Confessions of a Closet Catholic

I felt extremely close to Jussy's character in the book Confessions of a Catholic. In high school I dated a boy who was half Catholic and half Jewsih. Growing up a methodist my entire life, I had only been exposed to the Christian religion. Even though my boyfriend's family did not practice either religions, except for the holidays, I always had a fun time when the did celebrate the Jewish holidays. There is so much tradition that I was able to see with the Seder before passover. The stories told, the food that represents different aspects, and the family feel that is associated with it. I had never felt that sense of family and tradition for a religious holiday before. I had often thought that if we ended up tsaying together, that I would want our children to be raised with awareness of their Jewish heritage. So, in that way, I related to Justine's character because I had questions and was intruiged by a religion that I was not brought up in. The other way, was that I in the past week I lost my grandmother. She had fallen, become weak, and a month later passed away. The times in the book when Jussy's mother came over to Mac's house to tell her the news, or show up at school, those were very real times for me. In the end, I didn't have a revelation, and start going back to Sunday services, but I have to say that there is a spiritual connection there that there wasn't before. I think that if someone is going through a death, even though it is hard to read at the time, you will be able to become closer to Jussy's character, and really understand where Littman is coming from when she writes this novel.

Project Mulberry Thoughts

We recently read the book Project Mulberry by Linda Sue Park and I really enjoyed this book. There were many different aspects that were looked at, and I was waiting to see whether or not the person in our group writing their paper this week focused on the aspect of race in the book, and they didn't. There is an interesting aspect that I found in the book that dealt with racism from a minorities standpoint. In my opinion, when we think about racism, it is usually a white person who has a prejudice towards another person of race, religion, etc... However, we see racism in this case coming from Julia's mother. Her obvious uncomfortable state around Mr. Dixon who is allowing the children to use the leaves off of his mulberry tree. Julia can't believe this about her mother, but it is explained to us that as a child, in Korea, during the Korean war young children were witnesses of black soldiers, and so their only experiences with people of this race were negative. Especially since Julia's family lives in a very caucasian town, her mother is not used to a race differentiation. Julia tries to figure out how to explain to her mother that he is a nice man and that he is just helping them out, but her mother still does not trust him. A few chapters later, he is trying to be nice and send home peppers with Julia. He also calls her Chinese. I know that this is a stereotype that often occurs with Asian people, that they all get lumped together even though their cultures, traditions and religions are all quite different. Julia's character struggles through this throughout the novel, and in the end still can't decide how she feels about her mother's views. I thought it was good how Park had Julia's character struggle with these questions. I think that it is representative of children's views and questions about their parents views if they are growing up in a prejudiced household. I also like that Park did not answer the question at the end. Not only does it leave the reader questioning the text at the end of the novel, but it also leaves the reader questioning themselves.

Naomi's Growth in Becoming Naomi Leon

I just finished reading the book Becoming Naomi Leon. I was intruiged to read this book since in our last children's literature course we read one of the authors other books, Esperanza Rising. I have to say that this is one of my favorite books that I have read in a long time. There is one thing that stuck out to me after I started writing my questioning the text paper, so I figured that I would write a blog about my thoughts. We are able to see Naomi's struggle throughout the book with wanting her mother back in her life. Until she finds out that Skyla is wanting her to move to Las Vegas to basically babysit her boyfriends daughter, Naomi was enthralled with her mother. I noticed that throughout the novel, Naomi was never very secure with how she looked. She always commented about how she stuck out from others. This theme became apparent to me when they actually travel to Mexico and she tells us that the clothes really make the person, and the fact that she had on an embroidered blous and other articles of clothing that she finally felt like she was Mexican. She finally felt as if she fit in. She was able to be successful at the turnip carving competition, and feel good about herself. I thought thatit was interesting that after this trip to Mexico, her self confidence goes up. We hear throughout the story that she is always soft spoken and that no one can ever hear her, but this changes. We see her thoughts of remaning silent about all of the things that Skyla has planned for her, but in the end, in court, she decides that she has to say something or no one is going to say anything. She stands up for herself, her brother owen, and her great grandmother. Because Naomi found out who she was and where she came from, she was able to say something. I thought that this was an interesting growth throughout the novel and wanted it to be brought to the forefront. I think that this is an important novel that brings up issues of different family situations, and real world contexts that happen in our lives today.

My Educational Philosophy

I have never wanted to be anything else besides a teacher. (except for the brief broadway and acting stage that most young girls go through) I wanted to become a teacher after I finished fourth grade. My fourth grade teacher was an amazing woman (her name was Sue Bright) and I knew after that year, that teaching is what I want to do. Over the years I have seen individual teachers reach out and affect certain students. There are some children that can't be reached, but the extra attention, and the caring of a good teacher can change that. This is why I am teaching. I am teaching so that I can positively affect the children who come in and out of my life, and let them know that they can be whatever they want to be. This class pertains to my professional goals 100%. I have always loved children's literature, but this class has really opened my eyes. I would like to think that I have a decently diversified classroom library, but looking back at my books, I have mostly just African American literature. I need to step up and start getting different kinds of diverse lit. Literature however is a great medium in a classroom so that we will be able to learn about different cultures. It exposes children in a fun way, through reading over more traditional learning in the classroom. I think that multicultural education should be involved in every classroom. It is important for children to learn about other cultures when they are young so that they are more accepting to them in the future. It is interesting to see this now, because I am in an all caucasian classroom and have not seen much multicultural learning. These children grow up seeing only one thing, and I don't think thats right. Since I love childrens books, I think that diverse literature will be prominent in my classroom library as well as the lessons that I teach in the future. The only concern I have is the previous notions put into childrens heads about certain cultures in our midst. I hope that I am able to catch them at a young enough age that they will grow up to be accepting of everyone. I have to realize that everyone comes from their own unique background, and that I will not be able to reach every single student. However, I would like to think that I can touch a good percentage of them. I hope that my students by the time they leave my classroom will have more world knowledge than when they left. I feel as if I will be able to do this as long as I continue to put into effect critical pedagogy and critical literacy.

