Delpit Quotes & Sayings

When one 'we' gets to determine standards for all 'we's' then some 'we's' are in trouble. — Lisa Delpit

In order to teach you, I must know you. — Lisa Delpit

Progressive white teachers seem to say to their black students 'Let me help you find your voice. I promise not to criticize one note as you search for your song'. But the black teachers say 'I've heard your song loud and clear. Now I want to teach you to harmonize with the rest of the world. — Lisa Delpit

We do not really see through our eyes or hear through our ears, but through our beliefs. To put our beliefs on hold is to cease to exist as ourselves for a moment
and that is not easy ... but it is the only way to learn what it might feel like to be someone else and the only way to start the dialogue. — Lisa Delpit

In other words, every human brain has the built-in capacity to become, over time, what we demand of it. No ability is fixed. Practice can even change the brain. — Lisa Delpit

As a result of this "racism smog," many of our children have internalized all of the negative stereotypes inherent in our society's views of black people. A student teacher at Southern University told me that she didn't know what to say when an African American eighth-grade boy came up to her and said, "They made us the slaves because we were dumb, right, Ms. Summers?" Working with a middle schooler on her math, a tutor was admonished, "Why you trying to teach me to multiply, Ms. L.? Black people don't multiply; black people just add and subtract. White people multiply. — Lisa Delpit

Others burn out quickly from carrying the weight of salvation that has been piled upon their young shoulders. Several young Teach for America recruits have told me that their colleagues frequently run back home or off to graduate school with the belief that the children they went to save are unsalvageable - not because of poor teaching but because of their students' parents, families, or communities. — Lisa Delpit

There is no achievement gap at birth. — Lisa Delpit

A second reason African American students are not excelling is that we have all been affected by our society's deeply ingrained bias of equating blackness with inferiority. — Lisa Delpit

Those with power are frequently least aware of
or least willing to acknowledge
its existence [and] those with less power are often most aware of its existence. — Lisa Delpit

If the curriculum we use to teach our children does not connect in positive ways to the culture young people bring to school, it is doomed to failure. — Lisa Delpit