The Silenced Dialogue

Talking Points: 

“I tell you, I’m tired of arguing with those white people, because they won't listen…”

“No, they listen, but they don’t hear…”

“The more I try to explain, they just look and nod, just keep looking and nodding.  They don’t really hear me.”

Three examples of minority individuals trying to explain their experience to white people and not being heard.  These are examples of what happens when people in positions of privilege are unwilling to recognize or acknowledge their own privilege.  They assume everyone has their same experiences and ignore the evidence to the contrary when it is made glaringly obvious by those with different lived experiences.  It would seem to be that there is a great lack of empathy, or perhaps an unwillingness to shed ignorance for the sake of enlightenment.  A poor characteristic for those who are supposedly professional educators.

“To provide schooling for everyone’s children that reflects liberal, middle-class values and aspirations is to ensure the maintenance of the status quo, to ensure that power, the culture of power, remains in the hands of those who already have it.”

This statement is very reminiscent of the observations Jean Anyon made of school education strategies in the different socio-economic neighborhoods described by Finn in Literacy with an Attitude.  Public education institutions seem more successful at reinforcing the existing socio-economic divisions in our society rather than providing equitable education and opportunities to all children.

 “If such explicitness is not provided to students, what it feels like to people who are old enough to judge is that there are secrets being kept, that time is being wasted, that the teacher is abdicating his or her duty to teach.”

I found this interesting in light of the teaching policies that the Providence District is pushing on teachers.  Their goals are to have teachers spend less time on direct instruction and focus more on student lead and generated learning.  I wonder now if the students' reluctance to participate in this form of education is originating not from apathy, but a cultural incongruence between students and school.

 

Argument Statement:

As long as the reins of education policy are held by the culture in power, there will continue to be a conflict between students of non-dominant cultures and the educational institutions that are supposed to serve their needs.