“Talking about this stuff is hard!”

“Talking about this stuff is hard!” Using children’s literature to explore cultural identity

Participants • Sophomores taking Child Development and Reading & Literacy. • Were asked to choose an aspect of diversity and then find a children’s book that dealt with that aspect of diversity and do a read aloud with their class (K-3). • Books needed to be approved by the cooperating teacher.

Culture • race/ethnicity • Gender • Nationality • Religion • SES • Age • Ability • Sexual orientation • language

Purpose • Give teacher candidates a way to explore their own cultural identity. Primarily White, UMC, women. • Many teacher candidates (and in-service teachers) have not examined the impact of their own biases about cultural diversity on their students. ~Sleeter, 2001 • Provide an opportunity to use multicultural literature with children in a safe context (with the support of the cooperating teacher).

What happened? • In some cases students had reservations and the cooperating teachers supported the teacher candidates doubts. • Even when teacher candidates and coops moved forward with the project, the actual read alouds often didn’t go as planned. • Many choices went really well. Teacher candidates and coops benefit.

Approving the books • In their role in determining the appropriateness of the chosen books, teacher candidates and their coops were forced to confront their own social constraints about world social issues.

Avoidance • “We don’t teach about god, we don’t say the word ‘god’, we don’t mention god.” • Decisions were often made in order to avoid controversy without much thought to whether it would be good for the students.

Attempts to make it ‘fit’ • The tension to have every activity meet a certain standard prompted teachers to try to make the book “do” something. • sequencing, prediction, parts of speech… • “We can do that as part of a discussion about traditions.” • “We will probably do that in February.” • “We can’t do that now because we discuss holidays in December.”

Keeping a safe distance… • “Some things are for parents to read to their children if they want to. But I am not going to read something like that in my class.” • Distancing or removing themselves from difficult topics claiming that the principal would not approve or that parents would not support discussions about difficult issues in books.

Maintaining a child’s innocence • The belief that the classroom environment, in order to be safe, should not reflect the dangers of the outside world. • Magical thinking – The teacher has the power to prevent outside influences from penetrating classroom walls.

How much power does a book have? • Does the text itself hold power? • “We each bring our own life experiences to a text, and the assumptions, beliefs and knowledge we gather from the text is shaped by what we bring to it.” ~ Rosenblatt, 1978

Consider… • When is distancing helpful and when is it avoidance or denial?

Go with Avoidance • Do not discuss any issue with moral implications at all. • Move on to another topic. • Refer questions and comments to an outside expert. • Answer the question yourself • Focus on technical and informational rather than moral aspects of the topic. • Ban books that you can’t teach or learn without confronting controversial issues (Macbeth, Huck Finn, The Red Badge of Courage, The Great Gatsby, Death of a Salesman, The Crucible…) • Fundamentalist (Howard, 1999)

Only teach what we can all agree on. • Good behavior • Honesty • Fairness • Self-discipline • Only after students understand what good behavior is and the right reasons for good behavior can they begin to explore why the right reasons are correct. Don’t make fun of others. vs What gives rise to cruelty among human beings? Fundamentalist (Howard, 1999)

Values clarification approach. • Encourage ALL points of view. • Avoid comparing one set of values to another or making any judgments about which is better. • Students are encouraged to arrive at their own, freely formed opinions. • Integrationist (Howard, 1999)

Be Neutral (Pedagogical vs Ethical) • Teach everyone’s values • “In the discussion of controversial moral issues it is the job of teachers to be pedagogically neutral; that is, teachers have an obligation to present all significant sides of an issue in their full passion and best reasoning…. Students must be allowed, even encouraged, to ask how, why and on what grounds.” • ~ Noddings, 1993 Transformationist (Howard, 1999)

“Talking about this stuff is hard!”