Chapter 11 Response

Chapter 11: Diverse Perspectives in Children's Literature

In the United States today, diverse cultures are everywhere, including schools. Student's will interact with more cultures than ever before, and it is now a crucial topic for teachers to address. There is diversity in culture, language, religion, social class, age, exceptionality, and family structure and no two students are the same. Even in the same family, birth order can come into play. It is very important for teachers to acknowledge and accommodate to this variety of students. A major con to the increase in diversity in the U.S. is that many of these students will face discrimination and may obtain inferior education. Wealthy schools can afford to integrate technology and high quality teachers, while counties of high poverty rates can only afford minimal educational resources.

Discrimination and cultural differences among students can be alleviated if multicultural literature is included in the classroom. Adding this component to curriculum allows students to learn about diverse cultures and promote inquiry of these cultures. All of these different forms of diversity can be found in many children's books. The difficulty is choosing. As a teacher, you need to analyze the books to be sure they are appropriate. Some important things to look at when choosing a book are the illustrations, the story line, the characters' lives, the relationships between people, the roles of the models and heros, author's background, the language and the copyright dates. One way to incorporate a variety of roles of a culture is by choosing a variety of books. Many books can come from other countries as well. I think it is important to let students know this so they see that people in other countries are all just like us in many ways. Translated text can also be used to show the differences in culture, as well.