Pecha Kucha

Pecha Kucha

  My Delpit experience came a couple of weeks ago when Alan Shaun Feinstein Elementary School had a substitute principle. There also happened to be a substitute teacher in my class as well. The class was disrupted by the principle when he barged into class with a student who had been in trouble from an event before school. He came into the fifth grade classroom and proceeded to yell at the entire class as if they had all done something wrong. He then asked a confusing question. He asked the class "are any of you in kindergarten or first grade?" One of the girls in the corner of the class reluctantly raised her hand, she looked as if she may not have understood the question. He threw her out of class immediately. Delpit would have said that student didn't have to get in trouble, had the principle simply made a statement instead of asking a passive question the students would have clearly understood what he expected.

   Collier stated that we should honor the heritage of our students. My class room is 100% black or hispanic. When I walked into the classroom the bookshelves grabbed my interest immediately. The standard books are present, like the story of George Washington and Eleanor Roosevelt, but the rest of the books are about Harriet Tubman, Barrack Obama, and other black or hispanic historical figures. Mr. Shelton also makes a point of using black and hispanic names in his math problems which makes the students feel more normal and less like a minority.

  Mcintosh discusses how whiteness is an unrecognized privilege. In the inner city schools such as Alan Shawn Feinstein Elementary School white privilege is obvious. I am currently volunteering in a class that doesn't have a single white child in it. However the teacher is a white male, the principle is a white female, the police officer in front of the school is a white male. Any individual of power in the school is white. I have not met most of the staff in the school but from what I've seen all but one of the teachers are white. However the office staff, crossing guards and the cafeteria staff all mostly hispanic. Clearly the school system doesn't think that the minority students would learn more from a minority teacher, or even just a Spanish or Portuguese speaking teacher.