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//Other People's Children//, by Lisa Delpit


 * Summary:**
 * Part 1: __Other People’s Children__ is a compiling of different essays and responses to experiences that the author Lisa Delpit has encountered during her life as a black educator. She first discusses the idea of an open classroom which is seen by progressives as innovative in allowing children to experience learning in hands on environment. A main concern however is the fact that white children seem to respond positively and quickly to the environment however black children were not able to learn in such an open environment. Delpit continues to discuss the controversy over which way to run a classroom is more effective for all cultures; the writing process approach which focused on fluency or a skills based method which was based around the fundamentals of formal English. Also discussed in Part 1 of __Other People’s Children,__ are the main controversies surrounding language diversity and literacy. Many children of different cultural back grounds are raised in the home with a different dialect spoken then that of Standard English. Delpit worked hard during her career as a black educator studying the way in which majority of teachers, handled dialect differences in literacy development. It is made clear that most white teachers cannot effectively handle children with different language dialects and they are therefore diagnosed as slow to learn or behavior challenged due to the fact that teachers can’t appropriately handle teaching reading when a child doesn’t make the correct formal English pronunciations.**


 * In Part 2 of the book, Lisa Delpit begins with an introduction titled, “Lessons from Home and Abroad: Other Cultures and Communities.” In this introduction she explains how teaching in Papua New Guinea and Alaska really helped to open her eyes to other cultures. Being an African-American woman, she had already had some experience of being “the other” in society, but these teaching experiences took her understanding to a new level.**


 * The next section of Part 2 is titled “The Vilis Tokples Schools of Papua New Guinea.” In this section, Delpit emphasizes the extreme diversity of Papua New Guinea. Not only is the population geographically differentiated (Melanesian with Polynesian ancestry, Trobriand Islanders, High-Islanders, Bougainvillians, etc.) but there are over 700 indigenous languages spoken. However, since they were previously an Australian colony, English is their official language. Delpit explains how the people of Papua New Guinea have been interested in literacy for quite some time. Becoming literate has not been the easiest mission, however, since teachers in Papua New Guinea were forced to teach in English, bringing about many problems. Like in //The One// //Best System//, the biggest problems stemmed from “disruption to social relations between young and old rural communities” (p.81). To solve these problems the Vilis Tokples Pri-Skul scheme was developed and was quite successful. In this system children learn both their own native languages and customs //and// English. It has been so successful because it allows children to succeed in both the world of their village and the outside world.**


 * The 3rd section of Part 2 is “ ‘Hello, Grandfather’: Lessons From Alaska.” Delpit begins by reiterating a lesson she herself learned not too long ago; people are not the center of the world, but only one small part of the overall picture. The rest of the section discusses literacy problems in Alaska, which can be compared to literacy problems in inner city communities in the rest of the USA. Interestingly, Delpit points out how literacy can be used to harm as well as help people: “Governements may want more people literate so that they can be held accountable for upholding laws—whether or not those laws are in the best interest of a particular community” (p.94). The rest of the section mainly points out the differences between white children and black and Native Alaskan children. According to Delpit, the former are more object oriented while the latter are more people oriented. These differences imply that the two groups learn in different ways.**


 * The final section in Part 2 is called “Teacher’s Voices: Rethinking Teacher Education for Diversity.” This section is composed largely of quotes Delpit gathered when interviewing black and Native Alaskan teachers. The two groups discuss the problems in the education system, and the bad experiences they have been put through as teachers or in acquiring their teaching certificates.**


 * In the latter half of Delpit's book, she entitles a section "Cross-cultural Confusions in Teacher Assesment." In this particular section she proceeds to discuss how the biases of standard assessments of multi-cultured societies limit the affluence of minorities. She feels that the way assessments are handles is the key to opening up the field of teaching to a broader spectra of people.**


 * She feels that there are many pros and cons to being culturally empathetic when assessing an applicant who is perusing a career in the field of teaching. She states that when tests are made to be more 'culturally sensative' that if one group still does badly, even with the alterations, that stereo typing and biases may strengthen. So even if the people who are doing the assessment are aware of the cultural standards and processes one may go through to teach a class, and they still feel a large majority are unfit to teach, then it could cause more rifts in education.**


