The speech and the expectation

Reading this chapters from Finn's book, Literacy with an attitude, brought up couple things we already talked about.

First, when he describes that teachers deal, talk, and approach the students differently according to what school they teach,  it made me think about Delpit book, Other People's children, how Lisa Delpit mentioned the differences on speech between middle-class and working class mothers and teachers. I remember reading about this on her book and I was tempting to believe this was a thing. For some reason I can't believe the way you talk to a child is extremely influenced by "how much money" his/her family has. I like to believe that speech from and to are different of personalities.

Connecting my thought, I remember the podcast we heard "The problem we all live with" and how Nikole Hannah Jones talk about integration and what it does "gets black kids in the same facilities as white kids, and therefore it gets them access to the same things that those kids get-- quality teachers and quality instruction". She and other articles I quote on my last blog, mentioned how beneficial integration is and improved all abilities to learn.

However, for some reason my mind keep bringing me back with these generalization about speech. If there is an integration then, which type of speech the teacher would use to talk to their students? Is the problem with how parents learn how to talk to their kids (as Delpit mention) which forces them to have a more authoritative way? or are the teachers comfortable with that speech because it doesn't require flexibility and minimize the risk of losing control?!

The second part about Finn's book that I would like to point out is: expectations. When we are writing the blog about youth, the video I shared of a girl who talked about adults treating youth with respec and having a reciprocal relationship. She also mentioned that children's audacity to imagine helps to push the boundaries of possibilities. She added "we (the children) love challenges, but when expectations are low we will sink to them". So why setting so many low expectations for low class children?! In the same video, she said "if you don't trust someone you place restrictions on them". Why we don't trust the low class children to think? to be brilliant on their way? "The fear was the literacy would make the rabble aware of the injustice they suffered, and they would attempt to overthrow the ruling class violently and take its place" (Finn, preface).

I will finish with two personal stories. I remember on my senior year, I got a scholarship to study in one of the most (if not the most) influential school in my city. Before that, I was in a very low class private school. One of my first observation was how many of the students would read. I had never seen this before. So many of my classmates would bring books, even the ones that would be considered troublemakers and not that smart. All of them had the culture of reading constantly. I used to read some, but definitely not that much, my sister was the book girl. Of course, what happened? That year I read more books than probably my whole life. Every week or month my friends would trade books and talk about them. The reading would go from "Gossip Girls" to "Christiane F. too much too young- true story".

In the last one, this past weekend my girls were playing a superb soccer. One of these soccers you can see professional players playing. Oh my God, after losing so many games and dealing with so many parents complaining. After spending hours emailing them, explaining, reading, explaining, editing videos to explain, talk to the girls, making them understand... we finally GOT IT! One of my coworkers who coaches the first team in the same age group (I coach the second) says "I would love to do this with my kids, but they refuse to learn"... "They are lazy. I hate to categorize them, but they are lazy (...) Because they children in this school don't know anything about the U.S. so you can't teach them much" (pg. 11).