Other People's Children Review
Other People's Children: Culture Conflict in the Classroom by Lisa Delpit is a nonfiction book based on Delpit's personal experiences with students of color and different races. The theme throughout the book is "the Culture of Power." The Culture of Power has five components in which she explains in detail with personal experiences as her examples and case studies as well as solutions to problems that arise within the five points. It is stated by Delpit that the culture of power must be explicit in the classroom and experienced as useful in the wider world. In the revised version she answers some questions that she has been asked since writing the first version.
The book is very insightful and useful for students getting into the teaching field as I am. It put school related instances into perspective and made me rethink some of my previous expectations and ideas about teaching in the school system. At times I questioned Delpit's approach when writing about white teachers but as I read through the book I see why it is so important for her not to "sugar coat" the problems within the school systems. If this book was not as straight forward as it was I do not think she would have been able to get her point across.
I agree with most of Delpit's ideas in this book. Teacher's today are not prepared for teaching students from different races, and cultures and are loosing the power to successful teach in the classrooms. The book raises the fact that in a classroom the average nonwhite students are at about 40% where the nonwhite teachers is only about 10%. This affects what the students learn in relation to their culture. How are the white teachers able to fully in capture the cultures of other races when it is not how they were raised? Delpit gives quotes from parents and students to show their frustration with teachers and what they are teaching. One parent states, "My kid knows how to be black--you all teach them to be successful in the white mans world"
Delpit tries to show the reader the problems that are arising in today's classroom with detailed examples from her own experience as well as other teachers, parents and students. This book really opened my eyes and was a great read for my introduction into the teaching program at my school. It was insightful and forced me to take a look at the issues I was unaware of in the classroom and how I can begin to think out of the box to help students that are being left behind due to their race or color. I plan on using it to help me become a better teacher and hopefully it can help others. The one thing I must say is that at first some might take offense to the way Delpit explains things, but when I put myself in the student's shoes I see why it is so important for Delpit to be blunt and upfront about these issues. If she was not I do not think that I would be considering teaching in an inner city school when I graduate. I want to make sure these students are successful and she helped me see the need for great teachers in schools with majority of minorities.
Other People's Children Overview
An updated edition of the classic revolutionary analysis of the role of race in the classroom
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Insightful but contradictory - J. Rosenblum - Philadelphia, PA USA
This book is a must-read. Many important issues are presented which I had never engaged with before, even in my teaching program, and even in a class in which the teacher urged us to read this book (but didn't make it mandatory).
To cut to the quick, though, I have a few problems with it. Delpit seems to suggest that white teachers are not direct enough with minority (esp. black) kids, and this is a source of confusion, because black parents have a much more direct style than white parents, and so black kids don't know what to do when they aren't being ordered around as at home. Perhaps this is true, but what she doesn't say is that black parents also tend to use corporal punishment to enforce their authority... should we white teachers then be allowed to hit black kids for disrespecting us or refusing to comply with our commands? Many blacks I've talked to have emphatically argued that indeed, teachers should be allowed to hit the kids. But somehow this must cross the line for Delpit.
Another thing I noticed is that on p. 120, she quotes "a black teacher who taught for 2 years and then left the profession in 1971" as saying that "Minority teachers expect kids to make their own decisions; white teachers tell kids everything to do." This is obviously contradicting what Delpit says in her entire book, yet she does not even address the contradiction after the quote.
Then on p. 173 to 174, she talks about the now-cliched idea that we need to teach disadvantaged kids MORE, not less as we have been doing. Yet we can't teach them boring, minute skills, she says. What she doesn't say is, HOW are we supposed to teach them more when they can't even get the little we are trying to teach them? Is she saying we should pay home visits for extra tutoring? Surely she can't be saying we should just give them extra work, if they can't do the work they've already got. A little elucidation would help a lot here.
Then on p. 180 she talks about how when white teachers call the parents of failing black students, the parents say "Well, he's fine at home." And then us white teachers think the parents are being defensive, when actually the truth is that we need to ask them to help us do whatever it is they do to get the kid to be have. But I think it is at least equally often the case that the black parents say, "Well, we don't know how to control him at home, either." So what then? And even if they do seem to be able to control them at home, what likelihood is there that they do so without the threat of physical abuse?
Also, I forget where it was in the book (near the end), but she says something about how we can't stereotype kids by their race in order to try to understand the instruction they need. She says every kid must be treated as an individual. Yet the whole rest of the book is just her stereotyping kids based on their culture and offering suggestions of how to teach in culturally appropriate manners. So I guess we are supposed to be flexible with our stereotyping in case it doesn't work for some individuals? Is that her message?
All in all, she made me very depressed about the prospects for multicultural education, even though she herself seems to think it is the way to go, even though minority children did, and might again do better academically in segregated classrooms. Her argument, of course, is just that we don't want to continue with a segregated world... it is too dangerous in the nuclear age.
So, I've really focused on the problems and contradictions in her book, even though the truth is I thought that it was a very important and insightful book. If anyone has any answers to these questions I lay out, I'd love to hear them.
Awesome transaction - eschpecially -
Great transaction. The book was only a penny and despite a few highlighted items, looked next to new. Shipping was easy and it was at my house in about a week. Very good seller.
Defined my teaching - Dana M. Pavuk - Nerbaska, United States
Even though the focus of this book is working with African-American children, the underlying theme that I took away from this book is the importance of understanding the culture of the children we work with on a daily basis. At one point I taught in an inner-city school with children with a variety of socio-economic and cultural experiences. At another school, I taught in a rural school, with my first class being children of farmers, and another class children of factory workers. Even though I was white, and they were white, I had to understand the farming and factory culture in order to reach my students. Relationship is primary in teaching, because if the children don't trust you, you will not be able to teach them. This book helped me to do that.
This book also helped me understand the social justice part of the teaching profession. Knowledge may be power, but education is opportunity. It's one thing to teach children because you "like" them, it's another to see yourself as doing the work of social justice.
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