Lisa Delpit
The Silenced Dialogue
In the article The Silenced Dialogue by Lisa Delpit, she starts off with stories of minorities. I think of these stories as a piece of evidence for her argument. In this essay, she criticizes U.S. public schools for ignoring the cultural backgrounds and ways of communicating of minority students, especially African American students. According to Delpit, education is not a neutral or simply academic process; it is mixed with issues of power, especially when it comes to who decides what and how to teach. Educators who ignore or play down these power relations shut down the views and needs of people who are already on the outside. In this essay, she mentions 5 aspects of power. One of them is “the culture of power”. These are the unspoken rules and norms that dominate in schools. Children from white, middle-class backgrounds often come to school already familiar with this culture, while minority and low-income children may not. The culture of power is something that usually has to be taught to low-income or minority students in school. She argues that the students who don’t already know the culture of power are at a disadvantage.
After reading about the culture of power, I can say that I definitely agree. Most teachers assume that their students already know about this culture of power. However, I myself had to learn the culture of power in school, which I did not understand. For example, the usual “Are we supposed to be doing this?”. These questions, as a young girl, would confuse me very much, especially since I knew very little English. As a future educator, I hope not to run into these Lisa Delpit moments.
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