The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People’s Children

 The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People’s Children 

Author: Lisa Delpit

Reflection: The “culture of power” was a main focus that Delpit explored in this piece. When I read that there are codes and rules regarding culture of power it made me think of the SCWAAMP dominant ideologies. Delpit was referring to the power more linguistically, but the concept of power advantages are still related. Later, in the article she shifted to how some liberals will believe that they are helping people of other cultures they have power over, when in reality they are deemphasing power and indirectly communicating. Although the perpetrator with more power is trying to help in actuality they lessen their explicitness by asking questions and details. According to the article it states, “Some have added that liberal educators believe themselves to be operating with good intentions, but these good intentions are only conscious delusions about their unconscious true motives.” Basically, she argues that schools push every child to be successful in the white world. Further into the article, she says that black teachers have a more structured and powerful approach while white teachers do not. Meaning, that a black student will have a harder time due their cultural experiences instead of a white middle or high class student. That really resonated with me because it made me question and then agree that people of different cultures respond to teacher authorities differently. The example that she provided was that middle and high class white students would respond better to rhetorical discipline like “excuse are we supposed to blurt an answer?” The child growing up may learn that the question means discipline and since she is the teacher THAT means she is the boss. However, in a black home the child may be raised differently where the teacher must EARN his/her right to authority. 

Chatgpt generated prompt: [insert my text] can you generate the differences between black and white students responding to the different discipline styles I discussed?

Honestly, I loved how psychology was brought into the mix. We learned about obedient experiments in my class in high school and it is very interesting to me. She was almost implying that “meanness” is important for pushing students to do their absolute best and learn, however I am still not sure how I feel about that right now. I would never want to be the mean teacher, I want to show my true silly personality while also being firm enough that there is order in the classroom. Another point that she makes is that an individual's language and cultural style can be unique, but they must also learn formal English in order to get involved. She refers to this as playing the “power game.” I am a realist myself and unfortunately it can be tricky to learn about only other languages and cultures to be successful in America. However, he still emphasizes the importance of learning and embracing the linguistics of other cultures and believes they can practice in the context of certain audiences. 

Comments for class: 

When the author met up with the Native American girl about her paper, what she said resonated with me deeply. Even though she was not perfect, she still BELIEVED in her she could be a successful teacher, where others did not. Also word for word it says, “I stressed the need to use her own learning process as an insight into how to best teach her future students those “skills” her own schooling has failed to teach her.” I think that when a teacher has struggled as a student learning from their mistakes, they can be more passionate and better explain the concept or topic. In school I did struggle in difficult mathematics courses, but once I started tutoring I realized how much better I was at explaining since it never came naturally to me.

The Academic and Social Value of Ethnic Studies

 The Academic and Social Value of Ethnic Studies 

By: Christine E. Sleeter 

Argument: This author Sleeter argues that ethnic studies should be in the curriculum for schools. Various races are misrepresented in the school curriculum or generally in society (black history often reduced for slavery, Latinos depicted as labor, etc.) These are all important to learn about, but there is more to the culture than those grueling events. With many interviews he found that most white students believe everyone is equal where blacks do not.  They may assume racism does not happen anymore because it is not as extreme as the school ONLY teaches it to be.  Right now racism is an oppression led by ignorance or lack of education. He provides evidence from studies that suggest when students, specifically non-white, learn about different cultures including their own they are more likely to be engaged in school. He points out when white bias remains in the system, students have to rely on other sources to learn about the history of their ethnicity. He provided a study where a black students find school more engaging when immersed in ethnic studies. Likely because they can connect their traditions, heritage, and beliefs to what they are learning about. 

Reflection: Being able to connect the experiences in your life to what you are learning in school can make learning more engaging, exciting, and memorable. Senior year, I took a psychology course and that was the first time I felt I could apply what I learned to real life. Milgram's experiment, demonstrating humans' desire to obey authority, was one I will never forget because of the experiences it reminds me of in my own life. 

From a teacher's perspective I think it would be useful to take a topic applicable to real life experiences. It can make the class more fun and engaging. In seventh grade, my teacher sang (xyxy1122), having a spin on the cheer song “extra extra read all about it.” A few years later not I did not remember how to find the slope between two points and then that song popped into my head. Overall, I think students benefit from engaging learning when it pertains to real life experiences.

Shifting the Paradigm: blog post #4

 

Shifting the Paradigm 

By: Renkly & Bertolini 

Reflection: After deciding I want to be a teacher last year, classroom management has been

circling in my mind.

