I'd forgotten how grateful I was for Lisa Delpit.
Two years ago, during my crash-course in teaching Algebra 1 for summer school at a public high school in Philadelphia, I cracked open my copy of Other People's Children and had one of my very first significant a-ha! moments as an educator. I was grateful for the insight that Delpit provided then.
What I hadn't expected, though, was to re-read her now and realize that the seeds of at least three paradigm-shifting a-ha! moments I've experienced over the last two years actually lie within the pages we were assigned to read for class this week. The basic thrust of the chapter we read was that schools embody cultural codes of dominant social groups, and if we're serious about looking to alter the status quo of who holds power and why in this country, then we as educators need to more directly and explicitly teach the codes of power to children who grow up without them, and who will require them to access certain power structures as they exist today. Delpit gets much more concrete with her examples than Johnson, who - though lucid - lacked specificity last week. And I want to focus on the three quotations within her framework which have proved transformative for me:
Middle class parents are likely to give the directive to a child to take his bath as, "Isn't it time for your bath?" [...] By contrast, a black mother, in whose house I was recently a guest, said to her eight-year-old son, "Boy, get your rusty behind in that bathtub." Now, I happen to know that this woman loves her son as much as any mother, but she would never have posed the directive to her son to take a bath in the form of a question (p 34).
After reading this paragraph in Philadelphia, I remember feeling as though I'd been given permission to be more direct in my style as a classroom teacher. It was one step away from the guilt-driven attitude that had been leading me to feel too much pity, and act with too much niceness, towards students who deserved more respect and strictness instead. My classroom management improved noticeably. I feel ill-equipped to analyze the cultural roots of this distinction - but I know that when I tried taking Delpit's ideas and explaining how I understood them to white friends, they generally scolded me. I sensed that, in the name of political correctness, the "progressive" white folks Delpit discusses are still sometimes uninterested in identifying or discussing legitimate differences in cultural norms. I'm still learning how to have those conversations.
The student should not have been denied entry to the program. [...] However, to bring this student into the program and pass her through without attending to obvious deficits in the codes needed for her to function effectively as a teacher is equally criminal. [...] The answer is to accept students but also to take responsibility to teach them (p 38).
My favorite book is Erich Fromm's The Art of Loving; he talks about different kinds of love and how to critically examine then practice one's craft of each kind. (You'll just have to read it - along with the other books and articles I cite in this post!) And in my head for the past year, there's been a simple equation: reading Fromm + the experience of teaching = my belief that love means first accepting others as they are, and then pushing them to grow into the best versions of themselves. I hadn't realized that this line of thought had also been affected - or maybe even created wholesale - by an insertion from Delpit. After reading this passage, I certainly felt like less of an original thinker! But I also felt reaffirmed in my definition of a loving approach towards students. I do believe that most of the challenges we face in terms of behavior, motivation, dropouts, and teacher-admin turmoil boil down to failure to achieve this loving posture.
I do not believe that political change toward diversity can be effected from the bottom up, as do some of my colleagues (p 40).
This brings me to my third a-ha! moment: that I don't yet know how I feel about effecting change from the bottom up versus the top down. I was surprised that Delpit, with her profoundly bottom-up sense of how research should be conducted (via ethnography) and how knowledge should be valued (with less emphasis on quantitative data presented by white researchers to counter the experiences of individual people of color), would drop the bombshell on us that she believes in top-down change toward diversity! When Saul Alinsky talks about the core beliefs that one must have to be a community organizer, and when Jeff Duncan Andrade talks about the beliefs that most phenomenal educators share about children, they both state in no unclear terms that one must believe that it is those at on the "bottom" rungs of society, those with the least to lose, those most marginalized, who are most likely to change the world. I find that, when working with kids, showing them that you believe they can change the world turns into a beautifully self-fulfilling prophecy. But I also worry that Delpit is on to something: will their efforts, without buy-in from those in positions of power, be enough?
Thank you, Lisa.
Two years ago, during my crash-course in teaching Algebra 1 for summer school at a public high school in Philadelphia, I cracked open my copy of Other People's Children and had one of my very first significant a-ha! moments as an educator. I was grateful for the insight that Delpit provided then.
