“Delpit’s work demands recognition that simply going to school and following the explicit rules of schooling are not enough for students from marginalized communities to benefit from the rewards of educational achievement. As Carter (2008) has noted, one of the real dangers in not acknowledging how school success is culturally laden is that the entire burden for lack of achievement or school success gets placed on children’s supposed innate abilities and/or motivation” – Doucet
My reflection: Sometimes parents, especially Asian immigrant parents, mistakenly believe that getting good grades on school work is the symbol of success of a student. They care more about their children’s GPA and/or if they are following school rules than their social lives. I read a news report about Ivy League colleges admissions preferences. According to an admissions officer, most Asian students have excellent academic achievement, but they do not have outstanding extracurricular activities and achievements. An ESL teacher at elementary school suggests parents to talk more with their children and to explore the outside world with them. Increasing knowledge is helpful to children’s English development. Only when children developed their own ideas and thoughts can they increase their language proficiency. ESL teachers teach children to use English to express their thoughts, but we can not teach them to express the “idea” that they do not have in English. Most Asian parents only think that children should absorb knowledge at school. The process of learning is to draw a colorful picture from a piece of white paper. But they forget that students should firstly sketch a draft under their parents’ lead and then the teachers help them to color the picture.