Blog Post #4

[Teachers] should recognize that the linguistic form a student brings to school is intimately connected with loved one’s community, and personal identity. To suggest that this form is “wrong” or, even worse, ignorant, is to suggest that something is wrong with the student and his or her family.

I agree with the message that Lisa Delpit is trying to get across.  Teachers should be able to recognize that their students have lives outside the classroom that could be drastically different from the ones that the teachers present in class.  Teachers should not hold the students responsible for the way they have learned to speak.  There is nothing wrong with a student who speaks in the way they were brought up to speak.  If a student has an accent there is no way to control this, and if a student is from a foreign country and English is not their first language then some things will be misspoken by them.  A teacher would be the ignorant one to suggest a student is wrong for not speaking in clear English.  There would be nothing wrong with the student and especially not the family.  Students are a product of their environment, students learn how to talk from their parents and loved ones and there is no way for them to control this.  If a teacher tells a student to "talk right" or "speak English" then they could potentially damage the student.  The student would think that everything that they learned from their parents would be wrong just because a teacher does not take the time to embrace their students cultures and try to adapt with them instead of forcing them to adapt for them.