The Silenced Dialog by Lisa Delpit
I had many (somewhat random) thoughts while reading this excerpt so I will try to make this short and sweet:
One of the problems I always find while I am in the classroom or learning space is setting the correct tone of power and respect between the students and teacher/instructor. It is very important to establish respect and "power" at the beginning but not in a harsh or mean tone. I was taught while at my first job working for my local summer camp that you should always start out more strict and then ease up because it doesn't work the other way around. A quote from a student in the reading claims "he was proud of the teacher's "meanness", an attribute he seemed to describe as the ability to run the class and pushing and expecting students to learn." This is the level I believe teachers strive to be. You can be strict and fun at the same time. Establishing a routine or schedule for your classes will keep them on track and prepared for future classes. If the teacher is pushing the students to be their best with a more organized or strict format, I think the students will benefit greatly from them!
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One quote that reminded me of my high school English teacher was "she gave herself permission to do nothing in her classroom" because in regards to power, my teacher also did nothing during her class time. This particular teacher has been teaching for many years and I would assume has tenure. I have always had a problem with the idea of tenure. I really like the idea of being recognized for hard work after 10 years of "service" and of course job security but my reasoning against this is caused by some teachers and professors who don't try as hard as they should or maybe did before.
My high school English teacher I had in 12th grade had us read maybe two (short) books for the whole year and watch clips from the movie as we read each chapter. I honestly can't remember anything else we did in that class, no group projects, maybe a college essay draft? She was constantly absent and the sub plans were probably irrelevant to the curriculum (what were we even supposed to be learning?) I remember one class she was playing the music video for "Friday I'm in Love" because someone said they had never heard of it. An administrator entered the room for a classroom observation mid-way through and my teacher got out of her chair, made up this whole story about how this song related to the lesson, and actually taught the class for once. It was actually impressive how she was able to make something up on the spot but the fact that she only did it because an authority figure entered was definitely concerning. This relates to the passage because this teacher was abusing her power by getting paid as a tenure teacher but depriving students from learning a valuable subject.
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My last thought I had related to the student who wrote a paper in her style of writing and was judged because of her native name printed. The argument was should she have gotten into the program or not but the real question should have been how did she fall so far behind and no one notice? This quote resonated with me: "except students as they are and teach them" It is as simple as that. Being a good teacher sometimes means that you can assign students to help others teach as well. If a students is struggling with a topic another knows everything about, by pairing the two up might benefit both students. The student with the knowledge will learn how to teach or explain to someone else and the other will be learning maybe in a more familiar dialog.
Sometimes when I read certain articles it is almost funny because some of the arguments are so obvious to me. It would be so much easier to not care about certain aspects of anything and to just move on or improve instead. Why are we putting negative energy and time into caring about something that doesn't matter or affect us personally? If we didn't dwell on certain topics and instead used that time to teach something that is useful I think we would all be in a better place. It is so easy to be a nice respectful person that sometimes I just don't understand people!
Hi Nicole, I appreciate your reflection on this week's reading. I relate to your difficulty finding the perfect teacher tone that provides you with the control you need over the classroom, without coming across as mean. One struggle I’ve had working in schools is getting the students to respect me or see me as any sort of authority figure. I’m still shy in these spaces and scared of using a harsh tone, as I want the students to like me as a teacher. But as the reading points out, there are plenty of well-loved teachers who don’t tolerate any fooling around and are harsh when need be.
ReplyDeleteHi Nicole, great post! This reading made me think about how there is no middle ground, or cut and dry method to teaching, we can't be we can’t be rigid or rely on a single philosophy and expect it to work for every child. Delpit really pushes us to see that different students need different kinds of support, and sometimes that means being explicit and direct, while other times it means stepping back and letting students lead.
ReplyDeleteHi Nicole,
ReplyDeleteI absolutely relate to the part of your blog about your teacher. It harms a lot of students when a teacher abuses their power in any way, but I feel that sometimes it isn't talked about much when the teacher abuses their power in the sense of not trying or not putting in effort. Usually when we talk about abuse of power we think of the outwardly abusive words and cruelness. But when teachers just don't put in effort to their job, this can have lasting impacts on students. I had a math teacher like this and I spent several years playing catch up because I didn't learn much the entire year, and had to teach myself concepts in order to not fall behind.