Philosophy

Personally, I think that multicultural education is a very important and necessary part of a student’s education. I think a meaningful multicultural education is necessary in order for students to be able to go out in the “real world” and apply what they have learned in all subject areas to their daily lives in a way that will make them productive and informed citizens. This class has been very helpful and informative to me personally because it has exposed me to cultures that I am not very familiar with, and view points that I have never heard before. In my opinion, especially with today’s global economy, classes such as this one are necessary for teachers/future teachers to be taking. We will likely be faced with multicultural classrooms, so by being informed about different cultures, we can hopefully provide comfortable learning environments for our students, while simultaneously shaping their minds to be open and understanding of other’s who may come from different backgrounds. I hope to provide this sort of classroom environment, and this course is helping me to do so.

Issues of diversity play a major role in literacy teaching and learning because all literature is diverse in some way or another. I am learning that it is important to read with a critical lens in order to pick out parts of literature that might be offensive. Not only is this important in literature, but in all forms of literacy including what hear in the media and how we verbally communicate with one another. It is important for teachers to be well rounded so that their students can be as well. Hopefully, if students are taught to critically analyze issues in diversity, it will lead to a more understanding world. I think that students should be trained not to just “overlook” certain issues because the issue does not offend them or pertain to them, but rather think in a way where they can empathize with other cultures and hopefully want to understand them. I think children’s literature fits into my philosophy about multicultural education because I believe that from a young age students should be exposed to diverse issues. Maybe if exposure happens at a young age, stereotypes will decrease because diversity will become more accepted. Not only is diverse children’s literature enjoyable, but it is an extremely useful tool in teaching children and adults about cultures other than their own. Readers can empathize and see different view points through characters. I think this can be more enjoyable, and people can learn in a more meaningful way with literature as opposed to learning about diversity from a text book.

I have many concerns when I think about bringing my philosophy of multicultural literature into a classroom. The biggest concern that I have is that I would never want to offend a student or parent. A great challenge will be finding good diverse literature to use, and then making sure that I actually use it in a meaningful and non-offensive way. It is scary to think that there can be a book in my future classroom that is offensive to a student without me knowing it. I would like to have numerous kinds of diverse books in my classroom so that hopefully all of my students can have something to relate too. I wish that throughout my schooling experience I was exposed to more diverse literature and that issues of diversity were a greater part of the curriculum. I would have like to have access to Arab-American literature in school, because I think this would have given me characters and issues to identify with growing up. I would like to be able to provide my students with literature that they can identify with, as well as provide students with literature that can help them identify with others.