What I hadn't expected, though, was to re-read her now and realize that the seeds of at least three paradigm-shifting a-ha! moments I've experienced over the last two years actually lie within the pages we were assigned to read for class this week. The basic thrust of the chapter we read was that schools embody cultural codes of dominant social groups, and if we're serious about looking to alter the status quo of who holds power and why in this country, then we as educators need to more directly and explicitly teach the codes of power to children who grow up without them, and who will require them to access certain power structures as they exist today. Delpit gets much more concrete with her examples than Johnson, who - though lucid - lacked specificity last week. And I want to focus on the three quotations within her framework which have proved transformative for me:
Time for a bath
After reading this paragraph in Philadelphia, I remember feeling as though I'd been given permission to be more direct in my style as a classroom teacher. It was one step away from the guilt-driven attitude that had been leading me to feel too much pity, and act with too much niceness, towards students who deserved more respect and strictness instead. My classroom management improved noticeably. I feel ill-equipped to analyze the cultural roots of this distinction - but I know that when I tried taking Delpit's ideas and explaining how I understood them to white friends, they generally scolded me. I sensed that, in the name of political correctness, the "progressive" white folks Delpit discusses are still sometimes uninterested in identifying or discussing legitimate differences in cultural norms. I'm still learning how to have those conversations.
Learning from mistakes
The student should not have been denied entry to the program. [...] However, to bring this student into the program and pass her through without attending to obvious deficits in the codes needed for her to function effectively as a teacher is equally criminal. [...] The answer is to accept students but also to take responsibility to teach them (p 38).
My favorite book is Erich Fromm's The Art of Loving; he talks about different kinds of love and how to critically examine then practice one's craft of each kind. (You'll just have to read it - along with the other books and articles I cite in this post!) And in my head for the past year, there's been a simple equation: reading Fromm + the experience of teaching = my belief that love means first accepting others as they are, and then pushing them to grow into the best versions of themselves. I hadn't realized that this line of thought had also been affected - or maybe even created wholesale - by an insertion from Delpit. After reading this passage, I certainly felt like less of an original thinker! But I also felt reaffirmed in my definition of a loving approach towards students. I do believe that most of the challenges we face in terms of behavior, motivation, dropouts, and teacher-admin turmoil boil down to failure to achieve this loving posture.
Top-down (change) versus bottom-up
I do not believe that political change toward diversity can be effected from the bottom up, as do some of my colleagues (p 40).
This brings me to my third a-ha! moment: that I don't yet know how I feel about effecting change from the bottom up versus the top down. I was surprised that Delpit, with her profoundly bottom-up sense of how research should be conducted (via ethnography) and how knowledge should be valued (with less emphasis on quantitative data presented by white researchers to counter the experiences of individual people of color), would drop the bombshell on us that she believes in top-down change toward diversity! When Saul Alinsky talks about the core beliefs that one must have to be a community organizer, and when Jeff Duncan Andrade talks about the beliefs that most phenomenal educators share about children, they both state in no unclear terms that one must believe that it is those at on the "bottom" rungs of society, those with the least to lose, those most marginalized, who are most likely to change the world. I find that, when working with kids, showing them that you believe they can change the world turns into a beautifully self-fulfilling prophecy. But I also worry that Delpit is on to something: will their efforts, without buy-in from those in positions of power, be enough?
Thank you, Lisa.
Seth, I love how you brought up this statement. "I sensed that, in the name of political correctness, the "progressive" white folks Delpit discusses are still sometimes uninterested in identifying or discussing legitimate differences in cultural norms. I'm still learning how to have those conversations." I feel as though this ties in directly with Johnson and the idea of not being able to talk about it. I sometimes wonder if the uninterested in identifying or discussing legitimate differences in cultural norms is because people don't know how to properly have those conversations.
ReplyDeleteI also had a similar reaction when I read the paragraph about the black mother telling her son to take a bath. The part that I had underlined from that paragraph was "Were she to ask, "Would you like to take your bath now?" she would not have been issuing a directive but offering a true alternative. Consequently, as Heath suggests, upon entering school the child from such a family may not understand the indirect statement of the teach as a direct command. Both white and black working-class children in the communities Heath studied "had difficulty interpreting these indirect requests for adherence to an unstated set of rules."
I'm curious if you could give some examples on how you feel it improved your classroom management. I think those strategies could be useful to share.
Hi Seth,
ReplyDeleteI also was interested in Delpit's statements about the importance of directing students in the classroom rather than asking them rhetorical questions. I too find that I ask because I am trying to be polite and create a community in the classroom. After reading her argument, I am going to try to be more aware of my language choices. After all, learning may not take place if the classroom is not managed properly.
Seth,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, your Arrested Development gif was the high point of my lunch break. I often hear Gob Bluth's voice in my head moments after I make a blunder in the classroom and in life. There were several "a-ha" moments for me in reading Delpit, and she, as well as your post, have already given me insight into how to avoid the "I've made a huge mistake" moment.
I just love everything about your blog. After reading Delpit chapter I super wish to get some insight from teachers to see how similar or different teaching approaches are when comparing to coaching. Thanks again, Seth. and I super agree with your third a-ha.. I had a similar thought about it.
ReplyDelete