Looking back at my blog posts from the beginning of the year, I noticed that my main goal going into this course was to learn about books that represent diversity in an accurate way. Throughout the course I was able to experience the difficulties that come with choosing literature that does this. Simply picking up a book that is written about a certain culture/group doesn't make it accurate. Several books that I have looked at in class have surprised me with the amount of stereotypes and incorrect language used within them. But, from taking this course, I now realize the importance of having books that are culturally diverse and know some ways in which I can incorporate them into my future classroom. Even if a book carries some stereotypes or generalizations, it can still be used as a teaching tool within the classroom.
Since it is so difficult to find accurately represented multicultural literature, I understand why it may not be present in many classrooms today. Teachers need to put in a lot of time and effort into finding books that they can put in their classroom library. Even though this is a difficult task, it bothers me that most teachers don't make this one of their biggest priorities, especially with the way most schools are composed today. Students want to read literature that they can relate to and if they continue reading books that have white characters and deal with problems they have never experienced, then they will most likely be turned away from reading as a whole. It is now my job, as a future teacher, to make sure that my classroom contains literature from a whole range of genres and cultures. Throughout this course I have been given the tools to start looking for accurate literature and now it is my turn search through sites and books to find ones to fill my library with.
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