We should all work to recognize issues of language and power outside of the classroom

4. If you are not planning to teach, how do issues of language and power apply in the field you plan to enter? Does Delpit offer relevant insight?

I'm not planning to teach, and I'll admit that this article has me a little frustrated. At first, I had trouble seeing the relevance of it in a course on grammar. I'm here to learn about nouns and verbs, right? This really seemed like something of greater importance to the College of Education. The more I thought about it though, this isn't just an issue that teachers should handle. I was first introduced to this broad conversation on language and power last term, in a class on literacy. Just last term, and I'm two terms away from a college degree. How is it that something that's obviously continued to be so important (Delpit's article is more than a few years old) continued to be ignored in public education? I agree with Delpit in that a dialogue about language and power needs to start earlier for students, but I also think that we should work on that as a society. I plan to go into editing and publishing after I graduate, and I think Delpit's article and the surrounding discussion on language and power will be helpful in the long run. It's something that I hope to be able to keep in mind as I work with the writing and language of the publishing field.
-Samantha Hudson