Other People’s Children Reflection

 Lisa Delpit , “ Other People’s Children”

    In the section, “The Silencing Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People's Children" written by Lisa Delpit it goes in depth about the complexities and challenges of education and educating students from diverse backgrounds. She emphasizes how conflict between educators and students are raised due to the impact of student’s education. She also emphasizes the need of recognition of cultural differences and how it needs to be addressed instead of overlooked and dismissed. The reading begins with two black individuals sharing their perspectives of their experience in a predominately white university. The second  perspective is a black woman who is a teacher at a multicultural urban elementary school who shares her experience about her discussion with her white fellow teacher about a better reading instruction organization strategy to serve students of color. “It’s really hard. They just don’t listen well. No, they listen, but they don’t hear … well they don’t hear me.” (Delpit 21). It’s incredibly sad and frustrating to see black individuals having to experience this kind of treatment from colleagues and just overall other individuals. She goes onto say how white folks will drive you crazy if you let them and most cases you need to draw them out and ignore them, this is an unfortunate and confusing situation. Why is it that white individuals have the most to say when it comes to people of color? Another question is why don’t they let black educators and students speak? In most cases people of color are stripped from their own voices and this situation was just another example of that. It also shows the message Delpit is trying to express, how the education system silences voices of diverse students and educators, and throughout her passage emphasizes why it’s important to empower students through education.

    Delpit also discusses the power dynamic in the classroom. She states "The reality of schooling for children from different cultural backgrounds is that the schools do not prepare them for the power structures that exist in society. The practices within schools often fail to acknowledge or support these children’s ways of knowing and being. Instead, schools frequently impose a monocultural perspective that reinforces the existing power imbalances." (Delpit 28). This quote expresses that many education practices can fail to prepare and assists students with diverse culture, it also reinforces power dynamic and neglects the experiences that many diverse students have. This can create a barrier for students and highlights the disconnection between the students with a diverse cultural background and the uniformed approach that many schools enforce. This approach fails to embrace the diverse span of student’s experiences and viewpoints. 

    Overall, the different cultural backgrounds of students should be valued in order for education to be not only helpful but also fair. Schools need to support all students, treat them equally and with the same respect they want received, these are all very important aspects teachers need to take account for in order to have these student’s succeed.