Book Review: Other People's Children:

Cultural Conflict in the Classroom

Authors of the Review:

Bailey Furrow
Jacob Reeves
Jordan Wright

Delpit, L. D. (1995). Other People's Children: Cultural

Conflict in the Classroom. New York: The New Press.
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Table Of Contents
Collaborative Book Review 3

Part I: Controversies Revisited 4

Chapter 1-Skills and Other Dilemmas of a Progressive Black Educator 4

Chapter 2-The Silenced Dialogue 5

Chapter 3-Language Diversity and Learning 5

Part II: Lessons from Home and Abroad 6

Chapter 4-The Vilis Tokples Schools of Papua New Guinea 6

Chapter 5-“Hello, Grandfather” 6

Chapter 6-Teachers’ Voices 7

Part III: Looking to the Future 8

Chapter 7: Cross-cultural Confusions in Teacher Assessment 8

Chapter 8: The Politics of Teaching Literate Discourse 9

Chapter 9: Education in a Multicultural Society 9

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Collaborative Book Review

The purpose of this book is to be a commentary on how classrooms from various
cultures interact with learning and how they are different from our own classroom settings. Part I
of the book reflects on the author’s experience in teaching children of color in a classroom
setting. She specifies how children of color, particularly black children, are often in “alienating
environments,” (Delpit, 1995, p. 5). Part II reflects on Delpit’s experience with different cultures
in and outside of the United States and how that has influenced some of her views mentioned
throughout the book. Part III talks about how we, as teachers, can learn from other people and
cultures that are not as familiar to us as our own and how we can adapt that to our own
teaching. Teachers of privilege and in the majority, like middle class white males for the United
States, would find this book to be the most helpful, as it would help them to see the perspectives
of those different from them and how they can learn from their experiences to improve the
teacher’s quality of learning. Using the information in this book, they can learn from Delpit’s
experiences in teaching diverse classrooms and apply it to their own classroom.

On the back cover of the novel, it describes how Delpit suggests that classroom issues
with children of color, particularly African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans, and Native
Americans, are a result of miscommunication between the diverse students and the teacher
population that is mostly white. It talks about how there is an “imbalance of power” and that
“inequality plagues our system,” (Delpit, 1995). This description of the book appears to be
misleading, as it does not touch on these issues that much and instead talks more about her
experiences in other, more diverse classrooms and her opinions on the matter. This information
can still be helpful, as it can help to teach to teachers how they can learn from unfamiliar
cultures and apply it to their own teachings, but this does not to be explained very well by the
back cover.

While this book is clearly written by an author who has an extensive amount of
experience in diverse classrooms, this book is not without its pros and cons. One strength that
this book have is the author’s use of examples from her own experiences to back her claims
work extraordinarily well. Her examples are unique and provide a sense of qualification for the
subject of the book in that she talks about various cultures and how they all can teach a lesson
to teachers. One of the book’s weaknesses is how the book is structured, as the layout of the
book does not flow well. The different parts felt quite different to each other and did not connect
to each other in a way that makes sense. The chapter about Papua New Guinea, Chapter 4:
The Vilis Tokples Schools of Papua New Guinea, particularly felt out of place compared to the
rest of the book, as the rest of the book focused mostly on diverse classrooms in the United
States.
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Part I: Controversies Revisited

 
Chapter 1-Skills and Other Dilemmas of a Progressive Black
Educator
In the chapter entitled, “Skills and Other Dilemmas of a Progressive Black Educator”, Lisa Delpit
talking about her early teaching career as a progressive teacher in a traditional atmosphere.
Due to her graduate school education, she learnt that students learn how to write not by being
taught the skill to, but writing in meaningful contexts, and through her experience, believed that
an open classroom environment was the most humanising learning environment for her
students, as they are in control of their own learning. She compared this to her ‘traditional’
colleagues, who, in her opinion, were not structuring their classroom environments in a way that
allowed students to be their most successful. Traditional teachers seemed to focus more on
skills rather than the context in which they are learning in. Even though she could see that
students excelled more in an open classroom setting, she saw that her black students were not
as successful as her white students. Because of this, she made some aspects of her classroom
more traditional, which caused her black students to improve, but they still lagged behind her
white students. It was not until she went to dinner with an old colleague that she discovered a
divide between white and black teachers. Her old colleague started to insist that the new Bay
Area Writing project, whose goal was to spread writing fluency, was doing a monumental
disservice to black students. She went on to say that students are fluent, which can be seen
maybe not through their school assignments, but by their raps or poems. She went on to say
that students need skills and not fluency. The author then states that she believes that skills are
best taught through meaningful communication, and that the ability to think critically is far more
important than technical skills.

