Final Thoughts

Throughout the last four months, I have had the opportunity to grow my mindset on the importance of diverse literature. Using diverse literature in the classroom and at home can both expose students to people who are unlike them and help represent minorities.

Reading books and opening discussions about a diverse population can help students become more open-minded and accepting. In communities that do not have a diverse population, this can be especially important. Multicultural literature creates the opportunity for students to learn about other cultures and ways of life, answering questions that they may have and creating accepting citizens.

Diverse literature comes in many forms appropriate for all grade levels. Storybooks and chapter books on family types (including blended families, single-parent families, and LGTBQ+ families), on various races and ethnicities, ages, abilities, socioeconomic status, and genders can be easily found with a quick search. Books such as Esperanza Rising and No Fixed Address can make underrepresented populations like someone with a home or a Hispanic girl feel recognized, and provide those unlike them to empathize with their problems.

Diverse literature is important to incorporate into the
curriculum at all age levels so that students can learn to accept themselves and others.

What is gender? The difference between gender and sex

When I was in 5th grade and other students first started using the word "gay" to insult others, it made other students laugh. I didn't know what it meant to be gay, I didn't know what gender was outside of boy and girl. 

When I was in middle school and other students started coming out as gay, I saw them ostracized and marked as different.

When I was in high school and had friends that were boys paint their nails, I did not think anything of it. 

When I began my first semester in college, I took an introduction to sociology class and began to understand the difference in gender and sexuality. I learned that as humans, we like to check things off and put them into nice and neat little boxes, but that is not the way gender works. Instead of putting people into "boy," "girl," and "other" boxes, we need to consider gender and sexuality as a fluid scale. Someone with male body parts may have a feminine gender identity and dress that way sometimes, but dress as a man other times (such as drag queens). A person can move around on the scale, anywhere between boy and girl that they feel fits them. I began to understand this more with life experiences. I saw my friend from high school join the army, and also saw him become a drag performer. My roommate from college went back and forth on if she liked men and women or both, or neither, and I began to understand that it is less about the identity of the person that we have a relationship with, but about personality and how they make us feel. I met transgender people for the first time, saw an individual from my church transition from male to female and be welcomed with open arms. Speaking with these individuals and hearing their struggles to accept themselves and hope that others will continue to love them opened my eyes and my heart. Reading stories about people that go through similar situations has the same effect.

For children, hearing stories about people who are unlike them can open their minds to acceptance. One book that introduces the idea that gender identity and the feeling of who we are can differ from the sex that was identified at birth is I am Jazz. This children's book is written by Jazz Jennings,  a teenage, transgender girl, and she tells the story of what it was like as a child to not feel like the person that everyone wanted her to be. Her story is written in an age-appropriate way that introduces the vocabulary transgender and reminds children and adults alike that everyone just wants to be loved.

Your Words Matter- People First Language

"The pen is mightier than the sword"- we have all heard this well known saying. The words that we say and write often have more power than we realize. We can use this power either to hurt or to heal. One way that we can use the power of language is to help others feel included. We can do this by making sure that we refer to individuals with disabilities not by their disease or disability first, but by making it known that first and foremost, they are a person the same as any person without a disability.

People first language means that instead of saying "the disabled person," we flip those words around to recognize the person and not the ability first by saying "the person with a disability" instead. This ensures that individuals with disabilities can still feel like seen, recognized, and important. Individuals with physical and/or mental disabilities are more than their disabilities, they are people with thoughts and feelings.

What books should I be Reading with my Child? Resources for you!

There are so many multicultural books out there! How do you know which books are high-quality literature and will help your children expand their minds? The good news is that so many qualified professionals have already done this for you! Check out the websites below to find out more information on multicultural children's literature and get your reading list going!

