A Brief Philosophy

As a MSU student issues and ideas of diversity have been ever present both inside and outside the classrooms. Prior to attending this university, I had rarely given much in depth thought to diversity in the way it is discussed here. As a strong believer in the importance of an equal and fulfilling society for all, I feel the by discussing the issues, negative and positive, surrounding diversity will help me to help create this society. As a future teacher I believe in the power of literature and what better way to break the ice for discussion with students than to have them read about issues, directly or indirectly. Literature will be so fully entwined in my future classroom that students may not be able to distinguish when we are focusing on just the literature or when we are using it in other ways, hopefully. I also know that my class will be vastly diverse and including literature that appeals to and represents my students is important to me as I know it will be to them. However, after taking the TE 348, I realized that there is so much more to selecting a piece of quality literature for students to work with. When I heard about this course, I continued to think about how much I didn't know. I sort of asked myself: "Well, if you didn't realize how much was entailed before the 348 class, and now there is an entirely separate class dealing with diversity and multiculturalism, this probably means that you know even less and will benefit from TE 448." I came to this class to learn more about how to select and use appropriate children's literature. This meant learning more about my future students and about myself to do this. I believe that a diverse and compassionate person has a much higher chance of success in today's global society than anyone else. It is also immensely fulfilling to know one's own self and to know enough about others to be able to recognize and connect through similarities or appreciate and respect the differences. I want to help my students achieve such successes and the first door to them is through literature. In short, I believe that multicultural education is the best type there is and that it exists even if it is not blazingly obvious. This type of education needs to be enriched in diverse ways and considering that literature has a hold on practically every academic subject that exists currently, and those yet to be implemented, this seems like the most logical way to provide such enrichment. One of my biggest concerns for the future is that my students will not be as responsive to diverse literature and ideas as I am and I wonder how much of a challenge this will bring about in my teaching. Now that I have a greater aptitude to locate quality resources, or at least to look for them, I am interested to see how the literature of traditionally underrepresented groups changes and grows in time. I hope that it proceeds forwards and is never halted, and perhaps I can influence one of these future writers by showing them that they do exist in the literature and it is important to tell their story.