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From Publishers Weekly
Children of color, as well as poor children?"other people's children"?are often victimized by school administrators and others who see "damaged and dangerous caricatures" instead of able youngsters who are capable of learning in a mainstream setting. This is the observation of Delpit, who has used her varied experience in schools from New Guinea to Alaska to better understand and resolve cultural clashes in American classrooms. In the provocative essays collected here, Delpit unfolds her views on teaching African American children, based on professional research and her own experience of school as an alien environment. Defining the goal of educators as celebration, not merely toleration, of diversity in the classroom, Delpit illustrates ways that teachers, including African Americans, can build on students' home cultures to help prepare them for life after school. The author's vision of alternative perspectives should stimulate rethinking the complexities of multicultural inclusiveness. Delpit is Benjamin E. Mays Chair of Urban Educational Leadership at Georgia State Univ.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
A godsend….honest and fair, yet visionary and firm. -- Quarterly Black Review

Here, finally, is multiculturalism with a human face. -- Teacher Magazine

Phenomonal….overcomes fear and speaks of truths, truths that otherwise have no voice. -- The San Francisco Review of Books

Provides an important, yet typically avoided, discussion of how power imbalances in the larger U.S. society reverberate in classrooms. -- Harvard Educational Review

About the Author
Lisa Delpit is an Eminent Scholar and Executive Director of the Center for Urban Education and Innovation at Florida International University in Miami, where she lives. Her work is dedicated to providing excellent education for marginalized communities in the United States and abroad. Herbert Kohl (afterword) is a recipient of the National Book Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. He was the founder and first director of the Teachers and Writers Collaborative in New York City and established the PEN West Center in San Francisco, where he lives. He is the author of more than forty books, including the bestselling 36 Children and the classic "I Won't Learn from You" (The New Press).

Customer Reviews

Cultural Awareness
Delpit clearly defines and details, in narrative form, the differences in teaching students of color, especially the differences between students who are either middle-class Whites or African-Americans. Delpit considers the ethnic identities and linguistics of ethnic children, the heritage behind these children's learning styles, body languages, ethics (some students will not write a review of other researcher's work because it in unethical, in their society, to speak for others), and how some students will not detail what they have accomplished, such as to outline their activities in a resume. Delpit includes many testimonials (qualitative inquiry) from other educators and students and builds a holistic view of differences in teaching students of color.

The holistic presentation in this book, with rich background information from Delpit's personal experiences, is exactly the presentation style that Delpit discusses as a way that African-American learners use to present their information, in a story building method with many details, which is quite different from Whites who typically present the main points in clear, yet concise, detail. Delpit also discusses how this difference in presentation style is problematic when others, usually non-ethnic evaluators, attempt to score presentations according to predetermined standards. Delpit also discusses issues with standardized testing and the need for educators to discern between ethnic students' deficits in knowledge and their inability (sometimes) to convey their knowledge on worksheets or other similar assessment mediums.

The book is rich with Delpit's personal experiences, is easy to read, and is quite hard to put down. I have now read this book twice and have gained a deeper understanding of ethnic differences the second time. As Delpit points out, many writings by African-Americans rely greatly on personal experiences whereas Whites cite empirical research to support their statements; this book is a prime example of this method. Although Delpit does cite many sources, many "profound" (perhaps I should say "firm") statements are stated without citations and the reader has no reference to empirical research to underpin these statements. Because of this, I have rated this book as 4 out of 5. This book contains excellent information.

Powerful and Challenging
If you work with students from dominated cultures, this is a must read. Delpit examines the culture of power and how we can begin to change the climate in our schools. It will challenge you to examine your assumptions.

readable and provocative
We recently read this book as part of my MA in Secondary Ed, and I highly recommend it. Our diverse class of aspiring public school teachers found the author's opinionated and passionate essays to be a great discussion starter, with most of us having either strong positive or negative reactions to Delpit's perspective. In particular, we liked her explanation of the importance of direct language and making expectations of the school culture explicit for kids. In a critical sense, we found she tended to generalize too much.

Here are a few examples of things we found interesting:

White teachers ask "Where do you think the scissors go?" and black kids think, man, how did she get to be a teacher, she doesn't even know where the scissors go! Whereas, according to Delpit, a black teacher might say "Put the scissors back in the drawer and sit down."

White teachers at a school in Native Alaska complain about parents not making their kids go to school. Native Alaskan parents, whose culture values children's authority, respond that if their children don't want to got to school then the school must be a place where the children do not feel welcome.

Teachers are often compared to lawyers and doctors, when in fact a better comparison is with preachers, who need to respond to and inspire their congregations.