"Multiplication Is for White People" : Raising Expectations for Other People’s Children ISBN: 9781595587701 Platform/Publisher: Ebook Central / New Press, The Digital rights:Users: Unlimited; Printing: Limited; Download: 7 Days at a Time Subjects: Education;
A decade after her award-winning Other People's Children: Cultural Conflicts in the Classroom, MacArthur Fellow and education professor Delpit, her passion unassuaged, takes a fresh look at education practice and theory with a sharp focus on "children marginalized either by income-level or ethnicity-or both." Exploring four stages (infants, early childhood, adolescents, college age), her book is full of firsthand observations of teachers and students in multiple settings, most commonly the inner-city, and trenchant anecdotal accounts of her own experiences with her daughter's "often difficult travels through school," some predominantly white, some predominantly black. Delpit's assessments of Teach for America and No Child Left Behind, while respectful of the goals, are critical of both the practices and the results. In reviewing current scholarship, she offers jargon-free explanations of current terminology (like "stereotype threat" and "microaggression"), and clarifies arguments with graphs and statistics. This is very much a book for teachers and education professionals, but anyone concerned with the state of American schooling will find Delpit's smooth blending of the personal, the professional, and the political appealing and illuminating. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Lisa Delpit is an African American and a lifelong teacher who promotes the idea of having "visions of success for poor children and children of color." Her 1995 book, Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom, discusses how to better train teachers by using nine specific factors, among them understanding the brilliance of the children, recognizing and building on the children's strengths, using familiar metaphors and experiences from the children's world, and nurturing a sense of connection to a greater community, of which they are a part.
Delpit's father owned a restaurant and her mother taught high school. Her parents set an example by providing free meals for local elementary school children who could not afford to buy lunch. This fostered in Delpit a commitment to helping others.
Delpit was one of the first African Americans to attend desegregated Catholic schools in Louisiana. She also attended Antioch College in Ohio and Harvard University. She has worked at the University of Alaska, Morgan State University's Urban Institute for Urban Research, and Georgia State University, holding the Benjamin E. Mays Chair of Urban Educational Leadership.
Delpit received a MacArthur Award for Outstanding Contribution to Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1993.
