RES 5535: Race, Class, and Gender in Literacy Research (summer 2010)

The range of emotions I felt while reading these articles was everything from compassion to rage. My heart broke for the girls in both articles as they expressed the hurt self esteem they felt from wanting to express who they really were. I felt guilt. My first years of teaching were in an inner city area where the majority of my students were African American, and I can hear myself correcting specific students on the “correct” way to pronounce something. Through the last few years I have become aware of how “white” I have tried to make all of my students. This was not planned nor done intentionally, but my quick responses to my students were to correct their behavior or academic performance to fit me as a white male and the expectations I would have for myself or people whom I surround myself with. On the other hand, I am always quick to say in an interview or any discussion with people about education that the key to student success is building relationships with students and making them feel connected to their learning and learning environment. Those two thoughts contradict each other. Delpit’s examples on using the hair care products as “hooks” to grab your student’s attentions were brilliant and something I would could see me using in a classroom. “You have to engage them, or they will self engage,” is something I think while planning for a lesson. Maybe I only recognize the value of cultural diversity when it is convenient for me, rather than allowing that to be the basis for all lessons. How interesting and saddening to understand the thoughts of those former students all these years later. My eyes were opened wide at Dowdy’s description of how “white language” felt leaving her mouth; “Instead there were cold, metal sounds bouncing off her teeth…” Wow! As an educator I couldn’t believe that is how she was being made to feel about language! When do I ever experience such a forced language that almost hurts me to express? And yet, there are numerous students who feel this on a daily basis; this is counterproductive the goals of a school. We know children’s oral language abilities surpass their decoding abilities. If those students who are bilingual continue to experience roadblocks when trying to express themselves orally, what impact will this have on their reading abilities? “Death is silent; learning is noisy” My college supervisor would tell me that during student teaching. Realizing that students needed to verbalize A LOT while learning, I began to find a comfortable way to structure this in a classroom. However, reflecting after reading that many of these students feel silenced by the expectation of only communicating in class with their non- native language, I can’t help but wonder how much their classroom has missed out on. Yes the student themselves have missed out, but also the entire classroom of students has missed out on the ideas that particular student wanted to express. How much more rich and diverse could classroom be if only the idea of various languages being spoke at times in rooms was fostered? I felt rage as both articles described the idea of “code switching & mask wearing” to blend in and conform to the demands of their environment. How can we as educators want or demand, even though we may not realize it, for our students to create an entire different persona to appease us at school? I realize there are certain ways to act at certain times and certain locations. Seems to me we could present language in such a manner to students that values their everyday life and situations, and respects their ethnicity, but prepares them for the diverse world we live in to be a respected member of society.

Michael Lemke