Prompt 1 (Delpit)

Growing up in a small rural town where 99% of the population is white and the most abundant things around are trees; it was a culture shock to come volunteer at a school in the city. Driving to the school, I could see the transformation in the environment. Crowded streets lined with apartment buildings and small convenient stores with bars on the windows. It had an entirely different feel to it than anything I had experienced before. Small children were walking on the sidewalks, some with adults, and others by themselves to the large brick building they attended school in. There were no buses to be seen, and when I asked a teacher if any kids were transported by bus, she told me that only around 2o students took the bus and the others all walked or were driven by their parents. As I walked in and looked at the students coming in from their morning recess time, one thing was very apparent; this school was not diverse. Diversity is a difficult concept to grasp sometimes. We often fall into the habit of confusing diversity with being “not white”. However, this school was just like the school I attended, only the opposite. Rather than all white kids, and a few different ethnicities here and there, this school was primarily Asian and African American with a few white students. Although the student population was mostly made up of non whites, the faculty was all white. Every teacher that was in the building was a white female.
This particular school that I am volunteering in is only for kindergarten and first grade. There are three classrooms for each grade, kindergarten on the first floor and first grade on the second floor. The school to me seems extremely small to what I am used to and seems to lack sufficient funding. There is one room used for music, art and health and I have yet to see a library. Despite the size of the school and not having all the newest materials, there is a strong sense of unity among the students and teachers and most of the children seem very happy. The kindergarten classroom I was assigned to has inspired me and motivated me to continue my path to becoming a teacher. The teacher I am working with is an amazing individual and her classroom could be confused for a college setting. Her students are well behaved, respectful and extremely independent for kindergarten students. From writing in their journals, to student centers, the students know exactly what is expected out of them and effectively utilize their time in the classroom. It seems like the students look up to their teacher not only as their teacher but as a motherly figure. She is able to be affectionate while keeping her sense of authority at the same time. It is clear to me that one of the values that she promotes in her classroom is go above and beyond what is expected. In a conversation I had with her, she told me that most of these children had never seen a book before entering her classroom. Education is not on top of the list of priorities at home and some parents think of schooling as a babysitter for their kids during the day. However, she told me that in this school, the faculty never lets that discourage them and continues to push their students to learn the material and the proper tools they need to be a valuable asset to society.
The classroom and teacher I was assigned to volunteer for can be directly related to theorist Lisa Delpit. In Lisa Delpit’s article that we read in class, we analyzed her 5 rules of power. One of the rules was that it is much easier to become part of the culture of power when explicitly told the rules of the culture of power. The teacher in this kindergarten classroom does her best to make sure that every student has equal opportunity to reach that culture of power. When giving directions to an assignment, all of the students are given multiple examples of what she is looking for out of the assignment, as well as having to verbally repeat the directions together as a class. She then goes around to each set of tables to make sure the students fully understand what is expected out of them. She is able to achieve this tastefully without over doing it and still being able to challenge her students and push them to think in new and different ways. Each and every student is put in a position to succeed and has a seeming equal opportunity as everyone else in the classroom. Another aspect of Lisa Delpit’s article that can be applied to this class room is the difference between a demand and a question. The teacher told me that if you respect your students, they will respect you. She treats them like fellow members of society and when they do something they are not supposed to, she lets them know exactly what they did wrong and why it is that way. I clearly am impressed by the teaching techniques of the teacher I am helping and I think that Lisa Delpit would be as well.