 * She says that the reason one would need 'culturally sensitive' tests and assessors would be that the differences in culture could lead to miscommunication and even instances of offense. She states that these assessments should cater to gender, race, class lines, and unequal power which would provide a level playing field for all. Some groups that are currently looking to stratify the way we asses teachers are: The Holmes Group, Teacher Assessment Project (TAP), and the Educational Testing Service.**


 * Later Delpit delves into the concept of being 'knowledgeable.' She states that even though a teacher may understand the subject matter in depth, their understanding alone is insufficient if they are unable to relay the information, in an effective manner, to the pupils. She also makes a point to discuss the misconceptions of the difference between the practices on uses to teach versus how they talk about their teaching practices.**


 * Delpit says that even though one may have excellent practices when teaching a class, that it is meaningless if one is unable to talk about ones practices during assessment. She feels that the ability to answer the assessor's questions does not necessarily equate to strong teaching abilities and vise versa.**


 * She breifly touches on the concept of the teacher student relationship and how in different cultures and in minority groups this relationship could be crucial for learning. In most western societies though, a close teacher student relationship could get in the way of obedience and adherence to basic protocol.**


 * She basically says that each culture is different and that we should make a special assessment to cater to each individual group so that we get an array of different types of people in the teaching field. She does not want assessment to get in the way of culturally different people becoming teachers. She also says that even though you have some racist and sexist assessors in the field that if a majority are educated and knowledgeable about cultural differences it could level the playing field a bit.**


 * The next section is about "The Politics of Teaching Literate Discourse" where she proceeds to state that 'Literate" is blown out of proportion. She feels that literacy deviates from having the ability to just "reading and writing" and lapses into the ability to understand one's cultural social-circles. She states that even though one may be born into a certain social setting, that even though their discourse is predetermined, that they are fully able to change their discourse. There is always the opportunity to change ones social status if fully desired.**


 * She states later that one should not be limited by their culture or their language, especially when it comes to their education. She feels that to ignore language or cultural barriers is to keep a minority group in a lower social position.**


 * The last snippet of the book is entitled "Education in a Multicultural Society." Delpit discusses how the atmosphere and culture of the school has to meld with the cultural area the school is in. For example, if you have an inner city school with a large black population, and you have all white teachers which fear black children, then there will be quite a lot of anxiety in the classroom. Teachers need to be able to adjust to each child's needs.**


 * Delpit also feels that stereo types keep children from reaching their full potential. Believing that Asians are inherently smart, and Native American children are always introverted can lead to hindrances in growth. She feels that each group should be treated as though they all have the same potential to succeed.**

I. “To provide schooling for everyone’s children that reflects liberal, middle-class values and aspirations is to ensure the maintenance of the status quo, to ensure that power, the culture of power, remains in the hands of those who already have it” (Delpit 28)
 * Key Passages:**

II. “One young man said that he had dropped out of high school because he failed the exit exam” (Delpit 32)

III. “It’s really a shame that she (that black teacher upstairs) seems to be so authoritarian, so focused on skills and so teacher directed. Those poor kids never seem to be allowed to really express their creativity. (33)

IV. (in reference to combining skills/process teaching method)… “To do so takes a very special kind of listening, listening that requires nor only open eyes and ears, but open hearts and minds. We do not really see through our eyes or hear through our ears, but through our beliefs. To put our beliefs on hold is to cease to exist as ourselves for a moment and that is not easy.”

V. “In responding to the retelling of a black child’s story, the white adults were uniformly negative, making such comments as ‘terrible story, incohorent’…The black adults had very different reactions. They fund this child’s story “well formed, easy to understanding and interesting, with lots of detail and description.”


