Joanne Chatterton DRA601 November 6th 2009 Reaction to Other Peoples Children by Lisa Delpit Reading Part 1 of Lisa

Delpits treatise on teaching other peoples children elicited an angry response from most of our class, including myself. As a group of mostly white graduate education majors we felt attacked by her description of white liberal teachers. She used the term in a very derogatory fashion. For an author who is writing about cultural conflict and the idea that minority teachers voices are not heard, Delpit seems at times to make the mistake of stereotyping in the same fashion that she is accusing others of. One thing in The Silenced Dialogue that really insulted me was the notion that certain educational strategies are based on a desire that the liberals children get sole access to the dwindling pool of American jobs, sometimes with good intentions that are conscious delusions about their unconscious true motives(p29). Rather than an active conspiracy I think that there is a real lack of cultural understanding because most people stay within their own cultural group where they feel more comfortable. It is the job of the people that impose certain curriculums on the teachers who need to involve active classroom teachers of all different cultures in their design. As Delpit said, if we are truly to effect societal change, we cannot do so from the bottom up, but we must push and agitate from the top down. On reflection, her frustrations are somewhat justified in the fact that the majority of teachers and university professors in the education field are white and are therefore responsible for the fact that our system fails certain groups of children as proven by statistical data. If nothing else, the book was a stepping stone to self reflection about how I approach my students and how my upbringing influences my worldview. As a student I find that I prefer the direct instruction method of teaching. I have been in classes where the process method has been used and find that I have come away feeling that I could have learned a lot more from the teacher than from my peers who are basing their discussions on the same level of subject knowledge as I am without having a mastery of the it. (I am not talking about literature classes or non academic subjects where discussion is often a catalyst for your own ideas.) I dont think that process or direct instruction is a black/white issue but more

an issue of personal preference and prior knowledge of subject matter. I think that Delpit was saying that no one method of instruction is right for all and that we really need to listen to our students. If they do not comprehend, then we need to adapt our delivery of material to accommodate the student population. As teachers we should be open minded and adaptable. One of the best professors that I encountered at CSI would not count a test question if more than a certain percentage of the students got the answer wrong. He held himself responsible for not teaching the material in a way that his students could learn. Delpits first four aspects of power (p25,26) are extremely insightful. There is without doubt a culture of power in the workplace and depending on what career path you hope to follow, you need to be explicitly given the tools to navigate it. You do not need to lose your culture to learn to live within another. In part 2 of Other Peoples Children, Lisa Delpit describes her experiences of teaching in different cultures and on finding herself in the minority. I found this section to be enlightening. She found that many of the teaching methods that we use go against the cultural norms of certain groups. An example of this is asking children to talk through a problem that they solved. This insistence on verbally mediating an action could be teaching children to ignore context and attend only to words. In many cultures a child is taught to disregard the words of others if they conflict with their own perceptions. If a teacher does not understand cultural norms then he/she would conclude that the child was being disrespectful if they ignore an instruction. Also teachers would say that parents did not care about their child if they didnt make them come to school or do homework. In Native American culture, parents respect their childs thinking and say if a child doesnt want to go then the school must not be welcoming. We have to learn not to assume things about a child or parent but rather take time to find out about how their culture affects their behavior. In Teachers Voices I found the reasons cited for minorities not to enter the teaching profession were surprising, particularly the lack of prestige. If minority students are deducing that teachers do not have influence then we are failing our children. Delpit goes further in saying that many minority education students have been victimized by the institutions that seek to

educate them. She cited the fact that professors did not want to hear about personal experiences rather they wanted to hear about facts from people with authority such as Vygotsky. My first reaction was to think well that applies to all cultures but then I thought about what they were really saying. Most if not all of the studies that we read in undergraduate education were written by Europeans based on white European children. We did learn about multicultural education but more through the use of literature than educational techniques. There is no doubt that racism still exists but the interesting part of Teachers Voices is the discussion of how overt racism has diminished but how much subtle discrimination is still at work. This examination is interesting because racisms lasting effects consciously or unconsciously play out each day in the classroom and beyond. This happens in both how minorities perceive the actions and motives whites and in how much whites are guilty of prejudice and stereotyping without being conscious of it. Some of the passages led me to question whether there is a certain expectation of racism by minorities that underlies interaction between cultural groups. Many of the concerns and philosophies of minority teachers on pages 119 and 120 are concerns of all teachers particularly student teachers coming out of college. There were no white teachers voices quoted, only minority teachers. This bothered me because it as if Delpit is saying that no white teacher has anything of value to contribute. (I see a little of that subtle racism taking place). It is the same scenario that she was decrying about history books only teaching one view, which is something I actually agree with. In part 3, Cross-cultural Confusions, when Delpit is discussing how the Native American teacher disciplined the students by drawing on cultural methods that would be meaningful, I sided with the teacher. One hour of silence is not meaningful punishment to any student. The student was fortunate to have a teacher who understood the best way to discipline through cultural reference and the principal was misguided but I dont think that we should make a blanket statement about race from a couple of experiences. It is the responsibility of those within a culture to educate their coworkers in methods that would be more effective as well as that of someone working in a different culture to learn. Hopefully in these multicultural times the faculty would be open to discussion.

As an immigrant I found that there were certain cultural differences that I had to adapt to and this has helped me to be more aware of how our culture shapes us and how misunderstandings occur. I grew up in a sheltered white community with little to no diversity but this strangely enough has shaped my fascination with other cultures. I did not grow up learning racist black/white stereotypes rather the people that we grew up to be wary of are the Germans and French!! This being hangover from our parents experiences in the war. In America we are all lumped together as Europeans which is strange to me but a poignant example of the absurdity of racism. We all need to reflect on how our cultural experiences shape us and not just have a knee jerk reaction to the material in the book. I definitely thought long and hard about teaching Other Peoples Children and how this text can make me more open to looking at how the balance of power plays out within my class, my school and beyond.