Final Course Reflection

I believe I was always cognizant of issues of diversity in literature before this class. However, having read all of the articles and books I have since August I feel much more confident that I will be able to decide which books are positive contributions to my future classroom library. I understand even better now that students, all students, need to be exposed to literature that acts as a mirror for them. Every child should have at least one book that they can read that shows characters like them. This helps them know that they are not alone; any struggles or hard times they may have are shared by other people in their cultural group. I also know that books are needed in classrooms that act as windows for students. Students of one culture may be uninformed about other cultures; books with accurate, positive multicultural storylines can teach them about people that are different from themselves. Also, they may see similarities between themselves and the characters and know that they are not all that different from everyone else after all.

I have also learned what things I should look for when evaluating a book for its appropriateness as a diverse piece of literature. One important factor to take into account that we spent a good deal of time discussing is the insider/outsider status of the author. As we debated at length, you can’t say a book written about a cultural group by a member of that group is automatically better than a book written by an outsider. It is important to look at the author’s background because, sometimes, an outsider can be more knowledgeable about a specific aspect of life that a story discusses.

Now that I know about some of the key things to focus on when evaluating multicultural children’s books I am on my way to building a diverse classroom library. The world is increasingly interconnected meaning the students of the future will come from extremely diverse backgrounds. Stories about middle class Caucasian children who come from traditional, two parent homes aren’t going to be enough anymore. So that is where I am going from here. I am taking my skills and knowledge I gained in this class and applying it to life (like we should do after every class). Hopefully, my students will benefit the way I have.