In Lisa Delpit's, The
Silenced Dialogue, she argues about
how a "culture of power" exists in school systems which causes the
"silence dialogue." Delpit states that the culture of power in many
schools is made up of the white upper and middle class students. Students in
these categories tend to do better in schools because they posses ideal views
and thoughts. Students that are from poverty or the lower class tend to not
posses these skills and sometimes begin to struggle. She also goes on to
explain how some colored and white educators tend to have different styles,
thoughts and philosophies of what is effective or not for teaching students.
While
reading Lisa's Delpit's text and her thoughts on the situation, I easily connected
it to An Indian Father's Plea by
Robert Lake. In the letter, an Indian father is writing to his son's
Kindergarten teacher about how the teacher labeled his son as a "slow
learner." When in reality his son is not, he has been heavenly educated about
not only his Indian culture but also about the world as a whole. He sits and
learns from everyone around him, for example he assists and watches many
healing ceremonies. On the 1st day of school the teacher made a big deal about
the child's name. And because of that awful first day is kept going on and on,
everyone at school made fun of him about having long girly like hair and begged
his father to cut off his hair. Students go to school to not only learn but to have
someone (a teacher) make them feel good about themselves. Just imagine going to
school on your first day and having the teacher basically make fun of you
rudely about your name or having them think that you are "slow." It's
heartbreaking because teachers should be there to support you not put you down.
Another text I connected The
Silenced Dialogue to was In The
Future, Diverse Approaches To Schooling by
Paul Hill and Mike Johnston. It made me realize that sometimes this could
be a solution to helping those students who are struggling. Maybe it would be
easier for them just to be taught via virtual school that way they don't feel
the same pain as the father and son did in An
Indian Father's Plea. Sometimes if students go through the same thing as
Wind-Wolf, they will forever hate the idea of school. They will be those kids
who never want to go because they are traumatize but as a parent you don't want
your kid to fall behind so being able to just open up a laptop and have them go
to school online would be a big help.
I enjoyed reading this. I like the connections you made with both pieces really great. I also like how you said "just imagine going to school on your first day......" because a lot of people wouldn't look at it like that. People are cruel without even realizing they are effecting a person.
ReplyDeleteYour connection between "Silenced Dialogue" and "An Indian Father's Plea" was a perfect example of what Delpit was talking about in her piece. Due to the "culture of power" that the teacher felt over Wind-Wolf she was able to make him feel inferior about his way of learning, beliefs, and culture. I really believe what you said about how teachers can affect one child's entire educational experience. A lot of times it is happening everyday and they don't even realize it.
ReplyDeleteThe way you connected Silenced Dialogue with two other texts was great. Also, the scenario you made up about being bullied by a teacher, really made me think about how I would feel and how disrespectful the teacher was who did that. The link to the blog about the lady from CNN and her time as a student teacher was very interesting too!!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading this blog. However, i don't think a child should go through the method of virtual schooling because of others ignorance. It is up to the education system to incorporate other students culture and to make appropriate lesson plans for their backgrounds.
ReplyDelete