My response to "Other People's Children" is going to be a fairly critical one. Through her writing, Ms. Delpit stumbled upon a few major pet peeves of mine: ignorance and shortsightedness. While I am sure Ms. Delpit researched her hypothesis well, she left out one very important element which would have surely impacted her point of view; actually teaching in the Bush. I, myself, have taught in Napakiak, Alaska, a fly-in village along the banks of the Kuskokwim River. My experiences there drastically changed my views of rural education and the many contributing factors which "make or break" educational effectiveness. I am always extremely irritated with people who tend to romanticize the reality of Bush life when they themselves have not actually lived there for any extended period of time. There is this tendency among the more affluent population to want to make reparations for exploitations past by justifying away behaviors today.

Delpit attempts to link the failures of traditional Alaskan public education on outsiders coming into villages and half hazardously educating Native children without any regard to custom or culture. This is a great fallacy for many reasons. Firstly, one of the greatest obstacles to achieving literacy in Alaskan villages today is not the student's focus on context. It's the ongoing movement that all children must first and foremost become fluent through the public schools in their native languages. For example, in the Lower Kuskokwim School district, the first critical years where connectedness of language takes hold is wasted on teaching kids Yup'ik that the parents could teach at home if they so choose. Instead, the kids are dropped into a Yup'ik Immersion Program where the teachers are not qualified. (By qualified, I am referred to the fact that the teachers had not graduated high school, were not fluent in Yup'ik themselves, and knew very little about educational process or strategies.) How can I say such politically incorrect things? Easily. I lived there and supervised the Yup'ik Immersion Program unlike Ms. Delpit.

Ms. Delpit does not ever address sociological concerns of wide-spread alcohol abuse, child abuse and neglect, poverty, drug/inhalant abuse, or the lack of opportunities in village communities. How one can possibly criticize a teacher's inability to reach their students without fully confronting those issues is absolutely confounding to me. Perhaps had Ms. Delpit spent less time talking to Grandfather Mountain she might have had time to brush up on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

Another constant source of confusion was Delpit's constant reference to her own experiences as a child within her African-American culture. Comparing rural Native Alaskans' cultural experiences to urban African-American cultural experiences is like comparing the proverbial apples and oranges. Both cultures are fantastically rich in perspective but being the receiving end of racism is not a leveling factor. Delpit repeatedly pointed to her own moments of revelation such as her mother stating Romper Room was only for white children. How does she parallel that moment of clarity with children who did not have television and were struggling with the daily challenges of subsistence living? How about the blind, generalized statement that at "white" universities that what you said was more important than how you said it? Delpit clearly has lead a sheltered existence is she honestly believes Caucasian people cannot read her body language or are not equally as offended at her subtly "rolling" her eyes.

Delpit comments towards the end of her paper, "Unfortunately, most Native Alaskan children do not have Native Alaskan teachers...". I would challenge Ms. Delbit to look deeper at that statement. Why is that? Are their cultural influences discouraging it from happening? I also have a story to share that a close Yup'ik friend told me while I lived in Napakiak.
A couple of years ago we had a girl go to school here. She was so smart. Everyone told her how lucky she was to be so smart. The girl studied hard and stayed in school. The year she was to graduate her teacher told her wonderful news. She had won a scholarship to go to college! When her grandfather, an elder, heard this news he did not celebrate with her. As the village elder, he refused to allow her to go. He said because she was so smart she was needed in her village. This wise old man could not see past the nose on his face.

Life in the village is not nearly as cut and dry as it seems. The race card is any easy one to play and often, a valid one. However, people are multifaceted and to ignore the factors in their lives which make each culture's experiences unique is a disservice to all. I wonder if Ms. Delpit is rolling her eyes now?