My Personal Literacy Philosophy

Often we underestimate the importance of integrating diversity in elementary age language arts classrooms. I have to admit that until recently I was one of those individuals that rarely thought about how to incorporate excellent examples of diverse literature into my future classrooms. I was more focused on bringing mainstream American culture into the classroom. Therefore, it became of critical importance to enroll myself in a Children’s Literature class that focused on diversity. I mainly attribute my lack of diversity to my upbringing in an incredibly homogeneous community. I feel like I grew up living in a bubble, rarely being exposed to individuals or groups outside my own heritage. On top of that, I attended a private catholic school that was about as homogenous as a school can get. With this sheltered background, it is incredibly important that I put myself in situations to learn as much as possible about different diverse cultures. I both need and want to become a more diversity experienced individual with the knowledge and tools to accurately rate diverse Children’s Literature.

There are several advantages to taking a Children’s Literature class focused on issues of diversity. One obvious advantage is its ability to provide me with valuable and high-quality resources for the future. One of my professional goals is to provide my students with the most respectable and accurate representations of diverse literature. This class in turn will hopefully give me the tools to make acceptable judgments to build my classroom library. Unfortunately, my past experiences with diversity in literacy have been slim to none. However, this is not the environment I want to present to my future students. I hope that diversity will play a key role in my teaching pedagogy. We have learned through several class discussions the significance of accurately portraying the many cultures outside mainstream white society. Therefore it is of critical importance that I promote openness about issues of diversity with my future students and diversity plays a key role in the classroom.

Personally I believe providing a multicultural education is of the utmost importance in the classroom. I want my classroom to be a place that does not harvest negative generalizations but to the contrary actually disengages harmful stereotypes. In order to discourage egocentric values, students need to be exposed to a large range of diverse cultures and ethnicities. Multicultural education is a great stepping stool towards promoting positive characteristics of diverse and often underrepresented cultures. As a future elementary school teacher one of my main priorities will be providing a strong language arts program for my students. This will certainly include a critical pedagogy and critical literacy. I want to push my students to think deeper and question the texts they are reading. I hope to foster comprehension through a wide variety of positive diverse literature examples. I certainly do not want my classroom library to only represent the majority culture. Bringing examples of diverse literature can help broaden student’s perspectives of others that may be different to them. It can also encourage the removal of harmful stereotypes towards underrepresented cultures.

Like all new teachers, I have many concerns when bringing accurate and respectable diverse literature into my future classroom. Through this class I have realized there are several factors to consider when choosing good diverse literature. I wonder if I will be able to put my own biases aside and make accurate decisions about the literacy within my classroom. In addition to this concern, I believe the main challenge I will face in the future will be incorporating the literature of every diverse culture I want into one school year. I do not know if I will be able to fit everything needed to give students the best possible exposure to diverse cultures. Lastly, I am also interested in learning more about diverse literature dealing with the insider-outsider debate. This is a topic I can certainly envision myself proposing to a classroom full of students. It would be nice to hear the perspectives of my students on this topic. It is also a topic I would like to discuss with future colleagues and experts in the future!