The Skin That We Speak: Thoughts on Language and Culture in the Classroom [Hardcover]

Lisa D. Delpit (Editor), Joanne Kilgour Dowdy (Editor), Lisa Delpit (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2002

From the MacArthur Award- winning author of Other People's Children, a collection that gets to the heart of the relationship between language and power in the classroom. A powerful and sophisticated reminder that words can indeed do as much damage as sticks and stones, The Skin That We Speak takes the discussion of language in the classroom beyond the highly charged war of idioms—in which "English only" really means standard English only—and presents today's teachers with a thoughtful exploration of the varieties of English we speak and the layers of politics, power, and identity those varieties carry. Edited by MacArthur Fellow and bestselling education author Lisa Delpit and education professor Joanne Dowdy, the book includes an extended new piece by Delpit herself, as well as groundbreaking new work by Herbert Kohl and Gloria Ladson-Billings, and classics by Asa Hilliard and Jules Henry. Award-winning educator Victoria Purcell-Gates looks at language-based assumptions about poor Appalachians and Schuaib Meacham follows the very different fates of two bright young African American teachers-in-training, one of whom speaks "standard" English and one of whom speaks in school as she has been taught to speak at home. As children are written off in our schools because they do not speak formal English, and when class- and race-biased language used to describe those children determines their fate, The Skin That We Speak offers a cutting-edge look at crucial educational issues.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

These 13 essays by teachers offer firsthand perspectives on the provocative issue of dialects in the classroom a controversy sparked by the notorious ebonics debates of the 1990s. Delpit (Other People's Children) and Dowdy, education professors at Georgia State University, have gathered both new and previously published pieces by distinguished educators like Herbert Kohl, Jules Henry and Victoria Purcell-Gates. The collection opens with personal essays by two teachers Dowdy, schooled in Trinidad, and Ernie Smith, from South Central Los Angeles who describe their own struggles to come to terms with the formal language of school and the nonvalidated language of home. Other essays move into the classroom, looking at how different teachers address questions of dialect and how students experience their instruction. The classrooms described range from kindergarten to high school to teacher training. While most of the essays focus on African-American language, there's also a piece by Michael Stubbs on students with working-class English or Scottish vernaculars in the U.K. and an article by Purcell-Gates that follows a poor white Appalachian boy in the public school system. Although these lucid, accessible pieces speak most directly to teachers and would-be teachers (including specific suggestions for instruction), the issues are broad enough to attract more general readers, especially parents concerned about questions of power and control in public schools.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

When Delpit's 11-year-old daughter transferred from a small private school as its only African American female to a predominantly African American public-charter school, she switched dramatically from Standard to African American English. For her part, Dowdy was forced by her mother to imitate British English while growing up in Trinidad. Using these experiences as context, MacArthur award winner Delpit (Other People's Children; Ctr. for the Study of Adult Literacy; Georgia State Univ.) and Dowdy (Georgia State Univ., Atlanta) have gathered a series of essays exploring the link between language and identity and between language and cultural conflict. The essays written by Herbert Kohl, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Asa Hilliard, and Victoria Purcell-Gates, to name a few differ dramatically in approach and opinion, so it is hard to say what case they present regarding the use of Ebonics (or African American English) in schools. They are also divergent in quality; some include superficial comments that would not stand up under scrutiny, while others are better developed and include more cohesive remarks. Finally, the lack of references for most of the reminiscences and the absence of works beyond 1997 in the two-page selected reference list may limit the audience. Libraries that already own the more coherent and convincing Voices from the Language Classroom (edited by Kathleen M. Bailey & David Nunan) and Ian Tudor's The Dynamics of the Language Classroom both from Cambridge may skip this title, as it contributes little to this important debate. Leroy Hommerding, Fort Myers Beach P.L. Dist., FL
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: New Press (February 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565845447
• ISBN-13: 978-1565845442
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #953,068 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

MacArthur "genius" award winner Lisa Delpit's article on "Other People's Children" for Harvard Magazine in the 1990s was the single most requested reprint in the magazine's history; Harvard School of Education gave her its award for Outstanding Contribution to Education. She is now the Felton G. Clark Professor of Education at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where she lives.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Language and the Classroom, March 30, 2005

By 

Tamara Young "Tamara" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Skin That We Speak: Thoughts on Language and Culture in the Classroom (Paperback)

The Skin That We Speak, by Lisa Delpit, is a collection of essays written by various authors about the impact of language in the classroom. The author identifies the purpose of the book as the exploration of "the links between language and identity, between language and political hierarchy, and between language and cultural conflict." The book is divided into three sections starting with an individual inward look into languages, a examination of the consequences of language attitudes in the classroom, and finishes with a look at the language of teachers and what they need to know to become effective in the classroom. The author titled the book, The Skin That We Speak, because "just as our skin provides us with a means to negotiate our interactions with the world - our language plays an equally pivotal role in determining who we are." For each of us our language becomes intimately connected to our identity.
Overall, this was a good book. Because it was composed of so many short essays, it made the book easy to divide into sections and read it quickly. The essays were all very well written and easy to understand the authors' purpose and its connection to the book. IT contained a nice mixture of personal stories, research, and even some ideas that could be directly used in the classroom. I think that it would be an excellent book for all teachers, new and old, to read. It opened my eyes to all the different aspects of the English language that I never realized existed and how those aspects can affect all students in my classroom. It has caused me to reflect on how I use language in my classroom on a daily basis. This book has allowed me to realize how all students can struggle with language issues in so many different ways, and how we need to be sensitive to it as classroom teachers.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Showing your race/sexual orientation/socioeconomic status/culture by the way you speak., September 30, 2005

By 

B (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Skin That We Speak: Thoughts on Language and Culture in the Classroom (Hardcover)

An interesting look at differences in language -- accent, vocabulary, and dialect. This book explores the judgements that people, even young children, make when they hear a voice. Well-rounded and very pragmatic about solutions. Doesn't just say 'Oh, people shouldn't judge each other.' Because, like it or not, we do.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and a great read!, October 10, 2009

By 

Lisa Fontes "Lover of intelligent, well-writt... (New England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Skin That We Speak: Thoughts on Language and Culture in the Classroom (Paperback)

As someone who is interested in issues of culture and language, I gobbled up this book like candy!It is terrificly fun to read--as interesting and engaging as a novel. Whil most of the anecdotes recounted in this book concern the classroom, I think it is of equal interest to people who work with others of diverse backgrounds in medical, mental health, and other settings. I have recommended this to undergrads, grad students, professors and friends--they all love it!