A Diverse Perspective in Children's Literature

"Culture is a range of perspectives that have traditionally been marginalized due to race, gender, ethnicity, language, exceptionally, age, social class, religion, or sexual orientation."

      This was a quote that stood out to me on the first page of this chapter. I thought it was a great quote to describe culture because at times, that can seem like a hard thing to try to describe. Diversity is the able to have many different cultures come together and experience life and important moments. The book discuses how it is important that children need to be able to see their own culture and values just like the books they read.

      In making sure to educate all children a teacher must include the five major points that seem to to be lacking in the school system about a diverse background are discrimination, inferior education, linguistic differences, cultural differences, and higher-level thinking. Public schools in the U.S.  have shown only a small part in successfully showing children diverse  cultures and social backgrounds that are at risk of failure.

      When reading through the text a quote stood out to me, "Programs and practices that discriminate against at-risk children must be eliminated, and ineffective traditional teaching and learning approaches must be redesigned and restructured." This quote impacted me when I read it. I was not even aware of programs or practices that discriminated against at-risk children, but I think certainly agree that they must be redesigned because children who are at risk, cannot be discriminated against they have to be helped even more then the average student in the classroom.

      A part of the text talks about the benefits of multicultural literature, which is very important to me. Proper literature can provide a mirror and/or window  for the reader. Letting them see either themselves or others, the struggles they are facing and how to they feel, live, and see things. Which if very important for students and even adults to take part in.

      Diversity is a very important to thing to study up on and constantly educate yourself more about as a teacher. As our job we must make sure every students is equal and if we are able to educate our students about diversity as well as ourselves through literary, then that would be a great thing.