Education and Multiculturalism: A Review of Lisa Delpit’s Other People’s Children
Diane Waldron
Eastern Connecticut State University
Lisa Delpit’s book Other People’s Children challenges educators in the United States to accept the diversity of our nation’s schoolchildre and to respect, acknowledge, teach and reach students of all cultural heritages. The nine essays in this book define and refine understandings of multiculturalism essential to educators and educational policy makers alike. The evolution of her ideas, over a span of years represented by these nine essays, culminates in a call for change in education that is long overdue. Her ideas hold a promise of lasting, effective reform for education in the United States.
The nine essays in the book are organized into three parts each of which is comprised of three of Delpit’s essays. Part I focuses upon literacy, specifically upon the need to make Standard American English accessible to disenfranchised students in order to empower them economically. In Part II, Delpit shares her study of multilingual educatiin efforts in Papua, New Guinea; her work with Native Alaskan pre-service teachers; and finally, a survey of minority educators in the United States. Part III examines the confusion that can arise due to cultural misunderstandings, both for teachers and for students, and calls for changes in American education and teacher training programs that would benefit poor and minority students.
The first two essays in Part I present a challenge to the whole language and process writing approaches to literacy. In “Skills and Other Dilemmas of a Progressive Black Educator” Delpit explains that these methods do not work for poor and minority students who do not have access to what she calls the code of power: Standard American English, or the language of middle class white America. In “The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People’s Children.” the author shares her belief that explicit instruction in Standard American English, and providing opportunities for authentic writing, benefits poor and minority students far more than process writing or whole language approaches. Delpit shares that, as a teacher, she often felt that her views on literacy instruction for non-mainstream students went unheard.
Essay three in Part I “Language Diversity and Learning” addresses the many ways that language diversity affects learning and learning environments of linguistically diverse students. According to Delpit, language – or, in this case, a new dialect – is best acquired unconsciously; however, this process can be negatively impacted unless the learning environment supports both the student’s primary linguistic form while facilitating acquisition of the new linguistic form. Dialect is intricately bound to one’s sense of self, family, and community; therefore, students naturally reject attempts to “correct” or even eliminate this integral piece of self-identity. Teachers should support students in adding a “new” dialect – Standard American English – to their existing linguistic form, working from the knowledge that different cultures have different norms surrounding spoken and written expression. Awareness of and respect for cultural differences can prevent erroneous assessments of student ability while positively impacting student outcomes.
The three essays that comprise Part II of Delpit’s book begin with an account of a Papua, New Guinea community that created a successful program to educate a linguistically diverse student body. “The Vilis Tokples Schools of Papua, New Guinea” discusses how community involvement helped to establish a system of education for young people that teaches students to value what they have at home (the past) while also preparing for the future. By teaching students the value of community, heritage, and cultural norms, the schools have ensured that students learn to respect who they are before they begin to explore who they could become. The
Vilis Tolples schools experiment is a success story that demonstrates how listening to and incorporating the concerns of the community whose children are to be educated enhances the learning outcomes for students. Educational reform in this country could learn much from this experiment in Papua, New Guinea!
The same can be said of the next two essays in Part II: “Hello, Grandfather: Lessons from Alaska” and “Teachers’ Voices: Rethinking Teacher Education for Diversity.” The first of these two essays discusses how important it is for teachers to understand that different cultures have different awarenesses of the world, different ways of being. This idea is further examined in the second of these two essays, as educators of color surveyed by Delpit reported feeling unheard, even victimized during pre-service teacher education programs and as professional teachers. These educators experienced for themselves how difficult it can be for people from different cultures, with different communication norms, to share productive dialogue.
The essays in Part III build upon the essays from both Part I and Part II, in each case solidifying and strengthening Delpit’s views on the education of poor and minority students. The first essay in Part III “Cross-Cultural Confusions in Teacher Assessment” revisits the problems and miscommunications that often occur when cultural values differ. Specifically, Delpit writes of those Native Alaskan and African American teachers who can effectively teach students who share their heritage because they know and can use the cultural norms to communicate expectations to students; but who risk negative assessment in doing so when culturally responsive teaching runs counter to mainstream pedagogy.
The second essay in Part III, “The Politics of Teaching Literate Discourse,” elaborates upon the concepts of literacy first addressed in the third essay of Part I “Language Diversity and Learning.” Once again discourse (or dialect) is identified as an integral aspect of personal identity; the importance of respecting the primary discourse while helping students to acquire a new discourse (Standard American English) is cited. The third essay in Part III, and the last of Delpit’s essays in the book “Education in a Multicultural Society: Our Future’s Greatest Challenge” revisits the many ways that cultural differences can lead to assessment problems. Delpit describes both assessment of students of color and the assessment of teachers of color as potentially being negatively impacted by cultural misunderstandings.
Delpit closes her last essay, and her narrative in the book, with a call to policy makers to consider the multicultural nature of American society when drafting educational reforms. Throughout the book, Delpit offers numerous suggestions for effective educational reform: the inclusion of community concerns and voices in educational decision making; multicultural education for educators; inclusion of multicultural successes rather than rationales for failures; and community participation by educators. Her ideas are not complex, but in their simplicity they represent a depth of experience (her own, and others) and a real hope for implementation.
References
Delpit, Lisa D. Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom. New York: New York. 2006. Print.