Delpit Reflection

 

Lisa Delpit brings more experiences to the table than Alan Johnson, creating a more grounded experience while reading. She brings anecdotes from her life and from the real world to show us that there is a substantial difference in the education we receive, and to make it worse, almost nobody is doing anything about it. I say almost, because as Delpit says, white people are listening, but not hearing. I can't claim to be an exception to this, but I can strive to hear. What I will claim is that while teaching, I find that tuning into the people themselves, to their experiences, yields the best results. Each student should be treated differently, given what they need. Common core makes this difficult, as its goal is to standardize everything. This makes it very difficult to hear what students need. Sure, I understand that this student's reading and writing levels are below average, but with common core, the goal is no longer education, it is to pass a test. These things are not equivalent. When teachers get in their heads that a student or parent "doesn't care" because they act or do not act a certain way, or attribute these actions to a student's academic prowess, it shows their bias and in my opinion, shows their complacency. How many times do we need to discuss the fact that you never know the whole story, that you never know the context for a student or parent's behavior. When we talk about "the student" and what "the student" needs, it is important for this student to be real, not hypothetical. It feels to me as if we have assigned these Common Core goals to theoretical students, but the real students we apply these goals to are far more complex than the system allows for. Because of this uniformity, and because of the performative progressiveness that is popular nowadays, so many children slip through the cracks of our system. The worst part is, we've known about it for a long time. The phrase "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one," comes to mind. It is not a bad phrase, but I find many people use it to ignore the needs of people who don't apply to the "many." In this case, it's nonwhite and neurodivergent children who are often ignored because they are often treated as the exception or an outsider in the classroom. This is no excuse, and we need to do better. We need to hear.