Throughout the day, the student is expected to follow instructions, listen to teachers and ask permission to drink water and go to the bathroom.  Schedules are highly regimented, with blocks of instruction for math, language arts, science and social studies.  In a sense, teachers hold a lot of power in the classroom, but how can they do it in a way that doesn’t disempower students?  While studying the art of classroom management, I read The Silenced Dialogue: Power & Pedagogy in Educating Other People’s Children, written by Lisa Delpit and published by the Harvard Educational Review in 1988.  It was an article written over 30 years ago, yet it seemed like it could have been written yesterday.

In the article, Lisa, a Black educator, recounts her frustration, coupled with other Black and Brown educators, around not being heard by school administrations around the efficacy of instructional techniques developed largely by White middle-class educators.  These curriculum and techniques were not working for urban Black and Brown students.  For example, Lisa tells a story about a White teacher that asked all of her students to correct each other’s papers.  I’m assuming that the teacher hadn’t solidified editing techniques with the class, because the black students in her class were left with the impression that she wasn’t teaching anything!  In some cases, black students are so frustrated with this style of instruction that they drop out.  On the other hand, this student’s friend was in a Black teacher’s class, and the Black teacher taught in a more structured and explicit way, explaining sentence structures.  What this highlights is the difference in communication style where a White educator might say “Where do you think this garbage should go” and a Black educator would say, “Put that garbage in the trash can.”

My favorite section of Lisa’s article is about the experience of a Native American teacher of students who live in a small, rural community and how she teaches her students the differences between “Village English” and “Formal English.”  Knowing that her students may one day move to larger metropolitan areas and work with others from different cultural backgrounds, she shares with her students that not everyone can understand “Village English” and makes the learning of “Formal English” fun by staging a formal meal, where students can practice their “Formal English.”  In this way, the teacher is explicitly teaching her students how to best communicate with the wider community and empowers them with an awareness of different language norms.  She doesn’t pass a judgment that “Village English” is bad, and “Formal English” is good.  She simply presents the difference and that using one instead of another can be for certain situations and not others.  Going back to the formal meal example, the teacher also organized a picnic for her students, where only “Village English” would be spoken.  That way, students had two fun activities with different styles of English.

My two key takeaways from this article are:

• Power dynamics exist in the classroom, whether it is recognized or not.  Those in power might not realize the cultural norms associated with how power is manifested.
• For students with different cultural backgrounds, the best way to learn about these norms is through explicit instruction.

For students who are struggling with the power dynamics in the classroom, here are a few ways teachers can help:

• Teach students to advocate for themselves.  If one method of instruction is not working, ask “Can you explain this in a different way?” or “Can you draw this in a diagram?”
• Form a diverse teacher tribe, where you can pick up classroom management techniques from others.  How do other educators from different cultural backgrounds relate to their students?
• Check in with students using simple hand gestures like Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down.  Students shouldn’t be the only ones being evaluated, teachers should too!

As an aspiring teacher, I hope to be more aware of how power manifests itself in the classroom and help students to feel empowered in the classroom, because only then will they be fully engaged in their own education.