Kentucky - An English Teacher's Nightmare

Mr. Bob mentioned something about me writing about my experience in Kentucky. I was in Kentucky for a week and a half and learned quite a bit about the literacy of the people. This ties nicely in with what we're talking about in class. The majority of the people living in Harlan, Kentucky are not well educated. If they were lucky they graduated the 8th grade. The people have a very unique twang and a way of missing letters all together as they talk. They often change their vowel sounds as well. Examples of this would be the word "Down" would come out like "Dern". A common phrase was "Ya'll aint got nothing". Another infuriating sentence was " I seen yous yesterday." I saw! I SAW!! The fact that I knew the people did not have a very good education helped me understand why the people talked so horrifically, but also their culture comes into play. Everyone talks like that down there. Its just how they are and how they grew up. They don't have anyone who speaks so called "Perfect English" within 100 miles of them. This being said and even with all these factors clearly present I unfortunately judged these people as not being very intelligent. Something about the way they talked made me feel superior when that is anything but the truth. It was a very good lesson learned for me. I worked on a house with people from the area. These men could each build a whole house on their own. Each one could start from scratch and put up a house, a barn, or anything. They were supreme carpenters and masons. Each person I met could tell you the history of Harlan and the history of Kentucky. The people were in no way stupid or unintelligent. Unfortunately just the way they talked made me judge them as so. Moral of this story? Don't assume you know anything or anyone until you have all the facts.