The teaching of alternative dialects of English has always been a difficult subject. Many of the teachers I have personally experienced in my early education were clearly the product of a prescriptivist “Deficit Theory” approach. (Fox 65) It wasn’t until College that I was really introduced to the concept of accepting other voices and encouraging students to develop there own voice, as Ball and Muhammed suggest.

This is an important concept, in my mind, as more traditional “zero tolerance” styles of teaching can stifle students progress. I found it particularly interesting that while certain schools do offer classes in other dialects, even those schools do not often require a class of this sort to be taken. Especially, when it is seen how these classes open teachers opinions so that they do not feel that zero tolerance is the only way to approach there students. Rather teaching writing should be about students developing there voices so that they become confident in themselves. “It’s the way that we perceive our students as literate individuals and their voices and how important their voice is.” {Ball, Muhammed 86)

By encouraging students, and not denigrating their cultural backgrounds we can help those students develop their own voice and become confident. If we were to only tell them how they should be writing, and dismiss their own writing, we will only frustrate and stifle their own growth.