Key points
● “I learned that people acquire a new dialect most effectively through interaction with
speakers of that dialect, not through being constantly corrected” (Delpit, 1995, 11)
● “Many of the teachers of black children have their roots in other communities and do not
often have the opportunity to hear the full range of their students voices” (Delpit, 1995,
17)
● “I believe that skills are best taught through meaningful communication best learned in
meaningful contexts. I would further explain that skills are a necessary but insufficient
aspects of black and minority students education. Students need technical skills open
doors, but they need to be able to think critically and creatively to participate in
meaningful and potentially liberating work inside those doors.” (Delpit, 1995, 19)

Discussion Questions
● Is music best taught by focusing on ‘fluency’ or ‘skill’
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● Compare and contrast a ‘traditional’ and ‘progressive’ music classroom- what are the
pros and cons of each when teaching a culturally diverse class?
● We have a lack of minority involvement in the music community. Thinking about what
Delpit has said, how can we change this?
 

Chapter 2-The Silenced Dialogue

In "The Silenced Dialogue", Lisa Delpit discusses exactly that, and that she perceives it as a
troublesome problem in the today's education system. The author talks about how non-white
educators have spoken out about being left out of the conversation with regards to how to best
educate non-white children. Delpit has one theme that recurs throughout the chapter: "the
culture of power". "The culture of power" consists of five points: problems with power are put
forth into the classroom; there is a "culture of power" involving rules to participate in the power;
the rules reflect the rules of those who dominate that power; if you are not a participant, figuring
out the explicit rules of the dominating culture makes acquiring power more easy; and the more
power you have, the less aware you are of it. The author acknowledges the existence of the
culture of power, but is not a fan of it, as she prefers “a diversity of style” and that everyone
should be allowed to have their own language style. Delpit explains that this code of power must
be discussed with non-white students while keeping in mind the students’ individual differences.

Key Points
● “In thinking through these issues, I have found what I believe to be a connecting and
complex theme: what I have come to call ‘the culture of power,’ (Delpit, 1995, p. 24).
● “We must believe that people are rational beings, and therefore always act rationally. We
may not understand the rationales, but that in no way militates against the existence of
these rationales or reduces our responsibility to attempt to apprehend them,” (Delpit,
1995, 47).
Discussion Questions
● How should we as teachers begin this dialogue of the culture of power and explain it in
such a way that all students can understand it?
● How can we, as teachers, teach in such a way that makes sense to all language styles
and not just his/her own?
 

Chapter 3-Language Diversity and Learning

In chapter three Delpit acknowledge that students have different cultural backgrounds and
different accents or common voice flows. “Linguistically Diverse” students backgrounds allow
for minor differences in flow of one's voice. It delves into teachers using different tactics and
methods to appreciate diversity and linguistic pluralism. It also points out that it is the teacher’s
responsibility to accommodate the slight varieties in linguistic flow while still encouraging the
correctness in Standard English. A great example given was to listen to audio tapes from
people in different cultures. The last main idea was that it was important to teach ”language of
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economic success”. This means to teach kids the slang and differences in languages amongst
cultures.

Key Points
● “the linguistic form a student brings to school is intimately connected with loved ones,
community, and personal identity.” (Delpit, 1995, 53)

● “Inevitably, each speaker will make his or her own decision about the appropriate form to
use in any context” (Delpit, 1995, 54)

● “One of the most difficult tasks we face as human beings is communicating meaning
across our individual differences, a task confounded immeasurably when we attempt to
communicate across social lines, racial lines, cultural lines, or lines of unequal power.”
(Delpit, 1995, 66)

Discussion Questions
● Where do you draw the line between accepting and encouraging cultural linguistc
variances and “Standard English” correctness?

