Caroline Almagno Blog2- The Silenced Dialogue Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People's Children

 For this Blog I am going to reflect on this reading. I was reading this and right at the beginning when they started talking about how the non-white teachers struggle with being heard I thought that the white teachers must make their job a lot harder than it has to be since the white teachers do not want to listen to what they have to say or think is right to improve the non-white students or the students who are a lower class than the other students. I was taken by surprise that the other teachers do not want to listen to the non-white teachers. One non-white teacher mentions that when she tries to speak she has to just hold it back because other wise she will get angry and she said "I just try to shut them out so I can hold my temper. You can only beat your head against a brick wall for so long before you draw blood"(1). This took me by surprise because to me I would think that all the faculty would want to work together to help the students. The writer talks about the problem of "culture of power" and there are 5 aspects of this. One of them is the "Issues of power are enacted in classroom" this aspect of the culture of power is that the teacher has the power over the students and schooling is preparing people for jobs, and the kind of job a person has determines his or her economic status which is power and that means that schooling is ultimately related to the power that people have. The second aspect is there are codes or ruled for participating in power and there is a culture of power. The codes and rules mentioned is relating to linguistic forms, communicative strategies and presentation of self. That is ways of talking or writing some ways of dressing and the ways of interaction. The third aspect is the rules of the culture of power are a reflection of the rules of the culture of those who have power. This third aspect is saying that success and institutions like school, work, places and it is predicted upon acquisition of the culture of those who have the power. Children who come from middle-class tend to do better in school than those from non-middle class homes because the culture of the school is based on the culture of the upper and makes middle classes - of those in power. The fourth is if you are not already a participant in the culture of power, being told explicitly the rules o that culture makes acquiring power easier. Which means that Members of any culture transmit information implicitly to co-members, however when it implicit codes are attempted across cultures, communication frequently breaks down. The fifth and last aspect is those with power are frequently least aware or least willing to acknowledge- its existence. Those with less power are often most aware of its existence. This means that they think that the white colleagues and instructors of those previously quoted did not perceive themselves to have power over the nonwhite speakers. however wither by virtue of their position, their number or their access to that particular code of power calling upon research to validate one's position, the white educators had the authority to establish what was to be considered the truth regardless of e opinions of the other people of color and the latter were well aware of the fact.

All of these aspects are part of the issue of the culture of power and why there are some people that don't say anything because the white colleagues won't listen to a non-white colleagues .