Prompt #5 Delpit

As culturally competent teachers we must both involve and work with the parents and community from which our students come from. As I have noticed, after many visits to the school, a child’s development in the classroom has a lot to do with what goes on at home with their parents.

The student that I tutor, for example, was talking to me the other day and mentioned that she was so tired. When I asked why she told me she was playing her Nintendo DS until 1 in the morning. I then asked her if her mom or dad got mad at her for staying up so late; which she replied to by telling me they don’t care and that she doesn’t have a bed time. For a second grader I think going to bed at 1 in the morning not only takes away from her time sleeping, it also has an impact on her presence in the classroom the next morning.

One major problem that we as teachers may run into is parents that simply don’t care about their child’s education. I personally have witnessed this problem on two separate occasions with the same student. The first time was as mentioned above and the second time was when Brandy was very sick but still went to school. She said she had both a headache and a stomach ache and it was clearly affecting her in the classroom because whenever Ms. King told her to get to work she would complain about either her head or her stomach. Finally, Ms. King decided to call Brandy’s mom and let her know what was going on and ask her to come pick up Brandy but she simply said “She’s fine, she’s probably just being lazy.” Ms. King attempted to continue talking on the phone but was stopped midsentence when Brandy’s mom hung up the phone.

I feel that the connection between teacher and parent just isn’t there, not because of Ms. King but because the parent simply doesn’t want to get involved. This reminded me strongly of Lisa Delpit because in her article “Silenced Dialogue” she talks about how one of the most important connections is between parent and teacher. This worries me because Brandy’s mom has the attitude that “as the teacher you should be able to help them while I sit back and watch.” However, this clearly isn’t the case, as Delpit says it’s a combination of both the parents and the teacher.

This is quite a difficult challenge address seeing as how the parent doesn’t see it to be a problem. One way that I as a teacher could address this issue is to attempt to speak to another guardian (older sibling, father etc.) of Brandy’s that may care a bit more and try to put education higher on Brandy’s list of things to do. Perhaps, this way the student won’t be going from a classroom where education is a priority to the home where education is an option.