In "Other People's Children Cultural Conflict in the Classroom" Lisa Delpit's strong opinions toward white people are very strong. I felt she was blaming us for the fact that white privilege exists and that we had no right to teach black children. The blame is on the majority not listening, but I feel it also has something to do with the way both sides react. She really had me feeling bad about trying to educate all the non-white students I interact with everyday although I know I love doing what I do. Luckily, by the end of "The Silenced Dialogue: Power of Pedagogy in Educating Other People's Children" I felt like she was just asking us, the white teachers, for help in making all students successful. She generalizes to every white teacher, but not all of us ignore the hard conversations. I agree with her point that we need to teach "the codes needed to participate fully in the mainstream of American life...". Our students need to understand both societal rules and language rules to be successful in college or a career. I encourage my Spanish speaking students to continue their home language and learn to not only speak, but read and write it so you can have a skill that is needed in many jobs.
I also connected Delpit's idea to how I taught writing. I feel the most important step is when I conference with the student and read it aloud and talk about it. Not only can I discuss grammatical errors and sentence structure, but I get them to add details and description. If they don't identify errors I might explain "that might be how you say it but when we write in English its more formal and has to follow certain rules". I'm going to start using a line from the Alaskan teacher asking whether "they've said enough to sound like a book". (p. 42) These mistakes, or teaching points, turn into small group mini lessons which have proven to improve my students writing. As mentioned above I understand the need to teach the codes but also encourage them to keep their own code through culture and language. Her quote "To deny students their own expert knowledge is to disempower them". (p. 32-33) I think this is true and could turn students off to learning from certain teachers. With my seventh and eighth grade students a discussion of the negative opinion of Central Falls ensued because I mentioned the town I live in. They talked about the litter, violence, and illegal behaviors. I showed them video I took of the trash I saw each day walking a few blocks to school over the next week. I did this to show how much of the litter came from the free food provided at school each day like milk and juice cartons, styrofoam trays, plastic containers, etc. I asked them to be the change. There are trash barrels outside school so encourage your friends, family, and neighbors to use them and start a change in the city.
I enjoyed the section about Martha Demientieff who taught "Village English" and "Standard English". She explained the prejudice to them in simple terms. While doing this she made it positive, "We're going to learn two ways to say things. Isn't that better?" Next, she explains why the two languages and where they will need the "Standard English". Explaining the hard truth that people are judged by how they speak is difficult but important. The part that really impressed me was her also encouraging them to be the difference. "Maybe after we get the jobs we can help them to learn how it feels to have another language, like ours that feels so good".
These articles have really made me think about the preparation of teachers. The colleges require a Special Education class even if you don't take Special Education just as is true for all the content subjects and even the itinerant subjects. The classes required never address some of the most important aspects of being a teacher, like classroom management and social, emotional support. I did not take any class that even discussed such issues so deeply. If I hadn't come to Central Falls, which lead me to get my ESL certification and now a Master's degree, I might not have had this course and might still be oblivious to certain aspects of privilege. I think it is important to get the conversations started and keep them going. How many of these white teachers are Colorblind and just need support in changing to Color Insight? Is it being done in a positive way like the Alaskan teacher did?
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