Delpit,+Lisa.+The+Silenced+Dialogue..+Power+and+Pedagogy+in+Educating+Other+Peoples+Children

Delpit, Lisa. "The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People's Children." //Landmark Essays in Basic Writing//.

Delpit suggests five aspects of power, three of which are fully acknowledge in Education, and two of which are often ignored:

1) Issues of power are enacted in classrooms. 2) There are codes or rules for participating in power; that is, there is a 'culture of power.' 3) The rules of the culture of power are a reflection of the rules of hte culture of those who have power. 4) If you are not already a participant in the culture of power, being told explicitly the rules of that culture makes acquiring power easier. 5) Those with power are frequently least aware of--or least willing to acknowledge--its existence. Those with less power are often most aware of its existence.

Using these five aspects of power, Delpit makes an argument for teaching the culture of power to students who do not grow up in that culture, specifically in this article to Black students, rather than using progressive educational lingo to teach exclusively in students' home language. She asserts that, while doing some teaching in a student's home language could be beneficial to expressing oneself, it does not give that student a chance to operate successfully in the culture of power, which then further limits that student's possibilities of operating in the world. She also suggests that too many good-intentioned (white) educators ignore the knowledge of Black parents and teachers, relying instead on research (most often conducted by white scholars) which is inscribed in the culture of power. Too many progressive pedagogies are reliant upon absolving the guilt of the white educator, keeping the educator from feeling complicit in the oppression of Black culture, when in reality it denies Black students from having access to the power needed to change the system.