Blog #2 - The Silenced Dialogue - Lisa Delpit

    While reading The Silenced Dialogue by Lisa Delpit, I went into the article with an open mind. During class, my professor warned us that this story was challenging to read, and some classmates stated that this reading was not pleasant. In my experience reading The Silenced Dialogue, it was not hard to read. I can understand what Delpit is talking about and what the people she spoke to and talked about meant clearly. Delpit mostly talks about how white teachers are not considerate listeners. They just hear when a teacher of color, for example, talks about their teaching methods or styles of teaching. The article inputs an answer from a black woman in an urban elementary school who discusses that when she (or you) tries talking to white people, they want everything to be their way. After trying to give them examples about things, white people believe they know what is best for everyone without listening to outside answers and perspectives. This makes this teacher shut out their opinions and argue with them, hoping that she can remove the hate accrued towards the group.

    As I continued reading the article, I got to the section about the different premises in ethnographic analysis, which Delpit describes as "identifying and giving voice to alternative worldviews" (pages 23-24). These premises contain five different aspects of power. The issues of power are listed, and each has its own description of how they are enacted in the classroom. The last premise, number 5, was the most powerful to me while I was reading. This aspect was described as "5. Those with power are frequently least aware of -- or at least willing to acknowledge -- its existence. Those with less power are often most aware of its existence" (page 26). As a white person, I feel like I understand my privilege; I know the power I have in regards to people who are different than I am. It is not like I chose to be who I was born as, and it is okay that people of color, as in the previous paragraph, they have the right to be annoyed by me because, as the fifth premise states in its explanation, those who are less privileged are probably aware of that factor. Admitting the realization of having power over another group of people is an uncomfortable subject, but it is necessary. During class time, the topic of addressing the problem straight up has been brought up multiple times; to bring up the issue without downplaying its words is how change can indeed occur. 

    The article goes on to talk about how Martha Demientieff, a Native Alaskan teacher of Athabaskan Indian students who live in a small rural village of less than two hundred, is not aware of the different codes in English. So she teaches these students two forms of English: "Our Heritage Language" and "Formal English." Demientieff spends much time on "Heritage English," which teaches students what they know as "Village English." She makes sure her students understand that it feels great to speak their own version of English to each other. She also ensures her students know that there are people in the world who will hear how they talk and judge them. Demientieff still teaches her students to be prideful in the speech that they learned since childhood. To teach them Formal English, she does different activities for them to practice it. The class has a formal dinner, during which the class speaks only in formal English. She compares eating at a barbecue with anything, forks, spoons, and your hands feel great, to how it feels to speak Heritage English. 

    Delpit says at the end of the article that there should be appropriate education styles for poor children and children of color that can only be devised through consultations with adults who share their culture. This sounds like a segregation of cultures because one seems correct, and the other is incorrect. Students should be taught together, and students should be able to learn equally. The teacher's color shouldn't matter, but it does and will until it doesn't. The teacher's color is of great importance, especially in the place where that teacher is. I notice that there are so many white teachers, and I have only had one teacher of color in my entire school career before college. Children should be taught by experienced people from realistic backgrounds and not a life of luxury. Motivational people who hear their students out and strive for their rights to become better and take on the challenges of life with confidence.