● In what ways will students use their knowledge of different linguistic patterns in everyday
life?
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Part II: Lessons from Home and Abroad

 
Chapter 4-The Vilis Tokples Schools of Papua New Guinea
In the beginning of this chapter, Delpit discusses Papua New Guinea, and their most well known
aspect of multilingualism. In the mid 1900s, there was a discussion on what language should be
used in schools. On one hand, it was important to teach the native language of the area as
there needs to be cohesion in rural communities, but on the other, it was important to teach
english as Papua New Guinea was a developing nation-state with a modern economy. English
won out in the end, even after independence. However by the late 1970s, most of the country’s
children were being taught in a village setting, where there was no need to learn english as it
was unlikely for children to hear english spoken outside of the classroom. But even though the
government could feel this tension between village life and modern needs, they continued to say
that english would be the primary language in schools. Finally, however, the policy was changed
in 1980, into the Vilis Tokples Pri-Skul scheme. The scheme had three goals- To teach students
to read, write, and count in their native language before teaching english; to give students the
foundations of an education in the customs of the community; and to teach students basic
preschool skills that would be needed to succeed in an english primary school. Because of this,
opinions in villages started to change. The belief became that english was important to have in
village life so that new information from books could be translated into the local dialect. By the
time Delpit left, the scheme was, “unquestionably alive and well” (Delpit, 1975, 90).

Key Points
● “On one hand, serving the needs of a developing nation-state with a modern exchange
economy, and, on the other, serving welfare, development, and cohesion of local
predominantly rural village” (Delpit, 1975, 79)
● “[The Vilis Tokples Pri-Skull Scheme] had three goals: to teach children to read, write,
and count in their native language before transferring to english literacy; to give children
the foundations of an education in the customs, culture, and acceptable behaviours of
their community; and to teach children the basic preschool skills needed for success in a
western sense in the english-medium primary school” (Delpit, 1975, 82)
Discussion Questions
● What would the Vilis Tokples Pri-Skul scheme look like if it was translated into a music
curriculum?
● Would the curriculum you describe in the last question be possible to implement in the
US? Why or Why not?
 

Chapter 5-“Hello, Grandfather”

In this chapter, Delpit makes several comparisons to Native Alaskans that she observed when
she lived in Alaska and blacks in urban areas. Both peoples tend to have more connected
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communities than white communities, and their main source of learning tends to be from
members of their families or communities, such as grandfathers, than from books. Delpit noticed
that both Native Alaskans and blacks tend to pay more attention to contextualization than whites
did. An example she gives is when she transferred from teaching at a majority white university
to a historically black university. In her lectures at the white university, the students almost
exclusively only paid attention to her words, but not other social cues, such as facial
expressions and body language. When she moved to a historically black university, she "had to
relearn quickly how to behave exactly as [she] had in [her] home community," as any difference
in body language, tone of voice, or body language could completely change how her students
interpreted her message, (Delpit, 1995, p. 98). The biggest take-away from this chapter is to be
mindful of how different people can contextualize a given situation.

Key Points
● “That, I believe, is what we need to bring to our schools: experiences that are so full of
the wonder of life, so full of connectedness, so embedded in the context of our
communities, so brilliant in the insights that we develop and the analyses that we devise,
that all of us, teachers and students alike, can learn to live lives that leave us truly
satisfied,” (Delpit, 1995, p. 104).
● “We risk failure in our educational reforms by ignoring the significance of human
connectedness and many communities of color, (Delpit, 1995, p. 95).
● “The Anglo teacher asked that the children attend to what he says, not what he does; the
Native American teacher, on the other hand, supports her words in a related physical
context. What gets done is at least as important as what gets said,” (Delpit, 1995, p. 98).
Discussion Questions
● Why do different cultures react to different social cues?
● How can teachers incorporate contextualization into all forms of learning and not just
lectures?
 

Chapter 6-Teachers’ Voices

In Chapter 6, Delpit goes into his personal experiences with black teachers and how there is a
lack of respect and a surplus of bias in the way students approach black teachers. Delpit
argues that one of the only ways to teach understanding and eliminate biases as much as
possible is to develop a training program to accommodate black teachers and teachers of
minorities. Delpit also talks about how we as educators should seek to diversify our faculty and
not set limitations and boundaries that second handedly discriminate against other races. Delpit
gives examples of different tactics and methods to use to help students see teachers the same
no matter the race. Lastly Delpit makes an important point that discrimination is the key word,
we want to allow teachers and students to stay true to their culture and their background while
allowing them to view each other the same no matter their race.

