Culture Conflict

 Other People’s Children

Cultural Conflict in the Classroom

By: Lisa Delpit

The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People’s Children

Argument Statement:

Delpit argues that there is a “culture of power” and that educators must teach students the rules and codes of the dominant culture.  She also argues that educators must encourage students to see the value in their cultures, language, style, speech, values and expectations while being educated on how to use formal English within a system where success is directly linked to entering into the “culture of power.

 

Key Points

1. The “culture of power” refers to five aspects of power.  These powers are enacted in the classroom and being told explicitly the rules of the culture in power makes acquiring power easier.  Schooling prepares people for jobs.  Therefore, a person's schooling directly impacts your future economic status, which equates to being eligible and/or not eligible to join into the “culture of power”

2.  Literacy instruction is connected to the “culture of power.”  Schools must provide all students with a curriculum that requires higher-order thinking and reasoning.  Students are judged on their product regardless of the process they used to get to the final product.  Teachers have an obligation to explicitly teach students how to produce work that meets the codes of society.   Therefore, literacy and writing instruction must contain direct instruction and opportunities to write for real audiences and for a real purpose. 

3. To effect social change, the people at the top must be pushed and agitated.  Until that happens, educators need to encourage students to understand the value of their cultural codes that they already have as well as learn the power realities that exist within our country.   

Click the link below to listen to Jamila Lyiscott.  Her articulation of what it is like to switch between her culturally accepted language practices to that of the dominant society's language practices is breathtaking.

 

Jamila Lyiscott: 3 Ways to Speak English