The critical text which accompanies your primary reading for the week explores ways in which we as teachers might use other cultures' literatures in our classrooms to move students from superficial, stereotyped perspectives to a fuller understanding of not only individuals from other cultures, but themselves, too. In your blog post, share with your colleagues how you might incorporate ideas from the article in your own teaching
After reading the article From Borders to Bridges: Making Cross Cultural Connections through Multicultural Literature, by Ruth McKoy Lowery and Donna Sabis-Burns, it made me think about my own experiences from my educational years, as well as my experience as a teacher. Growing up, I don't remember much from the primary years, however, thinking about the secondary years, I question if our district had multicultural literature. I question if we dug into what our culture is and what some of our customs were. I do remember doing a family tree project in one of our history classes in high school where we had to dig into our family and if we could figure out where our families came from. Other than that, I don't really remember learning about many different cultures. I feel like my experience was a lot like Donna's in the article where we read texts that depicted happiness, when in reality it was quite the opposite happening for many people.
One of the important pieces of information that I pulled from this article is how integrating multicultural literature early on in education could be the first exposure for many people to look at who they truly are and learning about how people can be different. On page 50 Lowery and Sabis-Burns state, "Through literature, readers explore lands and cultural mores that they would otherwise not experience." This is true when it comes to my experience growing up in a predominately white community with little to no diversity. I teach in a district similar to the one I grew up in, and I am so happy that our district uses a curriculum with so much diversity. I have had conversations with coworkers who have made comments about how the books in this curriculum don't apply to the students we serve. I always ask, "do you think that is a bad thing?" Which then sparks the conversations in why I think it is important that we do expose our kids to different cultures and parts of the world. I think it's important that we teach our community that not everywhere is predominately one culture or race. It's important to teach different customs and learn about how people live all over the world.
While we know it's important to integrate multicultural literature, I think this article also did an excellent job talking about how we as teachers need to be prepared and some specifics when it comes to teaching. I love how they mentioned that we need to make sure it's not just one unit, or separated, but instead it is integrated throughout all genres and units. Also, I loved the quote on page 51 that says, "Bishop (1997) champions this notion, suggesting that "if our society is to meet the challenges of demographic pluralism, all students need to recognize the diversity that defines this society, learn to respect it, and see it in a positive light," (p.3)." I think this also falls onto the teacher and the planning portion because students lead by example and we need to be ready to integrate any literature with some prior knowledge and excitement so that students find our energy infectious.
I feel like the connection of this article with The Way to Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Momaday, is that this book is an example of multicultural literature where the author is digging into his culture and who he is, and where he came from. He uses a way of storytelling that talks about his personal stories, as well as past history, and myths he has learned/heard about from the Kiowa culture. This not only is an example of multicultural literature, but it also shows how this author is digging in to understand his culture and that was something that Lowery and Sabis-Burns talked about in their article as well.
Resources:
Lowery, R. M. & Sabis-Burns, D. (2007). From borders to bridges: Making cross-cultural connections through multicultural literature. Multicultural Education, 14(4), 50-54. https://moodle.morningside.edu/mod/resource/view.php?id=1149965.
Momaday, N. S. (1969). The way to rainy mountain. University of New Mexico Press.
I love that you are challenging your peers to think about the positives of exposing your students to diverse curriculum, even though your district has little to no diversity. It can be difficult to challenge our peers thinking and I commend you. My brother lives in a small community in NW Iowa and his two boys attend school there. They rarely leave the area and the kids are not exposed to other cultures, outside of the Dutch culture. They are not dutch, but they are definitely familiar and often identify with the culture. The boys have very little experience with people of color, outside of my husband and daughters. One winter, my brother was in town for work and stopped by my house. I had a basket of books out for my girls that were written by black authors and contained black characters. He questioned me about it and I told him that this was to supplement what their school had for Black History Month, which unfortunately was very little. He thought I was taking things too far and I asked him what his boys experienced in school for Black History Month. He said that they read books about MLK. I talked to him about the problems that are associated with schools focusing on MLK and Rosa Parks at this time of year, and not digging deeper into Black History. At the end of his boys' education they will be well acquainted with MLK and Rosa, but not have true exposure to the rich culture, strong and intelligent people, and history outside of the civil rights movement.
ReplyDeleteThank you again for challenging your peers. I think that teachers in schools that are primarily white have the biggest burden to expose and teach their students about cultures and beliefs that they might not experience to on their own.
Thank you for your compliment! It can totally be uncomfortable at times, but I think if we are coming from a place of love and growth, it is absolutely necessary to push back on. It can also be hard to push our family members as well, especially when they themselves have not been around diversity. My daughter is mixed and I have to have uncomfortable conversations with some of my older white relatives on things they say or stereotype sometimes. Most of the time I will ask questions to try and understand where they are coming from and then try to teach them that how they said their comment or what they did was not very appropriate or kind. As I get older, I feel like I am more confident in talking to people about different subjects that may make others uncomfortable.
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