Identifying and Exploring the Argument of Lisa Delpit's Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom

    

Lisa Delpit, Author of Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom.

    The argument presented by Lisa Delpit in her work Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom is that the needs of children of color are not being met in the classroom because a dominantly white education industry insists on teaching students of color with the same curriculum, context, and tools as white students. She asserts that this way of teaching is flawed, because it falsely assumes that people of color will have the same opportunities, assets, and history at their disposal as the white students for which the education is being crafted. As we have previously discussed in last week’s reading, this is systematically false due to the disproportionate amount of people of color living in low-income neighborhoods, the daily prejudice that people of color must overcome in all facets of their lives, and the various cultural background differences between people of color and white people. Delpit asserts that the best thing educators can do for their students of color are a) to hear, not just listen to educators of color who can earnestly speak about and work with the struggles and differences of students of color, and b) to acknowledge and teach about these differences and disadvantages, rather than ignore them and both set students of color up for failure while also allowing more generations of white students to move on to their lives with ignorance of the bias and advantage they carry. 

    It’s not difficult to see why students of color’s needs have continuously failed to be met in education settings. As previously mentioned, like with many fields, education is largely white-employed, and educators are inherently going to be biased. This can be minimized through self-awareness and self-reflection, but it doesn’t allow these white educators to properly understand or address the experience of students of color, ensuring that they are unable to adequately address the needs or challenges of students of color. Additionally, the continued segregation of schools through social and economic classes goes hand in hand with systematic racial oppression, as low-income schools are disproportionately filled with students of color. This means that while middle-class white students receive modern technology and more experienced educators that have relatively easy access to materials and resources, students of color often are left to make do with little to no tech in an age that demands proficiency with it, and educators that are struggling to make do with their classroom resources. The disadvantage of students of color in classrooms is supported by various studies, such as one in 2016 that found students with lighter skin tones were more likely to be accepted to or attend higher education (Ryabov, 2016). The same people behind that study also asserted that educators may have unconscious biases towards students of color with more classically euro-centric features, and a later study supported this when it found that students of color with darker skin tones sustained lower GPAs than students of color from the same racial groups with lighter skin tones (Thompson & McDonald, 2016).

    A point I'd like to share in class is the role personalized learning could play in resolution of this issue. I'm a big believer in and a big pusher of personalization on every possible level of the education structure, and I believe that personalizing education to better address and fit the experiences, differences, and needs of students of color would be a massive step in the right direction when working to make education a more fair environment for all students. 

    However, I also recognize that by asserting this and interjecting my own ideas to resolve this issue, I am inadvertently doing the same thing so criticized in the piece we've just read. While I believe my ideas of personalization in classrooms is a strong one that could do a lot of good for students of color, I will heed these ideas to actual educators of color who have the experiences and knowledge of what it's like to be a student of color, so they have the space to meet the needs that the education system failed to meet for them not so long ago. 

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