Bringing Children Together

I'll admit, when I first looked at the assigned reading that was on the syllabus for this blog post, I immediately skipped over everything but Jane Elliott's Brown Eyed, Blue Eyed experiment. This is something we watched and extensively discussed in my high school Sociology class. I also found the experiment both incredibly fascinating and informative.

After re-experiencing Elliott's experiment, I eventually found my way back to the other assignments on the syllabus for this week. The article, "Reading Multiculturally", by Hade seemed like it would be dull compared to Elliott's video. How very wrong I was! The very first thing Hade spoke about was the Lion King and there is not much that I like more than Disney movies. However, this particular article stretched how I normally think when it comes to Disney movies. I cannot say that I've ever considered the semiotics behind the various characters, nor have I ever noticed that the plot is more representative of the lives of people as opposed to wild animals. I found his analysis very eye-opening. Beyond this, though, Hade states something I'd like to remember as I enter the teaching culture:

"I believed, like many of my colleagues in children's literature, that the power of literature could work miracles, that all I had to do was to bring children together with the right book." (Hade 236)

Just like Elliott, Hade was striving to find something that would unite his students and remove some discrimination from their lives through an increase in understanding. This is definitely something I would like to do with my students. I feel as if having a class that would subtly focus on building bridges between the students. Hade later expounds on why he wants to bring this multiculturalism to the forefront of the classroom:

"I was told that children don't "naturally" read for race, class, and gender, and I mustn't impose my agenda upon them. But what I am after isn't imposing meaning, it is exposing injustice. To ignore the injustice implied in children's stories is a far more insidious way of imposing ideas than to challenge these ideas openly. Silence is the oxygen of racism and bigotry. Silence allows the dominant assumptions about the inferiority of the poor, women, and persons of color to remain unchallenged." (Hade 238)

I want my students to feel comfortable and open to express their feelings and opinions without fear of repercussions or judgement. Ideally, I want my classroom to be a safe place for children to learn.