My Teaching Situation
 

I teach cultural and linguistic diversity in a teacher education program. My students, teacher candidates in their third year, participate in a required field-based course designed to expose them to diversity. My job is to ensure that they promote literacy in their future classrooms and that they provide a safe, bias-free learning environment for their students. [paragraph 1]

As I introduce course content, I find myself having to import shared contexts for my students. From my perspective, my teacher candidates have seldom experienced the ethnic and racial issues discussed in class and have had little or no exposure to cultural and linguistic diversity. For this reason, I have decided to introduce a multicultural and global perspective through literacy. I start with an idea that is familiar to them. By this, I mean that I begin exploring course content by having students read and re-read books they had read in their youth. By encouraging my students to read and re-read what is familiar to them, I am able to introduce cross-cultural and intercultural issues using a genre called "transcultural literature" (Pratt & Beatty, 1999) which is a collection of books that explores global topics and issues. In this article I will share the layers of cultural awareness (Valle, 1997) revealed and uncovered by students who explore global literature together and tread on known and unknown learning environments. The course takes off on a new twist in a new direction, as students articulate ideas, feelings, and perceptions, and develop multicultural awareness using popular culture, familiar fictions, testimonies, personal narratives, and world literature. [paragraph 2]
 

Using Popular Culture as a Shared Context  
 

To prepare my students for honest and open discussions about these topics, I need to create a safe environment for broaching such realities as bigotry and racial prejudice. I begin with what they are most familiar with, popular culture. Discussions of familiar scenarios from print and visual media allow everybody in class to participate. Students enjoy sharing their “takes” on situations and characters in sitcoms, game shows, and the new genre of Reality TV. This exploration provides an enjoyable opportunity to express ideas and serves as an equalizer in classroom discussions. [paragraph 3]

The characters and situations in the shared and familiar television shows allow us to analyze and inspect situations through our newly found multicultural lens. We begin to see things that we have never stopped to look at before. We talk about parental expectations and communication, or lack thereof, between children and their parents. We explore gender roles and expectations of families. We discuss the diversity among mainstream characters and the assimilation processes of immigrants. The exploration of a multicultural framework through these shared and familiar scenarios allows us to delve deeply and freely into social issues. We talk about the marginalized, oppressed individuals in society and discuss the system and its daily impact on us. We also talk openly about participation and opportunity in contemporary North American cities, discussing employment opportunities, social conditions, and a host of other issues. Teacher candidates begin to tune into and to openly examine important issues brought out in our course on cultural and linguistic diversity. [paragraph 4]

For example, there is a popular medical socio-drama on network television that allows us to explore multicultural issues. Teacher candidates who watch this show enjoy bringing out global issues and perspectives, as they notice that the cast on the show includes people of diverse national origins. For instance, a Romanian-born doctor brings a unique perspective of an Eastern European professional seeking refuge in America after the Balkanization of Europe. A medical intern, an exchange student from the United Kingdom, shares a yet different perspective on life. A patient, a cleaner from an African nation, adds to our understanding of global issues when he expresses the fear of revealing the repression he experienced in his homeland while showing his scarred torso during a medical check-up. Analyzing these familiar programs allows us to peel Valle's (1997) three cultural layers representing; (1) language, symbols and artifacts (2) customs, practices, and interactional patterns and (3) shared values, norms, beliefs, and expectations (p. 13). Valle believes that as we explore culture and understand how the three layers described above serve to define and support this integral part of our multicultural lens, we then begin to understand cultural situations better. As a class, we are soon ready to move forward after leveling the terrain for an exploration of a more global perspective, stopping first to review our "familiar" classical literature and then the narratives of other nationals. [paragraph 5]  
 

Classics Selected for Study  
 

For the purpose of this exploration of fine literary works, I begin with an exercise involving re-reading or "close-reading" of familiar texts. I hence choose titles that appeal to my teacher candidates, which also touch upon racial bigotry, social injustice, prejudice, and discrimination. I encourage my students to select titles that portray human nature. I will share some of the more popular titles selected by my teacher candidates. I do not provide a list of texts for my students, but ask them to choose a book that had an impact on them when they first read it in either middle or high school. [paragraph 6]

Gender bias and bigotry towards women are popular topics of exploration. Students select Louisa May Alcott's Little Women (1989; originally published in 1869). By re-reading these narratives, they realize these are not "feel-good/happy-ending fireside tales." Louisa May Alcott portrays harsh scenarios and situations, pointing out how difficult it was for women like her to make a place for themselves in the literary world. She brings out many obstacles that women and men encountered in order to explore their own potential and to become their own person.  [paragraph 7]

