After reading the article, “Mirrors for my Daughter’s Bookshelf,” I feel a little embarrassed when I think about diversity at my school in Washington Heights. As many New Yorkers know, many of the residents in Washington Heights are immigrants (i.e. first, second, or third generation immigrants) from the Dominican Republic. Thus, the vast majority of my students are from the Dominican Republic, and they can speak both English and Spanish. Each day, I learn something new about the Dominican culture, and how this culture is similar and different from the other Caribbean islands like the one I come from, Jamaica. However, as I am becoming more diverse with my exposure to my students, I’m afraid that apart from their exposure to me, the students are not being given a diverse education. For one, when you look at the libraries in each classroom, you’ll notice that the main characters from most of these books are white children or adults, and less than five percent of the books (from my observations) include main characters that are Hispanic. What is even more shocking is the number of books where the main character is of Dominican heritage: less than one percent. Furthermore, though some may quickly blame us (the teachers) for the shortage of culturally relevant books, in reality, we did an extensive search for books where the main characters are Hispanic, but our search was not successful. Moreover, reading “Mirrors for my Daughter’s Bookshelf” confirmed my observation that the books that contain multi-cultural contents are published less frequently than those that focus of the majority class (and or the white race). Despite the reality that minorities have a difficult time finding books that are culturally relevant, I am hoping that as my school grow and develop, we will celebrate more diversity. At this current moment, my school is only seven months old, so I know that there are some critical pieces of the puzzle that they are trying to put together. I’m optimistic that diversity is one of those pieces. As Sara Ackerman powerfully noted, “But books can also be mirrors. When books reflect back to us our own experiences, when scenes and sentences strike us as so true they are anchors mooring us to the text, it tells readers their lives and experiences are valued. When children do not see themselves in books, the message is just as clear.” In this excerpt, the word “mirrors,” is used to represent why diversity is important in literature, but this term could also be used to explain why diversity is important in all parts of life. For, if my students do not see lots of positive depictions of people who look like them, they can easily be conceived that their identities are not valued. With such low perception of themselves and people from their ethnic background, it’s much more likely that these students will not aspire to be leaders in our society. Therefore, it’s imperative that we (the members of the School in the Square community) continue to seek out books and other educational opportunities that will promote diversity. To create an educational environment that accepts all my students and makes all my students feel successful, I am going to continue to employ three strategies. First, I will continue to embrace the different languages of my students. As noted above, most of my students can speak both English and Spanish. I even have some students who are just beginning to learn English. Thus, to make sure that I am not pressuring my students to disregard their native language, whenever possible, I will
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For example, after teaching the students about the Irish culture and the Irish Potato Famine, my cooperating teacher assigned the students a project in which they created a presentation about their own culture. In this presentation, the students described the food, the music, the religious practice, and holidays that they celebrate. This was a very successful assignment for all the students were able to present something about their culture. For example, though some of the information was repetitive, since the majority of my students are from the Dominican Republic, most students were elated to share their culture with their
For example, after teaching the students about the Irish culture and the Irish Potato Famine, my cooperating teacher assigned the students a project in which they created a presentation about their own culture. In this presentation, the students described the food, the music, the religious practice, and holidays that they celebrate. This was a very successful assignment for all the students were able to present something about their culture. For example, though some of the information was repetitive, since the majority of my students are from the Dominican Republic, most students were elated to share their culture with their