• 50 Multicultural Books Every Child Should Know: This article, created by the Cooperative Children's Book Center, shares 50 "books by and about people of color and First/Native Nations individuals: African and African Americans, American Indians, Asian/Pacific and Asian Pacific Americans, and Latinos" that children will be interested in and can learn from. The list is broken into four categories, preschool, ages 5-7, ages 7-9, and ages 9-12 so that you can pick stories that are appropriate for your children.
• Social Justice Books: This website has curated booklists that cover a range of topics from gender identity, Native Americans, Muslims, incarceration, and so much more! They also offer book reviews, information on how to use their suggested books in the classroom, and educational articles on multicultural literature. 
• How to Choose Outstanding Multicultural Books: This scholastic article offers 50 multicultural titles, separated by topic. The topics include African American literature, Native American literature, Jewish literature, Asian American literature, and more. In addition to a book list and brief description of each book, each topic also has advice and considerations from "top educators, writers, and illustrators on how to spot literature that transcends stereotypes." 

These resources can be used to find quality multicultural children's literature to introduce at home or at school. 

And Tango Makes Three- Family Diversity

I often hear adults remark "they're too young to know about gay relationships," but do we also say that children are too young to know about straight relationships? No, because we have already normalized them and we need to normalize LGBTQ relationships as well. If an infant can live with and know that their mother and father are in a loving relationship, why can they not know that their best friend's two moms are in a loving relationship as well? 

The picture book And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson tells the true story of two male penguins and their relationship together. The penguins, Roy and Silo, do everything together. They love to swim, catch fish, and sing. One day they want to start a family and try to hatch a rock. After that doesn't work, the zookeepers are able to give the two penguins an egg of their own to hatch and raise. Tango, the penguin that they raise completes their loving family.

This story opens discussion on family dynamics and LGBTQ relationships. Using animals allows for children to talk about same-sex relationships in a way that does not immediately bring up any prejudices that children may have learned from other adults.

Check out this book trailer created by Sarah Nicholson to learn more about Roy and Silo's story. 

Multicultural Literature- Article Review

I recently read an article on teaching with multicultural literature by Yuko Iawai. Below is my review of the article.

Books that we read as children often hold a dear place in our hearts. Children who are lucky enough to have access to literature cherish the characters and illustrations from their favorite storybooks, insisting on reading them as bedtime stories over and over again. The lack of diversity in those characters and images can be taken to heart. Students who cannot identify with those books can feel unimportant, while the white, typically abled students who see themselves in the literature can come to view those unlike them as unimportant. 

In the article “Culturally Responsive Teaching in a Global Era: Using the Genres of Multicultural Literature” Yuko Iwai speaks on the important role that multicultural literature plays in educating students beyond the material in the standards. Iwai emphasizes the importance of culturally responsive education, because “when students learn academic content in situations within which they can make more personal connections… their learning becomes richer and more meaningful” (Iwai 4). As U.S. classrooms continue to become more culturally diverse, with a 5% decrease in white students and a 4% increase in Hispanic students by 2026, teachers’ ability to incorporate other cultures into the classroom will continue to gain importance. It is important to keep the population of the class in mind while choosing high-quality multicultural literature, as sometimes the students need to use the books as mirrors, making “personal connections, and [reflecting] on themselves and on social and cultural situations” and other times students need to use the literature as windows to “gain new perspectives about the world around them and also to understand themselves better” (Iwai 10). 

This article conveys the importance of using multicultural literature in the classroom. Iwai shares that reading these types of stories with students can open the door to creating open, age-appropriate conversations on oppression and cultural differences. Reading this article has strengthened my view that diverse books are needed in the classroom. Reading books about minority cultures helps build positive feelings about those who are different than us. This includes not only diversity by culture, but by ability, age, and sexual orientation as well. When children are able to see and understand diversity, they are better able to accept it and have an open mind.

Yuko Iwai (2019) Culturally Responsive Teaching in a Global Era: Using the Genres of Multicultural Literature, The Educational Forum, 83:1, 13-27, DOI:10.1080/00131725.2018.1508529