Sunday, April 4, 2010
Delpit and Kosut Reflection
I was truly inspired by Delpit when I read her essay, and it made me rethink Gee. I am a firm believer in people being able to be more than what they were “born into”. My lived experience sort of touches on this topic. My cousin was born with cerebral palsy and is in a wheelchair and also suffers from some cognitive disabilities. There were times that I thought he would have a lot of troubles in school and probably have a difficult time obtaining a job. However, after 18 years, I see him growing up and becoming more than a person in a wheelchair struggling in life. His new best friend is a 24 year old man in a wheelchair as well with more severe cognitive disabilities. It warms my heart when I see that my cousin, Adam, looks up to his friend because his friend got a degree at a university and has a job as a lecturer speaking about being independent with a disability. Although both were born in middle class, I think it still has the same effect that no matter what “hand you are dealt”, you can achieve success in whatever you choose. My cousin has inspired me as a future teacher to take every challenge and face it and hopefully inspire my students to achieve what they desire. Although Gee does make some good points on conflicts of moving between discourses, I believe, like Delpit, that people can and will accomplish what they want with the right motivation (ie, a teacher who pushes them to achieve it).
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I agree completely. I think that people can accomplish anything if they are given the tools to achieve it and have the motivation to work hard. I do, however, think that Gee does make a good point about it being impossible to become fully fluent in a secondary discourse, especially when that discourse is learned primarily through formal education in a school setting. I don't necessarily think that it's impossible (that's much too strong of a word to be used for something like this - there are always exceptions) for someone to become fluent in a secondary discourse, I do think that it is very hard to overcome the discourse that they were born into. I'm glad to see you being open minded and willing to push your future students to success.
ReplyDeleteI understand your point, this was a kind of extreme example to this blog reflection, because I couldn't think of an example in my personal life of conflicts betweeen discourses. But I agree, it isn't impossible, just difficult at times.
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