First post: "Other People's Children"

I was admitted to Teach For America last week and have been assigned to teach between kindergarten and eight grade (to be determined) in the Chicago area. In preparation for this exciting new challenge, I have begun focusing my reading and -- to some extent -- my thinking on teaching, and particularly teaching in low-income urban communities.

Happily, this endeavor also allows me to get to a book that was recommended by a good friend not too long ago, as well. "Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom" by Lisa Delpit (1995) explores many controversial issues encountered by teachers in today's increasingly diverse public school classrooms.

I have so far read the first "Part" which itself is divided into three essays.

1. "Skills and Other Dilemmas of a Progressive Black Educator" was originally a letter to a colleague early in Delpit's career. In the letter, she explains her conundrum relating to "the process approach to writing," pitting progressive "white" educators against traditional "black" ones (who favor a more skills-based approach for their black students). Delpit shares her shock at discovering that other black teachers consider the process approach to be racist and to be keeping black children in their place by ensuring that they not learn the critical skills necessary to succeed in the white-dominated society. Delpit talks about her evolution towards the skills-based approach and ultimately suggests that a conversation take place between the two competing philosophies so that they may include elements of each, as both are important. Another major point she makes in this first essay is that any plan for teaching minority students should and must include input from minority educators and families.

2. In "The Silenced Dialogue" Delpit explores the "cultures of power" as they are played out in the classroom and is an extension and an answer to her earlier essay. She discusses how teachers -- particularly white teachers -- are in a position of power over their students and that this is often ignored or avoided, with catastrophic consequences for their students. Delpit explains that students who do not come from the same culture as the one in power require more explicit instruction in the rules of that culture so that they can have access to power, as well. This is understandably uncomfortable for the progressive white teachers, but Delpit asserts that these individuals do their students the greatest disservice by refusing to acknowledge that they are in a position of power and, thus, failing to provide their students with the necessary tools. Delpit stops short of advocating for a simple skills-based, authoritarian classroom model, however, and instead suggests the need to explain the larger "game" to the students and equipping them with the tools that will help them to succeed while also honoring their own culture.

3. "Language Diversity in Learning" reiterates many of the points made in the previous two essays and focuses primarily on the teaching of language and how best to teach Standard English (a hallmark of the culture of power) to those for whom it is not a "first language." Delpit emphasizes the need to honor the importance of a child's native language/dialect, as it connects them to family and community, and she discusses a number of strategies for helping students understand the value of Standard English and the possibilities it opens for them.

Much of these essays directly challenges me (in a way), as I feel I fit very comfortably (or not so comfortably, in this case) in the box that Delpit has so aptly labeled "progressive young white teachers." I can very easily see myself falling into the trap of not recognizing my position in the culture of power and the effect that might have on my pupils.

I also read an Atlantic Monthly article today (recommended by a fellow incoming TFA corps member) called "What Makes a Great Teacher?" which discusses TFA's own search for the answer to that very question. Steven Farr, who leads the charge in researching the topic for TFA, has a book coming out in a few days called "Teaching As Leadership" which discusses in greater detail what he has found over the years, but the following passages I thought were particularly interesting:

"First, great teachers tended to set big goals for their students. They were also perpetually looking for ways to improve their effectiveness. For example, when Farr called up teachers who were making remarkable gains and asked to visit their classrooms, he noticed he’d get a similar response from all of them: “They’d say, ‘You’re welcome to come, but I have to warn you—I am in the middle of just blowing up my classroom structure and changing my reading workshop because I think it’s not working as well as it could.’ When you hear that over and over, and you don’t hear that from other teachers, you start to form a hypothesis.” Great teachers, he concluded, constantly reevaluate what they are doing.

"Superstar teachers had four other tendencies in common: they avidly recruited students and their families into the process; they maintained focus, ensuring that everything they did contributed to student learning; they planned exhaustively and purposefully—for the next day or the year ahead—by working backward from the desired outcome; and they worked relentlessly, refusing to surrender to the combined menaces of poverty, bureaucracy, and budgetary shortfalls."