 * “Instead of Australian and American teachers, local Papua New Guinea teachers were forced to instruct in English, a language they barely spoke and their students understood not at all. Furthermore, most of the country’s children were being educated in village settings where they were unlikely ever to hear English spoken outside of the school classroom” (p. 81).**


 * “[…] What they wanted for their children was an education that prepared them to live within two cultural worlds—one that would be appropriate for those children who would stay in the village, for those who would go away and soon return, and for those who would spend most of their lives in towns and cities” (p.87).**


 * “Interviews with English-medium Grade One teachers revealed that the Vilis Tokples Pri-Skul children were learning English more quickly than children in past years who had not attended Vilis Tokples Pri-Skul” (p.88).**


 * “At the white university, people tended only to listen to what you //said//: you could feel quite confident that no one would be the wiser if you expressed an entirely different message through facial expression, body language, or intonation. At the historically black university, however, I had to relearn quickly how to behave exactly as I had in my home community. People //watched// what was said as much as they listened to what was said” (p.98).**


 * “How many times do we insist that children talk through some problem they have already solved? We think we are ‘checking for understanding,’ but could we merely be helping children to learn to ignore context?” (p.99).**


 * “Despite the rhetoric of American education, it does not teach children to be independent, but rather to be dependent on external sources for direction, for truth, for meaning. It trains children both to seek meaning solely from the text and to seek truth outside of their own good sense—concepts that are foreign and dangerous to Alaskan village communities” (p.101-102).**


 * “The successful teachers of Native Alaskan children found ways to contextualize the literate endeavors and to celebrate, rather than to limit, the sense of connectedness which the children brought to school” (p.104).**


 * “Because these students’ experiences have not, in general, been so codified, they typically have no written text available upon which to call. Furthermore, they are often members of cultural groups for which narrative is the preferred means of information transfer. Thus, students find themselves feeling, as one African-American said, that the university professors and students, ‘only want to go by research they’ve read that other white people have written,’ and that ‘if you can’t quote Vygotsky….then you don’t have any validity to speak about your //own// kids’” (p.109).**


 * “[…] Native interviewees particularly complained that some of their instructors exhibited what Mehrabian has labeled ‘low immediacy’ behaviors when interacting with them: ‘colder’ voice tone, less eye contact, and distanced body orientation” (p.114).**


 * "One of the most difficult task we face as human beings is trying to communicate across our individual differences, trying to make sure that what we say to someone is interpreted the way we intend. This becomes even more difficult when we attempt to communicate across social differences, gender, race or class lines, or any situation of unequal power." (pg. 135. Delpit)**


 * "Engaging in the hard work of seeing the world as others see it mus be a fundamental goal for any move to reform the education of teachers and their assessments." (pg. 151. Delpit)**


 * "In any discussion of education and culture, it is important to remember that children are individual sand cannot be made to fit into any preconceived mold of how they are 'supposed' to act." (pg. 167. Delpit)**


 * "A primary source of stereotyping is often the teacher education program itself. It is in these programs that teachers learn that poor students and students of color should be expected to achieve less that heir "mainstream" counterparts." (pg. 172. Delpit)**


 * "When teachers do not understand the potential of the students they teach, they will under-teach them no matter what the methodology." (pg. 175. Delpit)**

__Open Classroom__- learning stations, children writing/sharing stories, games. Unconventional classroom, no desks or major teacher authority. __Writing Process Approach__- focus energy of teaching on fluency, no correctness, belief that focus on skills would stifle students writing. __Culture of Power__- success in institutions is based upon the learning of the culture that is dominantly in power in society. i.e.- middle class homes tending to better in school because the culture of school is based on the culture of the upper and middle classes- those in power. __Literate__- "saying, writing, doing, being, valuing, believing." __Discourse__-"a mode of organizing knowledge, ideas, or experience that is rooted in language and its concrete contexts (as history or institutions)" This is in terms of each particular social setting.
 * Key Terminology**:


 * ”Tok Pisin”—most people in Papua New Guinea’s second language. Its roots are found in 'blackbirding,' something closely akin to the slave trade, when Australians sometimes coerced (and often stole) Pacific Islanders away from their homes to work on Queensland plantations in the late 1800s and early 1900s (p. 94).
 * “Vilis Tokples Pri-Skul”—a scheme established in the Buka and Buin regions of the North Solomons. The program had three goals: to teach children to read, write, and count in their native language before transferring to English literacy; to give children the foundations of an education in the customs, culture, and acceptable behaviors of their community; and to teach children the basic preschool skills needed for success, in a Western sense, in the English-medium primary school” (p.82).
 * “Text” vs. “Context"—the focus on words rather than on all the phenomena surrounding the words (p.97).