Educating Other People's Children

In The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People's Children, Lisa Delpit argues that educators must be aware of the culture of power that exists in classrooms. Speaking from her role as a black educator who also has conducted field work in Alaska and Papua, New Guinea, Delpit insists that educators who belong to the "culture of power" club who work with minorities and those students who have not been raised in the same cultural mindset as their instructor,  must teach their students through explicit, skills-oriented, lessons. Doing so will give the students the tools to navigate towards the culture of power that exists in mainstream American schools. She identifies five tenants of this culture: 1) Issues of power are enacted in classrooms; 2) There are codes or rules for participating in power; that is, there is a 'culture of power'; 3) The rules of the culture of power are a reflection of the rules of the culture of those who have power; 4) If those who are not already a participant in the cultural of power are told explicitly the rules of that culture, gaining power is easier; and 5)Those with power are frequently least aware of its existence while those with less power are often more aware of its existence.

Delpit suggests that many white educators who claim to be liberal are actually doing much harm to their minority students because of their ignorance of the expectations and rearing style of the parents of their students. For instance, understanding basic codes of verbal and non-verbal communication is key. A white teacher may relay a command as a question, "Is this where you put a comma?" while a black parent or teacher will give a directive, "Put the comma between words in a list."  However, her basic premise is that direct, skills taught literacy that produces a meaningful product trumps process, the literacy approach embraced by middle-class instructors who may assume all students arrive to school with the keys to understand the "implicit codes" of their "white" classroom culture that will unlock meaning. So, liberal-minded teachers, fearful of acting against "liberal principles" and perhaps, even "liberal principals", actually block their minority students from success.

Several ideas of import include:

"We do not really see through our eyes or hear through our ears, but through our beliefs."

When teachers and students do not have the same set of beliefs, student success is only gained through an understanding of each other's cultures and belief systems. Therefore, parents of minority children must have a say in how their child is educated, including the methodology. Parents of my second language learners ask that I am firm and direct with their children, and I am.  I explicitly teach grammar, writing skills, and phonemics. But, while students are working towards mastery of those skills, I also employ process to create a product that is meaningful to the student. 

"Schools must provide these children the content that other families from a different cultural orientation provide at home."

Students whose families live outside of the "culture of power" either do not have or emphasize the content or learning tools inherent in families who are part of that power system. In order for students to gain access to a level playing field, teachers must explicitly provide the content that will allow those students to perform well and compete. I see this with my AP Literature students, most of whom are children of immigrants or are immigrants themselves. While my students easily acquire the explicitly taught tier 3, content vocabulary such as literary terms, they lack the academic vocabulary, which is acquired through years of reading at, or above, grade level books. Therefore, I also begin each class with an academic, tier 2 high-frequency or multiple meaning word such as  "mastication".  I also expect students to peruse "culture of power" magazines such as Vanity Fair, Harpers, or The New Yorker for examples of interesting words, powerful prose or thought-provoking poems.


"Somehow, to exhibit one's personal power as expert source is viewed as disempowering one's students."

This statement exemplifies how schools seem to be organized today. As part of my school's transformation plan, teachers are told that the first classroom non-negotiable is having "A student-centered classroom." Teachers organize learning, students learn through discovery with the material and interaction with each other. I have found that with my advanced-level ELA students, this philosophy works well. It does work because students have become investigator-learners after acquiring the skills that allow them to own that role. However, my second-language learners with low English communication skills must be taught explicitly and directly. Group work, if not kept at a minimum, becomes chaotic and disorganized. Although I follow the "I do, we do together, you do together, you do alone" model, all becomes unraveled at the third phase if the first two are not modeled well and in several stages. In fact, often I must redirect the class back to the "I do" or "we do together" phase during any given lesson. Hence, many administrators who make whole-complex decisions and who do not fully understand second language acquisition or other learning styles in their building would be wise to read Delpit's advice.