The focus of this blog post is “Other People’s Children –
Cultural Conflict In the Classroom” written by Lisa Delpit. I want to focus on
what she listed as the five aspects of power.
1.
Issues of power are enacted in classrooms.
2.
There are codes or rules for participating in
power; that is there is a “culture of power.”
3.
The rules of the culture of power are a
reflection of the rules of the culture of those who have power.
4.
If you are not already a participant in the
culture of power, being told explicitly the rules of that culture makes
acquiring power easier.
5.
Those with power are frequently least aware of –
or least willing to acknowledge – its existence. Those with less power are
often most aware of it’s existence.
The first point that she makes discusses how schooling is
intimately related to power. From the teacher to the student – from who writes
the curriculum – all of schooling is about power and who holds the power
determines what school systems are like. Her main point in this writing is that
it is mostly upper to middle class white people who hold the power and it’s
upper to middle class white people who determine what goes on in our school
systems. The power is held by virtually one culture, even though our school
systems are made up of people from many different cultures. It seems to be
setting the students who aren’t apart of the majority (or the people of power)
for failure.
The next point, “There are codes or rules for participating
in power, that is there is a “culture of power”, talks about there’s a way to
present yourself, a way to talk, a way to write. In our school systems there is
only one way that is acceptable to do all of these things. Students are
expected to walk the straight and narrow, even though everyone comes from
different cultures. Everyone comes from a different home life. We are all
individuals, yet we’re expected to perform the same way in school. The way
schools work now, is that we’re all based around tests. We spend all of our
time in school preparing for major tests such as the SATs, ACTs, etc. that are
supposed to be a test that is going to judge how smart we are.
In her third point, “The rules of the culture power are a
reflection of the rules of the culture of those who have power.” She discusses
how generally children from middle- class homes do better in school, because
the culture of the school is based on the culture of upper to middle class
homes. The people who have the power (middle- class white people) are the
people who make up these expectations of how students are expected to perform
in school. How is it that as a society we allow one culture to determine these
expectations? Speaking as someone who comes from a middle class white family, I
can say that I don’t know anything about who it’s like to grow up in poverty.
Nor do the people who set these rules, these expectations. I don’t know
anything about what it’s like to go to school in a school system that seems to
be directed at a different culture than my own. I can look at it and clearly see
that it isn’t fair.
Her fourth point is that, “If you’re not already a
participant in the culture of power, being told explicitly the rules of that
culture makes acquiring power easier.” Her point here is that when ideas are
attempted to be expressed between cultures, there isn’t much communication.
Both sides don’t seem to understand how the other culture thinks. This I think
is a huge contributing factor to the problem. There isn’t communication. She
said in her piece that white people listen but they don’t hear. This seems to
be a widespread issue across many cultures. If we have a school system that is
made up of people from all different cultures, then the “culture of power”
should be made up of people from all different cultures. The problem, however,
is that the communication is at a block. We are human, and speaking in general,
we have our own beliefs, and because they are our beliefs, we sometimes can’t
understand other peoples beliefs if they differ from our own. I think this is
why our school systems seem to have developed this “culture of power”. The
people who hold the power can’t see or really understand peoples beliefs if
they differ from their own.
Her fifth and final point is, “Those with power are
frequently least aware of – or least willing to acknowledge- its existence.
Those with less power are often most aware of its existence.” Her point here is
that the people in the power, don’t even really notice that they’re the power
group. People who clearly aren’t in the power, are aware of it. This reflects
not only the power in the school systems, but the power in all areas of our
society. It’s just like how we say that we live in a country that’s equal, and
just. Yet there are still the people who are generally considered valued.
Straight – Christian – White -- Able bodied—Male—Property owners. However,
anyone who isn’t one of these things acknowledges or can probably think of a
time when they were made to feel less valued, just because they don’t fit in to
what we as a society consider to be valued.
