Other People's Children, Part 1

"While you are with us, you belong not to us, For your souls dwell in a place of tomorrow which we cannot visit, not even in our dreams." Lisa Delpit adaptation from Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet.
The original quote is also a part of my baby's baby book. I read it many years ago, and it has been a goal of mine to uphold this truth for my child(ren) and other people's children. In my classroom experience, I know I have been an agent of change and a distinctly different voice in the education field. This book gave me a better language to discuss these differences with colleagues. I have often felt dismissed in meetings when I try to bring my own experience and understanding of children in poverty to the table. I have been influenced greatly by Ruby Payne's book: Teaching Children in Poverty. While that book was insightful on how to teach poor children white culture, Delpit's book celebrates the differences and gives insight on how to move between two cultures to teach children how to learn! No matter how poor I was there is still a stigmatism for getting 'help', (it is so nice to put feelings into words), it feels like a hand out, like Horace Mann's agenda for the business folk's to 'be the stewards of wealth.' I don't want a hand out, I want to learn and that takes just as many resources for rich kids as it does for poor! Not more or mere testing!
Delpit puts it quite succinctly, she wants to be an agent of change for education and her voice is loud and clear in this book. I love her honesty (It really annoys me when professionals use some sterilized fact alone to prove their point without getting 'personal'). She says so much with both poise and insight while never wavering from her goal. She kept my attention! I have found that students do need some rote memorization of material and have seen a huge wave move away from this.

Tony Burgess' quote on page 44 brought that home for me; "he suggests that we should not teach 'iron conventions... imposed without rationale or grounding in communicative intent,' but 'critical and ultimately cultural awareness.'" I think she wants teachers to really think and analyze their institutionalized racism. I know I am an agent of change, but to really question the institutions is taking a risk, a risk I have taken, but now I feel like I have a language with which to take back to the meeting room. Thank you Lisa Delpit! (and Zalika for assigning the book).

Yes, everything I have read will influence my teaching. What I felt I learned later in life than most (because I went to public schools and came from poverty) is that I (we) am learning every moment of every day, if I am open to it, and that it takes time to appropriate that knowledge or skills, and it is necessary to take time to reflect and allow these ideas to take hold. I feel like I can start stepping out of the good intentions arena (aren't most new teachers full of them?) and into the 'mind field' with students from all walks of life, if I am honest with myself and others about my own limitations and strengths.
I can't wait to read the rest of it!