Delpit Blog-Lauren Miller

Delpit's response to Gee's essay not only cleared a lot of Gee's essay up for me, but showed me how much more optimistically Delpit looks at this idea of children, especially children of color. Gee believes that if you're born into a discourse you stay there for life. Delpit on the other hand sees that children can succeed despite what social class or race they're born into.
One quote in this article made me agree with Delpit. "...Gee's argument suggests a dangerous kind of determinism as flagrant as that espoused by the geneticists: instead of being locked into "your place" by your genes, you are now locked hopelessly into a lower class status by your discourse. Clearly, such a stance can leave a teacher feeling powerless to effect change, and a student feeling hopeless that change can occur" (546). I may just be an optimist, but if I did not think that I could change children in any way, I wouldn't want to be a teacher. Despite all the challenges these kids face, I truly do believe that they can get out of their non-dominant discourses. We would not have so many success stories or teachers even wanting to teach if this wasn't true.
The story that Delpit shares of Clarence Cunningham and his class of thirty-five also stands out for me as proof that Gee’s theory does not hold true in many cases. “He attended an all-African American elementary school in the 1930s in a community where the parents of most of the children never even considered attending high school. There is a school picture hanging in his den of a ragtag group of about thirty-five children…Almost all of the children in the photo eventually left their home community, and almost all achieved impressive goals in life” (548).
I grew up in an almost all white community, and most of the black kids I went to school with were adopted by white parents. The two girls and one black kid I personally knew all were. Because of this my personal experiences related to this are limited, but two out of the three of them are enrolled in college right now. One got a scholarship to run track at Steven’s Point and the other one goes here. However, the differences between these two people and the children in Delpit’s article are vastly different. These people grew up in a community that is 98% white and grew up with white parents. They were raised in a small town and our high school pushed us to go to college; it almost seemed like the only option. Because of all the good experiences I have had in school and the horrific scary contrast some other schools are to mine, I want to help. I want to give these young, sometimes hopeless children a chance at what I was just given. I know it’s not humanly possible for me to help many of them, but if I can give a few of them a chance at getting out of their non-dominant discourse and achieve success it’s worth it for me.