Other popular works that appeal to my teacher candidates are those that explore religious issues. Emily Bronté's Jane Eyre (1906; originally published in 1847) or Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850) allow us to openly discuss Jane Eyre's soul-searching questions of faith and the shunning and shaming ordeal Hester Prynne experienced in Hawthorne's novel. [paragraph 8]

Racial tensions and/or the Civil Rights movement are introduced in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), John Steinbeck’s Of Mice & Men (1937), and Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1998; originally published in 1876). Teacher candidates find more and more layers of new information about the treatment of diverse people, which were often missed when they first read these books in their youth.  [paragraph 9]

When revisiting Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, for example, we talk about Boo Radley, the character in the novel with a learning disability. Teacher candidates point out that few social and educational services existed during the Great Depression in the United States (the time frame of the novel). The issue of scapegoating becomes a clearer focus for them as they begin to interpret the way in which Boo was accused of raping a woman, scaring the children, and bringing misfortune to his neighborhood. Gonzalez (1996) argues that scapegoating "occurs when someone places blame for their problems on some convenient, but powerless and innocent person or group" (p. 32). Teacher candidates begin to see clearly why human beings engage in these sorts of behaviors. They are also more ready to interpret and understand issues involved in bullying, silencing, and other components of the "hidden curriculum" which I bring out as salient, yet unresolved, teaching issues.  [paragraph 10]

William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1954) corroborates the issues of scapegoating and bullying, illustrating anarchy, power struggles, and injustices in the hands of young people stranded in an isolated place without adult supervision or control. These issues portraying children under stress bring out the same kinds of issues that teachers may find on a school playground or in situations where the children know more about what is going on than their teachers. The story helps us discuss the "gut reactions" and biased attitudes, which can be generalized to other similar situations. The treatment of weaker versus stronger characters also surfaces, allowing us to discuss the social dynamics of anarchic groups seeking to enforce law and order. I, as their college professor, find it much easier to talk about these issues once the candidates have related to the issues through their readings. We revisit the theme of scapegoating in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men and relate it to our discussion on the marginalization of weaker characters. [paragraph 11]

Embarking on a Global Perspective 
 

Next, I encourage my teacher candidates to pick out a text where they encountered a protagonist who experienced strife and hardship. I share the inspiring text, Teaching and Testimony (Carey-Webb & Benz, 1996), which describes Rigoberta Menchú's plight as a Nobel Prize-winning Guatemalan woman. We discuss the bigotry and discrimination she experienced when her testimonial was contested. This text allows me to discuss with students many forms of institutionalized racism experienced by people, like Menchú, whose national origin and low socio-economic roots do not provide them with the language and the mechanisms to fight back. Fortunately, the Nobel laureate used her strength and awareness to inform the world about these inequities. I use testimonies such as these to introduce global awareness. The editors of Teaching and Testimony share with the reader many reactions to this form of racism and bigotry as a contemporary problem of communication. Sharing Menchú's testimony helps my teacher candidates to increase their global awareness and to discover their own personal narratives and testimonials. [paragraph 12]

The terrain is now leveled, the soil is fertilized, and the ground is ready for planting a global perspective, which I define as an awareness of self as part of the world. The field of multicultural education tends to focus more on teaching and learning of cultural--often meaning racial and ethnic--diversity within North America (Banks, 2002; Brown & Kysilka, 2002; Hernandez, 1989) than attempting to understand cultural diversity from an international perspective (Pratt & Beatty, 1999). We do not reach outside our borders enough. To me, a global perspective means leaving our own confines to explore and understand other peoples, cultures, and nations. Thus, I bring out my collection of books written by protagonists of different countries around the world. I share with candidates the plights, rigors, and life-styles of people in Africa, Central & South America, Eastern Europe, and Asia. Some of these texts are : (1) Meinart Dejong's The House of Sixty Fathers (1988), (2) Beverly Naidoo's Journey to Jo'burg (1986), (3) Amy Bronwen Zemser's Beyond the Mango Tree (1998), (4) Victor Martinez' Parrot in the Oven (1996), and  (5) Zlata' Filipovic, Zlata's Diary (1994). These contemporary narratives provide my teacher candidates opportunities to revisit the topics they discussed after reading the classic works. To illustrate, The House of Sixty Fathers narrates the plight of a Chinese boy as he manages to escape from Japanese soldiers and in so doing becomes estranged from his family. Journey to Jo'burg offers a first person narrative of life under Apartheid South Africa while Beyond the Mango Tree provides a glimpse into the repatriation of an African American family to Liberia. Parrot in the Oven helps us understand the plight of a Mexican adolescent adapting to life in North America and Zlata's Diary reminds us of dismembered Yugoslavia, converted into ruins, which offered little solace to a young girl. This opportunity to compare and contrast the topics explored previously through reading the classics and now reading contemporary texts allows us to corroborate what we had originally interpreted as oppression, social injustice, bigotry, scapegoating, and racial tensions. [paragraph 13]

