Annotations:
“Does it not smack racism or classism to demand that these students put aside the language of their homes and communities and adopt a discourse that is not only alien, but that has often been instrumental in furthering their oppression?”
In connection specifically to Jordan, her class was exactly like this. Although her class had grown up speaking “Black English” throughout their schooling and their home life it was beaten into them, sometimes literally, that you need to speak and write in “Standard English” if you wanted to be respected.
“–: instead of being locked into ‘your place’ by your genes, your are now locked hopelessly into a lower-class status by your discourse.”
This was one of my problems with Gee’s description of Discourses. It seemed as though whatever Discourse you were born into you were stuck in, which in our world isn’t always true, and just the idea may limit people from trying if they think that they’re meant to stay where they start. Being born poor shouldn’t be a death sentence, it should be greater motivation.
“Both attributed their ability to transcend the circumstances into which they were born directly to their teachers. First, their teachers successfully taught what Gee calls the ‘superficial features’ of middle-class discourse-”
According to Gee these superficial features of Discourse should not, and normally cannot be taught in a classroom. But according to this retelling, that is exactly what happened. In this case Gee again limited what teachers can give to their students. Throughout Gee’s writing he explains that these features can only be learned by practice, and says to resist teaching/learning it in a classroom.
“Acquiring the ability to function in a dominant discourse need not mean that one must reject one’s home identity and values, for discourses are not static, but are shaped–”
I think for Jordan she would fully agree with this concept. You do not have to ignore your home discourse in order to learn new ones. Although for Gee he may say that our home discourse cannot help us learn new discourse, therefore pushing us further from what we know, while Delpit and Jordan would disagree. Primary Discourse is important all through life, and personally I do not agree with Gee’s concept about not being able to use it to learn as well as you can by strictly mastering another discourse.
First Objection: “First is Gee’s notion that people who have not been born into dominant discourses will find it exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to acquire such a discourse.”
In Gee’s article he made it clear people of minority would have a harder, or impossible, time trying to learn the dominant discourses that existed in the world.
Delpit directly addresses this in one of the annotations I did above, “–: instead of being locked into ‘your place’ by your genes, your are now locked hopelessly into a lower-class status by your discourse.” When Gee says that people cannot learn dominant discourses they are not born into indirectly limits anyone that isn’t his idea of dominant. There shouldn’t be a dominate discourse in general, and that is why Delpit and her colleagues do not agree with it.
For Jordan she would probably side with Delpit on this do to her direct experience with classes of people that to Gee would be minorities. In Jordan’s text she says, “Nonetheless, White standards of English persist, supreme and unquestioned, in these United States. Despite our multi-lingual population–” which begs the question, why would she support a statement that says minorities will not learn the dominant discourses needed in a so called “Standard English” country? For this reason I believe that Jordan would have disagreed in the same way Delpit did with this objection.
Second Objection: “The second aspect of Gee’s work that I find troubling suggests that an individual who was born into one discourse with one set of values may experience major conflicts when attempting to acquire another discourse with another set of values.”
According to Gee if someone is born into one discourse along their life they will have trouble with others who were born into other discourses. In all honesty, this isn’t always true, and that is why Delpit objected it.
Delpit explains why this could be an issue when she says “The sensitive teacher might well conclude that even to try to teach a dominant discourse to students who are members of a nondominant oppressed group would be to oppress them further.” Students deserve the same lessons no matter what “Discourse” they grow up in, that is why there isn’t separation of economic classes in public school. To say that they cannot be taught is to lower their chances of moving forward in this world. Delpit’s quote specifically explains a teacher that may be too squeamish about the topic, and might completely avoid teaching a group pertinent information in order to not offend and oppress them more, but by not teaching them the teacher is doing specifically that.
In Jordan’s article she disagreed with this exact objection, and gave a specific moment. When her students originally read The Color Purple they criticized it for it’s language in the same language as the book, “I listened to what they wanted to say and silently marveled at the similarities between their casual speech patterns and Alice Walker’s written version of Black English . . . I wanted not to make them self-conscious about their own spoken language – not while they clearly felt it was ‘wrong.'” In this case Jordan and Delpit would agree that what Gee says here definitely is not always true, and that it again limits the students from their full potential if they are taught to avoid their Primary Discourse.
