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Realistic Portrayals of the Community: Elizabeth Gulden

Monday, September 24, 2018

As I settled into my classroom rocking chair with twenty eager and wide-eyed kindergarten students looking up at me, time and time again I began, “Once upon a time there lived a Dad, a Mom, two kids….” Wait, wait, wait (queue the sound of a record scratching)! Now, story times are my absolute favorite moments within an elementary school day. Read alouds grant us opportunities to experience a multitude of emotions as we learn about and relate to story characters taking part in a variety of adventures.

However, as I looked around my classroom, I found myself questioning, how was Matthew going to relate to these stories, as he is being raised by a single mother? What about Lillian, who recently became part of a blended household? Natalie was adopted from China and Sam lives with his two dads. Will Charlie see himself represented in the literature as he is now growing up with his grandparents as his main caretakers?

The family structures of children are more diverse today than ever before. This reflection really opened my eyes to misguided practices I had been using in terms of my classroom read alouds, and it challenged my thinking about the inclusion of stories and literature highlighting all family designs in positive ways.

I often remind myself that my students have only been on this Earth for five or six years, which naturally limits their background knowledge and increases my responsibility to provide equitable access to curriculum, along with a realistic portrayal of the community in which we live. Lindsey White notes that “young children are very impressionable and with little real-world experiences, literature plays a large part in acquiring knowledge about many things.” White goes on to discuss that “when children’s home lives are being ignored in the classroom it sends a message that their situation is less than and is not important.” I soon realized that I had been guilty of just this and it crushed me.

With the county Sheriff serving as my classroom community connection partner, it occurred to me that another population of students underrepresented in my classroom literature were those children with family members who are incarcerated. Although terribly unfortunate, this is the reality for a number of children. Katie Waters recommends that “teachers...provide books as a resource for children with incarcerated family members so they can see their lives reflected in literature and feel that their situation is being acknowledged in the classroom rather than treated as a taboo topic.”

These scenarios also reminded me of the year I worked with Ricardo, whose mom was diagnosed with a mental illness and the year Samantha confided in me about her dad’s experiences with substance abuse. Opening your classroom to more inclusive literature can provide an invitation for children to open up and share about these traumatic experiences and offer new opportunities for them to heal.

I challenge my fellow teachers to learn from my revelations and work to ensure diverse children’s literature, including positive representations of various family structures, be incorporated into classroom instruction. Hold yourself accountable, as these stories will assist your students in developing positive self-images and promote feelings of empathy and acceptance beginning at a young age.