara Singzon
March 12, 2024

EDU 409: Language Manifesto Reflection

My Language Manifesto focuses on three main commitments: 1) creating and

maintaining a safe and welcoming space, 2) valuing all language, and 3) understanding and

accepting everyone’s different ways of participating. These three main commitments encapsulate

what I want to do for my future students. I want them to know that they matter to me as people,

not just students I have to teach because it is my job. I want them to know that their lived

experiences matter and what they know from their cultures is valuable. I want my students to

know that they do not have to assimilate into the dominant ideology in order to feel accepted and

worthy. As hooks (1994) states in Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of

Freedom, “I have realized that I was in danger of losing my relationship to black vernacular

speech because I too rarely use it in the predominantly white settings that I most often in, both

professionally and socially” (p. 225). Here, hooks talks about losing her relationship to her Black

vernacular because she felt the need to assimilate into the dominant ideology. I believe people’s

language and their native ways of using language is a huge part of their identity. When we start

to change the way we speak in order to fit into this dominantly White space, we start to hide, and

eventually, forget our true identities. This is something I do not want my future students to do. I

want them to feel safe in a learning environment where all languages and identities are

welcomed. I am committed to celebrating their different languages and identities by emphasizing

that being People of Color and speaking non-English languages is valuable and important too.

The creative element of my Language Manifesto consists of pictures that I put into a

collage format. All of the images I selected for this collage were images that I thought

represented some of the many facets of language: community building through communicating,
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using language to connect with each other as humans, using and reclaiming language as power as

People of Color, and using language as an act of resistance. hooks (1994) mentions, “Using

English in a way that ruptured standard usage and meaning, so that white folks could often not

understand black speech, made English into more than the oppressor’s language” (p. 224). In this

quote, hooks reclaims English and uses it as an act of resistance against the oppressor. When

People of Color change how English is used, especially in academic settings, this is using

language as power. This is something I want to teach my students: that although English is the

language of the oppressor, we do not have to follow its rules. We can create and use English in

many different kinds of ways, or not use it at all. I want my future students to know that all

languages are important and just as valuable as English. By having this Language Manifesto in

place, I will stay committed to centering students’ voices and the knowledge they have acquired

through their different backgrounds and cultures, and hopefully, change the narrative about what

is considered valuable in academic settings, and society in general.

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References

hooks, bell. 1994. Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York:

Routledge.