Week 3 Readings

While there were three readings that we had for this week, I would like to take time to comment specifically on two of them. "The Silenced Dialogue" (Delpit) and "Teaching All the Children" (Fleming, et al) They both speak on the subject of race. One is inflammatory to the point of being almost reverse racism (Dialogue) and the other actually has laid-out goals and structures and ideas of how to bridge the gap between schools with inadequate access to not only good teachers, but teacher retention and teachers who can understand that the social lives of the students can greatly affect their learning even at the most basic level (Fleming). I will start with the latter.

Teaching all the Children – Fleming

Most of what this article talks about is how urban school districts are suffering not only from a lack of teachers in general but also a lack of decent teachers who can teach fundamentals of literacy in various ways that affect the students most immediately.

“Most of the greatest challenges to teaching in city schools noted by practicing teachers had less to do with the adequacy of their preparation for teaching reading and writing than with understanding and adapting to the urban contexts in which they were working and recognizing the impact of the urban context on teaching and learning in the classroom.” Pg. 5

The article also calls for really understanding the students who are taking up the seats in your classroom and understanding how issues like socio-economics and race play a very important part in the everyday classroom. Students coming from these situations have very real and very immediate issues that they face on top of the pressures of simply just coming to school.

The Silenced Dialogue – Delpit

The silenced dialogue refers to the idea that people can talk and talk and talk and that white people just don’t seem to listen. Or, they listen, but as one quote the author uses, they don’t “hear”. White people like to cite education and references and academia and never give a thought to the overwhelming power of experience. It’s kind of like the idea of having two different kinds of smarts: street smarts and book smarts. Rarely do they exist together on equal levels in one person, rarely do they make sense for two people talking from the two different backgrounds when they are trying to have a conversation.

“My charge here is not to determine the best instructional methodology; I believe that the actual practice of good teachers of all colors typically incorporates a range of pedagogical orientations. Rather, I suggest that the different perspectives on the debate over ‘skills’ versus ‘process’ approaches can lead to an understanding of the alienation and miscommunication, and thereby an understanding to the ‘silenced dialogue.’ Pg. 3

I could drill holes in this article all day long – counter-arguing almost everything the writer says. But, then, I would just be a white guy listening but not really “hearing” what she has to say. I’m just so narrow-minded and prejudice that I’ll just never understand. I wouldn't be truly understanding what she has to say and in my position of power as not only white but also male (the most evil form of human being on the planet, no doubt) I wouldn't even recognize that I HAVE the power (I'm too blinded by my own lofty ambitions as a middle-class liberal) and that I use it without even really knowing that I do. But, then again, did I really read the article and understand what the author was saying? Or, like most white people, did I just shake my head, nod and pretend to listen and only hear what it was that I truly wanted to.

The entire 18 pages of the article reference certain middle-class ideologies/statements that the author tries to debunk from a realist perspective, maintaining, essentially, that people of all color who hold the shared ideas live in a fairy land of self-delusion and that the actual reality counterbalances and juxtaposes these delusions at sharp angles. Delpit's "Kumbaya"-like call to arms at the end of the article is a flagrant disregard and an ostensible contradiction to what she has been trying to argue the entire article. To initiate understanding and listening the people with the power need to take the first step. We need to understand each other and: "To do so takes a very special kind of listening, listening that requires not only open eyes and ears, but open hearts and minds..." (cliche) "...We do not really see through our eyes or hear through our ears, but through our beliefs." (pg. 18) How warm and fuzzy. Rarely have I hated an article more so than I did this one.