Assignment 3- The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People’s Children

  I sat in a daze at my desk while reading the third article pointing out that my Whiteness has advantages. On page 21 Delpit shares “When you’re talking to white people they still want it to be their way. You can try to talk to them and give them examples, but they’re so headstrong, they think know what’s best for everybody, for everybody children.  They won’t listen; white folks are going to do what they want to do anyway.”  I feel she is just blaming us white people for everything. I know in our school we have a diverse population and I feel the majority of children do not feel left out. They seem to just blend in our environment. I never heard the student say they do not fit in.

On page 39 “I believe in a diversity of style, and I believe the world will be diminished if cultural diversity is ever obliterated.  Further, I believe strongly, as do my liberal colleagues, that cultural group should have the right to maintain its own language style.  When I speak, therefore, of the culture of power, I don’t speak of how I wish things to be but how they are.”  When I reflect on these words I think of a place I work where cultural diversity was prevalent. My co-workers who were not white would cling to their native heritage. They would speak their own language even when something was not of their culture. I even noticed they would cook the food they ate at home even if the odor was offense.

On page 47 “ Teachers are in an ideal position to play this role, to attempt to get all of the issues on the table in order to initiate true dialogue.  This can only be done, however, by seeking out those whose perspectives may differ most, by learning to give their words complete attention, by understanding one’s own power, even if that power seems merely from being in the majority, by being unafraid to raise questions about discrimination and voiceless with people of color, and   to listen, no to hear what they say.” I feel that teachers can help bridge that gap to people of a different race.  But sometimes the people of color always want to blame the white people. If everyone can just accept folks for who they are and thy not to discriminate it would be a better world.