Code Switching

I'm still getting used to blogging on here.

After this week's readings I find myself drawn back again and again to Lisa Delpit's chapter about her daughter Maya. I agree with her view on why it is so easy for kids to pick up additional dialects. When you can identify with a group because you are comfortable with them you relax and are open. You find them to be inviting and fun (Delpit, pg.39).
She also points out why this isn't the atmosphere in the classroom for so many. "Students rarely get to talk in classrooms. The percentage of talk by the teacher far outweighs that by all the students put together."(Delpit, pg. 40) Sadly it is the truth. Add that to teachers knowing little about their students and their background and you have a sorry combination. A mentor of mine used to have a sign in her classroom that said "No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care."
Teachers need to help students find motivation in the classroom and students aren't motivated if they don't feel that teachers care or understand them.
Delipt writes that once teachers internalize an understanding of certain facts about students particularly students of cultural backgrounds different from theirs "then it is much more difficult for them to judge their students' abilities solely on the basis of their language form." (Delpit, pg. 42)
And this isn't an easy task to undertake, but teachers need to do it and they need to believe in why they are doing it. Delpit points out that only once we are connected to our students and they are willing to connect with us do we hold a chance at getting them "to adopt our language form as one to be added to their own."(Delpit, pg. 48)