Key Points
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● ”The most common experience of bias at the university falls into the category of subtle
discrimination. “ (Delpit, 1995, 114)
● ”Because of the communication difficulties between instructors and students, many of
the students of color felt that they were not able to talk to many of their white professors.”
(Delpit, 1995, 122)
● ”Students of color are doubly disadvantaged in trying to get their voices heard,
particularly in the university classroom.” (Delpit, 1995, 109)

Discussion Questions
● What are ways we can teach students to recognize and act on subtle discrimination?
● What effect has the media had in racial discrimination?
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Part III: Looking to the Future

 
Chapter 7: Cross-cultural Confusions in Teacher Assessment
In this chapter, Delpit talks about the troubles assessors have when assessing teachers from
cultures they are not familiar with. Teachers are responsible for communicating with diverse
students, parents, and colleagues, however, assessors don’t seem to be responsible with
communicating and fairly assessing diverse teachers. Delpit early in the chapter that it is
important to create a new type of assessment that intended to minimise bias and highlight a
teacher’s strengths of diverse teachers. First it is important to consider what kinds of questions
one should ask- should we try and evaluate all teachers the same? Or should we see what good
teaching looks like in different cultures and audiences. Next it’s important to see what is
important to each culture or audience. For example, is it important to create a relationship first
with students before teaching content, or does this not matter? For African-American and Native
American teachers are often marked poorly on assessments as they are seen as using too
much emotion or lacking a professional attitude. Lastly, its important to understand how different
cultures communicate. For example, in the western culture, teachers tend to state the obvious.
Compare this to asian culture where it is seen as impolite to state the obvious. It is important for
assessors to learn how to interpret different teaching styles across cultures.

Key Points:
● “One of the most difficult tasks we face as human beings is trying to communicate
across our individual differences, trying to make sure that what we say to someone is
interpreted the way we intend” (Delpit, 1975, 135)
● “We cannot presume to develop any assessment that will be fair and equitable unless
great efforts are made to include the culturally influenced perspectives of diverse
communities.” (Delpit, 1975, 144)
● “Without knowledge about the cultural differences in timing and speech distribution within
different groups, assessors may unduly and unintentionally penalise diverse teacher
candidates” (Delpit, 1975, 146)
● “We all interpret behaviours information, and situations through our own cultural lenses”
(Delpit, 1975, 151)
Discussion Questions
● Delpit talks about the possibility of having teachers choose their assessors from an
approved list. What other details, other than race, should be listed to decide what
assessor is best for a teacher?
● In an example on page 143, the administration did not care that the boys behaviour
changed but were more concerned about the unprofessional manner of the teacher. Do
we value protocol in our education system on how to deal with events more than getting
the outcome that is most desired, no matter the protocol?
● On page 139, which teacher/content/student model do you agree with and why?
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Chapter 8: The Politics of Teaching Literate Discourse

In this chapter, Delpit covers her beliefs in teaching English to minority students. She believes
that teaching English to non-English-speaking students comes across as racist and it removes
meaning from the students’ primary language. She also explains that teaches do not take the
correct attitude towards teaching English to students learning it as a second language, as the
teachers come to believe that the students are unable to learn a different language than the
language that they use at home. This is not true, as students pick up different languages at
younger ages better than at older ages. Overall, this chapter covers the stigmas of teaching
English to students whose first language is not English.

Key Points
● “But the issues is not only whether students can learn a dominant secondary discourse
in the classroom. Perhaps the more significant issue is, should they attempt to do so?”
(Delpit, 1995, 160).
● “I hope here to speak to and help dispel that sense of paralysis and powerlessness and
suggest a path of commitment and action that not only frees teachers to teach what they
know, but to do so in a way that can transform and subsequently liberate their students,”
(Delpit, 1995, 152).
Discussion Questions
● How can teachers be sensitive to the needs of the students while also respecting their
cultural boundaries?
 

Chapter 9: Education in a Multicultural Society

This chapter honestly just is a conclusion more than anything. It talks about all of the major
concepts presented in the book. She outlines the different difficulties in teaching in a
multicultural environment. Some of the major concepts were; promoting diversity in faculty and
staff, stereotyping, and addressing culture and race in the classroom. Delpit acknowledges that
education is on a very slim scope and need to be broadened. Delpit also talks about using
african american and minority parents as resources rather than a liability.

Key Points
● ”I propose that a part of teacher education include bringing parents and community
members into the university classroom to tell prospective teachers (and their teacher
educators) what their concerns about education are, what they feel schools are doing
well or poorly for their children, and how they would like to see schooling changed.”
(Delpit, 1995, 179)
● ”I am not suggesting that excellent teachers of diverse students must be of their
students' ethnicity. “ (Delpit, 1995, 181)

Discussion Question
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● What ways can educators use parents of diverse backgrounds to their advantage?
● Why is it important to acknowledge that stereotypes exist?