Other People’s Children

 “To do so takes a very special kind of listening, listening that requires not only open eyes and ears, but open hearts and minds. We do not really see through our eyes and here through our ears, but through our beliefs.”

 (p. 46)

 

What do you feel the author wants us to think about, consider?

 What I believe Lisa Delpit is trying to get us to consider is the fact that we as educators need to take a different and sometimes uncomfotables approach when listening and understanding each student and family that we have in our classroom. The idea that we don’t actually listen with our ears and see with our eyes, but with our beliefs is a very poignant and very true statement when you stop to think about it. We here and see what we want to, what makes sense, and what is easiest for us to interpret and relate too. However, Delpit wants to challenge our minds as teachers in order for us to think outside of our own comfortable truths and beliefs.

 

Would anything from what you've currently read influence your future teaching? Discuss.

 This reading will absolutely have an influence on my future teaching. The ideas that she brings up and the challenges that she discusses are not all necessarily new ideas that I had never considered. But in reading this I have received a new perspective on how to understand and teach children of color and of minority. This is something that I as a teacher fear. Because I am a white female and do not share many of the same experiences that people of color have to deal with in our world, I feel that I won’t be taken seriously (not that I cannot understand that, I do!) But I want learn how to relate and truly get in touch with every student in my classroom, and I am afraid of failing at that. Lisa’s book though gave me hope and courage in myself that I will definitely take with me into the classroom.