"All Children Can Learn" Quotes from Delpit

Three quotes that I believe represent Lisa Delpit's "The Silences Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People's Children" are:

"…many of the 'progressive' educational strategies imposed by liberals upon black and poor children could only be based on a desire to ensure the liberals' children get sole access to the dwindling pool of American jobs. Some have added that the liberal educators believe themselves to be operating with good intentions are only conscious delusions , but that these good intentions are only conscious delusions about their unconscious true motives." (29)

               In this quote, Delpit explains that many white teachers, unconsciously, are, in a sense,  sabotaging the chances of their non-white students in order to preserve the job market for the own children and those like them. Even though people do not believe or understand that they are biased in this way, Delpit says that this is the reality that we face.


"The teacher cannot be the only expert in the classroom. To deny students their own expert knowledge is to disempower them." (32-33)

             I really liked this quote and how it connected to the story of students analyzing rap songs. I think that Delpit is saying that teachers learn just as much from their students as their students learn from them. For a teacher to believe that they are the only contributing force in a classroom is not a good  or productive learning environment for students. This quote is relevant to the text because it is saying that a teacher must let their students express themselves in their own ways and not judge them based on differences in culture, sex, or ethnicity.              


"I suggest that students must be taught the codes needed to participate fully in the mainstream of American life, not by being forced to attend to hollow, inane, decontextualized sub skills, but rather within the context of meaningful communicative endeavors; that they must be allowed the resource of the teacher's expert knowledge, while being helped to acknowledge their own 'expertness' as well; and that even while students are assisted in learning the culture of power, they must also be helped to learn about the arbitrariness of those codes and about the power relationships they represent."(45)

              I  believe that this quote really sums up Delpit's main concept. The culture of power must be taught and not assumed to be known, in order for all students to benefit, or at least understand the structure of power. This cannot be accomplished by a multitude of meaningless skill sheets, but only by experiencing their inner abilities, while also learning to decode the structure of the culture of power, while working to change it. Through explicit language, students may learn the implicit nature of the culture of power and therefore understand how to operate within it.


I found an interview with Lisa Delpit that builds upon the information given in this article. Delpit is speaking about her new book, "Multiplication is for White People: Raising Expectations for Other People's Children." In this interview, she clarifies many of her controversial points. You can read about it at:
 http://www.thenation.com/blog/166888/interview-lisa-delpit-educating-other-peoples-children#

One talking point that I would like to bring to our class discussion is the topic on teachers learning from their students. I truly believe that people learn best when they have to teach or explain something to another. Throughout teaching dance classes and volunteering at schools, I have learned so many incredible things from my students that have improved my own teaching techniques. Like Delpit says, students feel empowered when they are able to bring a positive contribution to the classroom. I have seen many times students learn best from explaining the concept to another or relating it to something that they really understand. Therefore, I believe that this is a really important topic that Delpit addresses that would be an interesting class discussion.