Blog Post #2 01/28/2024 Reflection

 "The Silenced Dialogue" by Lisa Delpit dives into the complex dynamics within our nation's public school system, which focuses on the challenges faced by non-white educators when it comes to teaching minority students. There are different views between white and non-white educators where both sides think they are right and ultimately, the non-white educators' voices are being left out. The overall theme of this text by Delpit is around the perception that non-white teachers are often found excluded or silenced on the most effective methods of teaching children of color. A significant factor Delpit introduces is the concept of the "culture of power" to evaluate teaching methods and this concept is broken down into five aspects. Like I previously said, Delpit argues that different groups of teachers, specifically white and non-white educators have different ideals and practices that they both think would be effective when teaching. The problem is that both of these groups believe they are correct, but in the end, one voice is left out. The culture of power is essentially the framework for understanding these disagreements, highlighting that the rules and codes for taking part in this culture mirror those who are in the dominant culture. I think it's a struggle for these voices to be heard because of a simple majority of one group in the school system or a stubborn system that does not believe there needs to be different methods to be taught and stick with the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" way of thinking. In my high school specifically, we had a large mass of Hispanic students where English was their first language and roughly populated almost a third of the entire population. From my freshman year, there seemed to be little to no care about these students which resulted in a lot of them staying back or eventually dropping out. Gradually throughout my time at my high school, new staff hires were made, hiring Spanish-speaking teachers whose first language was Spanish and were able to teach different subjects like Math, English, Science, and Social Studies in a more comfortable setting. By the time senior year rolled out, I saw a major change in the way our school worked and there were drastic improvements made where these kids were able to understand and learn the content given to them. There are still several issues within public school systems but it was definitely a good thing to see some improvements being made and these voices being heard. Slowly, minority educators' and student's voices are being heard county-wide. What can we do to spread this message and how can we eventually turn this into state-wide or even country-wide? (I'm aware this will take a lot of time.)

To further my thoughts and expressions, I have provided a link that goes into non-white educators and how their voices can be heard HERE

I'm sure you've seen this image before. The meaning of this cartoon is self-explanatory, every child to take the same test because children are individuals and some children can't do academic tests as well as other children can. Now this is very broad but you can think of it as the way we've been teaching all children has been the same and different methods that are effective are being silenced.