5/29 Delpit, "The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People's Children;"

Talking Points

1. "Why don't those people say what they mean?" as well as "What's wrong with them, why don't they understand?"(Delpit, p. 25)

 -These quotes say a lot. How are the minority cultures supposed to understand if no one is teaching or telling them about the "codes" needed to succeed in the upper-middle-class classroom of the culture that is in power? They do understand their families, friends, and neighbors. Not being told implicitly what the rules are makes it wrong. That puts students from other cultural backgrounds at a disadvantage in society.

2. "But that's the school's job." What the school personnel fail to understand is that if the parents were members of the culture of power and lived by its rules and codes, then they would transmit those codes to their children (Delpit, p.30) 

 -Children from marginalized and underrepresented communities  who do not live by the culture of power will NOT have those unspoken codes automatically transmitted to them. They will have to work harder for everything, often working twice as hard to achieve success.

 3."It's really a shame but she (that black teacher upstairs) seems to be so authoritarian, so focused on skills and so teacher directed. Those poor kids never seem to be allowed to really express their creativity. (And she even yells at them.)"(Delpit p.33) 

-Snow and other authors say that working-class mothers use a more direct approach when giving directives, whereas middle-class mothers ask more questions and use an indirect approach. I agree with these findings. As a person of color, I find myself being direct with the youth I serve.

 Delpit's Argument: When teaching other people's children, you have to be mindful of the privileges that you have been granted. Delpit argues that success in the classroom is rooted in the culture of those in power.