Other People's Children: Fighting our arrogance

Select a quote from one of the essays in Part I and discusss how it was personally meaningful to you.


"Black parents, teachers of color, and members of poor communities must be allowed to participate fully in the discussion of what kind of instruction is in their children's best interst. Good liberal intentions are not enough."

I am overflowing with good liberal intentions. But this quote is an important reminder that those intentions actually can do harm. As Lisa Delpit emphasizes, the appropriate education for poor children and children of color can only be devised in consultation with adults who share their culture. To do otherwise likely will hurt children, not help them.

It distresses me to look at our cohort and the others and to see few people of color. As the percentage of children of color grows in public schools, the need for teachers of color also grows. Yet the anecdotal evidence of our cohorts show the problem is likely growing worse.
I find that particularly upsetting in Oregon, where the achievement gap keeps widening, and the percentage of Latino students is rising rapidly.

The disparity makes Delpit's point even more critical: Whites pursuing teaching, even with the best of intentions, need to broaden their horizons and seek the wisdom and experience of others to best help children of color. We can soak up all the Vygotsky, Piaget, Montessori and Gardner, but that doesn't mean we will be good teachers if we disregard the advice of those who know our students best.

I pursued teaching to serve low-income students and students of color. But my efforts will be
futile, arrogant and even damaging if I don't carry these words with me into the classroom.

What do you feel the author wants us to think about, consider?

I feel the author is striving to force readers, particularly white privileged ones, to move outside of our comfort zones and recognize that our good intentions actually can yield bad results. She is pushing us both to consider different perspectives and to rexamine what we thought were our good liberal approaches to education. She wants us to venture beyond our comfortable theories and research to discover best teaching practices by informing our own learning with the learning and experience of others. The author herself went through a process of rethinking what she had learned in the best of education courses through her experiences with students and African-American teachers in a Philadelphia school. She then expanded on that new learning through her work in what was for her a foreign culture in Alaska. The author wants us to avoid the arrogance of believing that our experience and knowledge is the best and only path for children, but instead to be open to the views, experience and perspectives of others, particularly those who know best the children we want to teach.


Would anything from what you've currently read influence your future teaching? Discuss.

If what I am currently reading doesn't influence my future teaching, then I will fail. I am pursuing teaching to make a difference to low-income children, but I will utterly fail them if I don't also take full advantage of those who can help me teach them in the most effective way. I can easily see how I could burst from the ivy-covered walls of Lewis & Clark believing that I know what's best for students and eager to put that into practice. Of course, I will be better educated about child development theories, classroom management techniques and topical teaching methods. But to think that I alone know the best way to teach students is the height of arrogance. I need to take "Other People's Children" with me, always working to know my students, always seeking the experience and knowledge of others, particularly those whose experience is closer to those of my students. If I'm not open to learning and growing from that wisdom, then I shouldn't pursue my dream.