Autism in Adolescent Lit

I just finished reading Al Capone Does My Shirts on the plane this weekend. I enjoyed it, and took me just the plane-ride from Chicago to San Francisco. The basis of the story is that a 7th grade boy, his fifteen year old autistic sister, and both parents move out to the island of Alcatraz. The story occurs however before they know much about the developmental disorder of autism, and they aren’t able to diagnose her. I think that this author did a good job of portraying what happened to people who had mental disorders in the 40’s and 50’s. There were two parts that come into my particular mind, one being when they are at a relative’s house and an aunt suggests that they just put her into an asylum. The other part that I think of is when they start to test her at a hospital, shave her head, and start doing all kinds of tests on her. Back in the 50’s that is what they did with people who they felt they had some sort of mental incapability or sent them away to a place where the family didn’t have to deal with it.
This actually reminded me of another piece of literature that I read over Christmas break. It was Corner of the Universe by Ann. M. Martin. It is a story about a girl who’s uncle comes home from an institution because of the closing of the place. Both of these stories include a close relationship between the autistic person and the child that they are involved with. Even though the basis of the stories are completely separate, they still deal with autism before it is recognized as a what it is today
I am happy to see that stories of these different diseases are starting to pop up in literature that is geared towards middle school readers. It is just as important to have books on mental and developmental disorders since they are prevalent in todays society. Just from experience in my classroom, having a child with Downs-Syndrome and having a child with Autism, it is important for books like these to be readily available to students who are interested.

Insider or Outsider

When looking at diverse and multicultural literature I am sometimes stuck as Patrick Shannon is. I am a white, female elementary school teacher. What do I know about literature that is written by or about different cultures and races than mine? The fact is that I know a lot. During my time in Radical we would discuss literature that was mainstream, which was controvercial, but we also read books that was very diverse. This short, nice, shy school teacher actually knows somewhat about multicultural literature. But the real question of today's post is, can you really write a book on someone elses cultures and customs being an outsider, or do you have to be an insider, and have experienced this first hand. My personal belief is that you can write from either. However, if you are writing from an outsiders perspective, you better know exactly what you are talking about. There is absolutely no reason to provide sub-standard multicultural literature for children. For some children growing up in isolated communities, these books are the only thing that they have to judge other people on. They have no first hand experiences, so they rely on books to tell them. So if you are an outsider writing about someone else's culture, you need to have done your research. As we were able to see from Claire's collection last week with her Indian American literature, that at least with her collection, we are lacking insider's perspectives. They are there, and some will argue that these perspectives are more trustworthy, but there need to be more. If you are writing on the inside perspective however, you need to think of the audience that will be reading the story that you are putting out there. The audience will need to understand certain things about one's culture, traditions, celebrations rather than just slapping it on a piece of paper and saying that its finished.
I think when looking at my argument overall, I think there is a need for both insider and outsider authors. However, I will STRESS my beliefs that the piece of literature that you are putting out for the public to read needs to be truthful to the situation that you are writing about. There is absolutely no need to put incorrect literature into the world, which will only increase others misconceptions.

Heart of a Chief

We were to have read Heart of a Chief, by Joseph Bruchac for class last Wednesday. I had read the book and written my discussion paper on why Bruchac chose to underlay the more serious topic of Indian casino's under Chris's school project on changing the name of the schools mascot. Before I had read this book I was indifferent on whether or not mascot's should be changed. Coming from Ann Arbor, I heard about Eastern Michigan University changing their name to the Eagles when I was younger but didn't really think anything of it. There is this one quote in the book, from page 128 when they introduce the project as "what team are you rooting for in the Super Bowl?" " I'm for the New Jersey Negroes" and "I'm for the Jacksonville Jews." As soon as I read this quote, I decided that all schools should change their mascot's name. There is no way that we would be allowed to go around saying those types of things, so why are we allowed to call someone the Chiefs, when that degrades what American Indian people to be their leader and someone they look up to. I might just think something like this because I'll admit I'm a liberal, but seriously think of what you are saying to a race that we as a nation has oppressed for the past five hundred years, that we don't care about the way that they live their lives or their beliefs? I would hope at this day and age that it wouldn't be the case. However we watched a movie in class entitled In Whose Honor (I think) and all we saw was ignorant people who believe that the tradition at their school is more important than upholding someones beliefs and religions. They believe at Illinois that they are honoring the American Indian people, but if they would just listen to the people who were saying anything at all, they would realize that they aren't. I think that it's absolutely ludicrous. I commend Iowa for not booking any school (besides Illinois since they have to play inside the conference) that has an Indian mascot. I may sound radical for saying all of this, but think of the people you are affecting, and the children you are affecting. Let's make it so the next generation ration of children grow up in a society that is less prejudiced than its predecessors.