Behavior issues in school can determine whether a teacher stays or quits his or her profession.

This piece made me

shift my mindset to worry less about shutting down risks for behaviors and more about focusing

on what a student

does well. I loved the message, however I have one concern. A question I would like to pose:

what strategies allow

teachers to stay alert about behavior while also focusing on student strengths? Moving forward, there were some key points in this piece that inspired me.

In my word, for teachers to find what “asset” or skill they have and use it to the best of their

ability for the school

and community. This point was strong for me and my mind took it to the next level.

If students identify what assets

they possess like support, adult-teacher relationships, positive values, positive identity;

I believe that they can be

a role model and positively shape their peers' attitudes.  For example, let's say a student is

proficient in the asset of support, we

will call him Pete. If Pete is working with Sarah, a student who is about to start sobbing

on a problem; he can say take a deep

breath Sarah, read the problem over again and I can help you through it. For me, this is strong because instead of developing clones we are developing leaders as students.

Also, student-student relationships would be strengthened and overall I think students will gain

more leadership skills. It would take a lot to reform the schools to have these assets integrated into

public schools,

but I feel like it would be worth trying. As a future teacher, I will be interesting in exploring different

techniques to

finding the balance between behavioral management and seeing the good in my students 

Chatgpt entry: “How could I make my question from Shifting the Paradigm better?: 

‘What strategies allow teachers

to stay alert about behavior while also focusing on student strengths?’” 

Comments for class: Another important point in this piece that stuck out to me

was the impact a teacher can have for a middle schooler.

In Erikson's eight stages of psychosocial development there is a stage during adolescence named Identity V.S. Role confusion.

In other words, as stated in the article, adults' perceptions of a teenager can play a huge role

in what path they take. For an educational perspective, the teacher can shape how the

adolescent sees themselves for the rest of their academic journey. Meaning, if a

teacher treats a student poorly, they have a higher chance of seeing themselves that way

and rebelling by putting less effort in. Hence, I feel it is my job as a future middle school

teacher to never give up on a student and give praise to them when they perform well. The

quote at the end about loving students really resonated through me for always being empathetic

and caring about all of my future learners. 

What “Counts” as Educational Policy? Notes toward a New Paradigm

 What “Counts” as Educational Policy? Notes toward a New Paradigm 

By: Jean Anyon 

Argument: The author argues that low income levels can contribute to less success academically and primarily sets students up barriers in life. Firstly, mentioning urban schools have less resources and worse conditions compared to suburban schools. Through studies,  he explains a cycle of disadvantage commonly occurring in low income students, predominantly Latinos or African Americans. Various factors like poverty level wages and not enough income for college can leave them in the hole. He stresses that rules and regulations need to be put in place to increase minimum wage pay and housing segregation.  Furthermore, providing new research that families with financial assistance had a higher rate of their child carrying out college education as opposed to families without modest income.  

Demonstrates generation failure from schools 

Breaking the cycle of poverty

Chatgpt generated this image in with the two prompts “with my argument [inserted what I wrote] can you generate an image for me generations low poverty effecting what Anyon advocates for” and then “can you make it more like a cycle and less writing more education based” 

Reflection: Overall, this piece resonated with me deeply. Being a student, I have seen the behaviors and stress some of my peers like he was referring to. Having extreme pressure for me to have excellent grades made me vigilant in the classroom. On top of it, as an introspective thinker, I paid attention to injustices in my school. Also, I attended a high school with various income levels and ethnicities. At times, I could see underprivileged male students were predominantly ones to misbehave and act out in class. I truly believe that they act out because they are frustrated in their life circumstances, the cycle of disadvantage I described. In my heart, I believe they act out subconsciously to resist the system and unfair barriers in education it takes loads to overcome. Not to mention, lower income students have stress coming from home. In my own classes, I see teachers choose to remain ignorant to their struggles and their expectants shrink when they see the homework is not done, or they perform poorly on. Instead of urban based teachers giving up on their students, my take on this is that they should step up and advocate for their education. This reading reminded me of a research paper I wrote for my write 106 class, when I was in a different major. Which is such a truly full circle moment for me. And it shows me following my calling, ready to save lives.

Comments: The evidence pushing towards higher minimum wage pay was not strong in this piece. Using words like “not significantly” or a little higher did not convince me that increasing the minimum wage would not harm businesses or increase inflation. His idea was something I believed too and then after research for a project, I came to the conclusion it might not be feasible. However, the families that need it can qualify for higher minimum pay without discrimination in the hiring process. That way, young adults who come from a stable family do not wreck the economy.