Monday, September 14, 2015

Reflection on Lisa Delpit Reading

9/13/2015
Lisa Delpit's The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People's Children

In her book, The Silenced Dialogue, she discussed the inherent problems with process-based learning techniques and how they help (or hurt) students from different backgrounds differently. She outlines the five rules of power that exist in our culture and argues that we need to be more aware of those rules in order not to allow students who are not in the culture of power to fall through the cracks.

When Delpit discussed the differences between DISTAR and the more progressive literacy education programs, as well as her discussion of teachers wanting "the same thing for everyone else's children as [they] do for [their own]", little alarm bells went off in my head. I liked her observation that the more progressive method of teaching literacy was only effective if students were familiar with the way words are formed before coming into that classroom. Wanting the same education for "everyone else's children" that a teacher does for his or her own implies they start at the same place with the same background. 

This may be a jump, but I couldn't help but think about the recent move of Sesame Street to HBO over the summer. The show was intended to help students who did not have the opportunity for preschool or nursery school to prepare for kindergarten in order to level the playing field, if you will. When the show made the switch, NPR did a story that I thought was very interesting. It discusses how the network is air new episodes on HBO and reruns will be shown on PBS a few months later. My initial thought was that "at least it's not going off the air completely." Then I read about it on the less reputable site Slate.com and the author put it perfectly: 

In short, Sesame Street was founded to help low-income kids keep up with their more affluent peers. That is literally why it exists. It succeeded beyond anyone's expectations. And now it is becoming the property of a premium cable network, so that a program launched to help poor kids keep up with rich kids is now being paywalled so that rich kids can watch it before poor kids can.

You can find the rest of the article here.


6 comments:

  1. I had the same thought when Sesame Street was bought by HBO and remember thinking the same as you, that at least poorer kids would see the episodes eventually.

    But the slate article is right, Sesame Street was created with a purpose, and even though their shows will reach a broader audience eventually, I fear that this could be part of a trend that erodes the few early learning opportunities that exist for low income children. I hope we never reach a point where all educational television is only available on higher cost cable channels.

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  2. I was shocked when I first learned that Sesame Street was bought by HBO. The good news is that by moving to HBO, Sesame Street will have the funding to continue on PBS. However, the fact that funding has been cut so greatly to cause a need for this move is more than a little sad.

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  3. "Teachers want the same for everyone else's children as they do for their own" On the whole, this seems probable, but how often are teachers held back from providing such equality? Testing, textbooks and curriculum over which they have no say, holidays that must be/cannot be recognized... Sometimes the best of intentions are squelched.

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  4. "Teachers want the same for everyone else's children as they do for their own" On the whole, this seems probable, but how often are teachers held back from providing such equality? Testing, textbooks and curriculum over which they have no say, holidays that must be/cannot be recognized... Sometimes the best of intentions are squelched.

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  5. Wow, super interesting about Sesame Street. I had no idea why the show was created or that it was swapped over to HBO. I agree with the initial thought that "at least the old episodes will be on PBS" but also I am frustrated to see that one of the most expensive channel sets one can buy, houses the new material. This will not allow those low income children to grow with the rest of their peers, and that is very disturbing.

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  6. Interesting connection between Sesame Street and HBO. I didn't know that was happening. As we are learning how to better serve our community of learners we are also seeing the differences that are embedded among them. How can we teach such a variety of students with the same methods?

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