Cultural Conflict in the Classroom

Delpits recounts a exchange between a student and a teacher while a student is reading.  The teacher consistently corrects any dialect-related mistakes the child makes. Delpit notes, “The lesson continues in such a fashion, the teacher proceeding to correct the student’s dialect-influenced pronunciations and grammar while ignoring the fact that the student had to have comprehended the sentence in order to translate it into her own dialect” (59). Is, in fact, the ability of the student to put the reading into his/her own words (to ‘translate’ the words into the dialect that he/she speaks) a greater assessment of understanding? Is being able to put a reading into your own words not the basis of understanding it? In this situation, is that not precisely what the child was doing? Do you think this is a clear marker of people believing that someone who speaks non-standard English is not as intelligent?  Delpit also points out that there is no evidence that speaking in a certain dialect hinders a child’s ability to read but often makes a teacher believe that the student is less intelligent. Is there a difference between how people speak in a classroom environment and at home or amongst friends? Does speaking differently in different situations make you less intelligent or is being able to speak/understand language in different ways a sign of being intelligent and literate in your surroundings? Just because the student is not speaking standard English, does that make him/her less literate? Must we all speak standard English to be considered literate?