Second Objection to Gee

Second Objection to Gee

As stated in the first objection, Delpit originally agreed with most of Gee’s work before she stepped back and looked at it from a different standpoint. Delpit’s second objection to Gee was that an “individual who is born into one discourse with one set of values may experience conflicts when attempting to acquire another discourse”(Delpit 547). This quote is saying that if you are not born within a discourse which you want to be born in then you will have an extremely difficult and conflicting time transitioning into another discourse. Gee is claiming that switching discourses is impossible. “The sensitive teacher might well conclude that even to try to teach a dominant discourse to students who are members of a non-dominant oppressed group would be to oppress them further”(Delpit 547). This quote from Delpit is claiming that some teachers would not even attempt to teach a dominant discourse to a non-dominant discourse person because it isn’t believed that they will understand it, only further oppressing them and making them more outright “inferior”. Jordan would agree with Delpit here as she believes it is important for teachers to teach based on relevance rather than what is stereotypically right. When Delpit discussed her debate on whether or not she was capable of teaching black English, she claims “the best I could say is ‘I’ll try'” (Jordan 365). I see this quote being fit for the discussion between Gee and Delpit because unlike Gee claiming that it would be a waste of time to teach a discourse that is inferior, Jordan does what Delpit claims and still goes on to teach something that may not be historically important in education, but is important nonetheless.

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