The Silenced Dialogue

 

Lisa Delpit argues in “The Silenced Dialogue” that teachers and educators have to acknowledge and talk about the different power dynamics that are in the classroom. In order to do this, teachers have to teach those who, in her estimation, do not have power, certain “codes” of those who do have power, while also respecting and accepting their own cultural differences and identities. 

Early on Delpit names, “I believe that the actual practice of good teachers of all colors typically incorporates a range of pedagogical orientations”. There is no one best way to teach. If teachers are “headstrong” as Delpit points out early in the text, they could be leaving students behind, and not doing what is best for all, or even most of the students in their room. Delpit discusses the difference clearly when analyzing two types of reading programs. One program provided an opportunity for those who already knew the content to exhibit that they knew it, or at most build one new concept onto what was already known” (30). If a student doing this program did not have the background information or previous knowledge, they would be set up for a lack of success. The other program was slower, but the difference is that it “‘taught’ new information to children who had not already acquired it at home”(30). This is all about balance. The first program was set up for students who are “in power”, not for all students. 

Ken Williams, in his book “Ruthless Equity”, often touches on this idea that students of low income backgrounds and students of color need to be treated like their white and more affluent peers. Teachers and educators can not assume and act like their students are not capable of higher level critical thinking and reasoning. Delpit builds from this idea too: “this does not mean separating children according to family background, but instead, ensuring that each classroom incorporates strategies appropriate for all the children in its confines”. How realistic is that idea? Is it truly possible to find a way to reach all 30 students in a classroom who have different experiences and make them all feel like they are learning in the best way that suits them? Would this be done through scaffolding or staff professional development? Who would help teachers ensure this is happening? 

Tying to this idea of power dynamics in the classroom, everyone needs to learn from everyone. People have different experiences and ideas. It should not matter if you are the teacher- there is always more you can learn, especially from your students. Delpit talks about the students she has talked to and one said the teacher took a “process approach, but what she really did was hide behind fancy words to give herself permission to do nothing in the classroom” (32). Teachers do not want to give up power or control in the classroom. “Somehow to exhibit one’s personal power as an expert source is viewed as disempowering one’s students” (32). What is the point of being an educator? If you are not willing to grow and improve yourself and how you teach and view different ideas in the classroom, you are not only doing a disservice to yourself, but overall to your students. “The teacher cannot be the only expert in the classroom”. Everyone has worthy ideas and everyone in the space is worthy of sharing them. 

I see this struggle at school. “The Silenced Dialogue” touches on the concepts of authority and who has control in the room. The idea is that “an authoritative person gets to be a teacher because she is authoritative”. To students of color, they earned that through their own efforts and personal traits. The flip side of that is some people “expect one to achieve authority by the acquisition of an authoritarian role. That is, the teacher is the authority because she is the teacher” (35). There is one teacher I work with who constantly has power struggles and behavioral issues with her students. She does not manage the class, and students do not respect her. She tries to leverage the idea of respecting your elders, or respecting adults- and she often tells them “they have to do XYZ, or how they treat her is unacceptable”. In conversations she always blames them and their families for their upbringing. 

My coworker refuses to see that she is equally part of the problem. Her own biases cloud what could be her students' reality, and she is stuck in her “power”. This teacher was one example but when thinking about my school as a whole, there are multiple rooms where students take over the class, and teachers are unable to teach because of the behaviors. In those rooms, there is a general idea that classroom management might not be that teacher’s strong suit. This leads me to question: how much is the behavior in the room impacted by a lack of respect and understanding of different viewpoints and cultures? Of upbringing? Could it really be just classroom management as a skill? Or, could teachers see their classroom management improve if they saw themselves in their students' shoes more often?

Delpit mentions “Children have the right to their own language, their own culture…it is not they, the children, who must change, but the schools. To push children to anything else is repressive and reactionary”. This is where the main argument from this article comes into play. Students of color are not set up for success in education where curriculum and materials are built for and by people who are white. Students have different identities, and the “white” way is not necessarily the right way. The students in Alaska learned their native ways along with the “Formal English” ways of speaking. Their teachers allowed them to hold onto who they were and how they talk, but also taught them the reality that not everyone thinks that is acceptable. That teacher worked to help her students survive and succeed in any setting- specifically the America we see today, where people who are white hold the power and make the rules. 

Delpit talks about a Native American woman who submitted a paper whose ideas were lost because of structural issues in sentences and paragraphs. She names “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” (38). You have to accept students, and teach them. Recently in the news, there was an article that came out about a high school graduate who is suing the Hartford Board of Education and the city of Hartford for negligence. She graduated, but says she is completely illiterate. She says she can’t read or write. This girl was never encouraged to do the work other students were, and she was continuously pushed along. Her mom did not speak English well but tried to advocate on numerous occasions. The girl named she would use text to speech apps to do some of her work. The schools were aware of what was happening but they did not help her. Doctor Jesse Turner is the leader of the literacy center at Central Connecticut State University. He named the main issue as inequality in public education. Students are not taught the “codes” and “ways” to properly succeed in schools with mindsets and materials designed for white upper-class individuals.

When we are in class and we look at case studies part of the protocol is to look at our own identities and how certain things make us feel. We do that because it is hard and uncomfortable. We do that because we need to talk about challenging topics to help us learn and think about other people and other perspectives outside of our own. You have to have the hard talks if you want to see change. “We must keep the perspective that people are experts in their own lives” (47).