baileybr's post, regarding Q #2

Acceptance of cultures other than the culture of power is at the heart of Lisa Delpit's article, but it is only a starting point to effectively teaching minority and poor children to function in the mainstream culture. My own childhood is a good example; when I was little, I lived near my father's mother's relatives in North Dakota, with our extended family as the community I interacted with. They are Metis, and have a very different culture, language and world view than mainstream society. When my mother moved us to Oregon, I didn't understand my other relatives' reasons for doing things the way they did, and when I went to school, I looked pretty much like the white kids, so my teachers assumed I was "being difficult" on purpose when I didn't understand some of their directions and tried to do some things in different ways. I never understood why I couldn't make them happy, and my mother might have assumed I was enculturated by her alone, so she believed I really was just trying to be difficult, even though I was enthusiastic about the subjects I could do well.

Bridgett Bailey