Our transcultural and multicultural exploration brings us back to the themes we want to explore. We revisit Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea (1952). This novel allows us to move away from the United States and to explore the Caribbean. We delve into the culture through the tale of an old fisherman off the island of Cuba. We integrate a Hispanic perspective, as students analyze this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. This exploration has a very special effect on students. Its excellent writing style rubs off on the essays written by students. It allows teacher candidates to uncover new layers of understanding that they had not noticed when reading the novel during their adolescence. For example, candidates bring up ecological issues embedded in the novel. To illustrate, the old man respects the sea and its treasures, always giving back what he took. The other fishermen in this Cuban village also hold the sea at bay, fearing it with great reverence. Respect for elders also surfaces as another important theme. The young boy’s devotion to the old man and his respect for the knowledgeable elder assist him in his own rite of passage toward adulthood. [paragraph 14]

Respect for elders is also an important topic that surfaces in our discussions on multiculturalism. We begin to understand how different cultures value the impact that elders have on individuals and their society. Class discussions on the learner-apprentice relationship between the old man and the young boy allow us to see how many cultures teach their young. While discussing the novel, we see how the young boy, when negotiating with the villagers for food for the old man, actually negotiates for his own position and stature in society. He grows up beside the old man, watching his every move, surveying his every decision, and assisting him in every task. Without realizing it, the boy scaffolds his passage to adulthood through assisting the old man. [paragraph 15]

This book also allows us to deal with misconceptions that transient visitors and tourists often impose upon local cultures. A scene in the book portrays tourists who are about to enter the local bar. They are repulsed by the fish carcass seen floating alongside the boat. Without the knowledge that the old man struggled to catch this fish for several days and, once it was in his nets, other fish ate it, they misjudge the entire town to be careless and filthy for not disposing of the fish carcass. They miss the point that the carcass remains along the boat as a testimony of the old man’s great feat. The tourist is portrayed as an invasive, non-accepting presence that visits the foreign land to consume of it rather than to bask in it. Hemingway remarkably portrays this situation and allows his readers to revisit the issue in a college setting. [paragraph 16]  
 

My Global Literacy Collection  
 

Having created a sense of sharedness through the familiar, which results in rich group discussions, I now embark on a new journey of sharing my own collection of contemporary child protagonists of the world. One of the stories I share is Kurusa's The Streets are Free (1981) that is about my own hometown, Caracas, Venezuela and is widely read in Venezuelan schools. The story offers a glimpse into the lives of three under-privileged children who arrange to plead for a public library in their town. The children raise awareness of their social condition and manage to attract the attention of municipal dignitaries. With minor assistance of the town elders, they get legislation passed to approve and build a public play space for residents of the barrio in which they live. [paragraph 17]

I then move around the globe, stopping, for example, with Heide and Heide's The Day of Ahmed's Secret (1990) which gives us a glimpse into a child's life in Cairo. Ahmed delivers butane gas. He does not go to school but communicates in a very special way. He has a signature whistle call, which he uses to announce his arrival. Ahmed is self-sufficient and assists his family in chores at home and in their business. His daily life is illustrated in vivid, photographic images that show the reader what his daily struggles are like. Readers of this highly recommendable book will find out that not every child in the world attends school, has time to play, and is supported by their parents. These topics need to be explored in great depth as we envision children coming to our schools in North America from these different life styles. Heide & Gilliland have created another insightful transcultural text, Sami and the Time of the Troubles (1995) which introduces readers to the plight of a Lebanese Muslim child, Sami, who spends a lot of time in hiding in the war-torn city of Beirut. Since the war in Lebanon has lasted for almost two decades, the protagonist has never experienced peace. He participates in an anti-war rally, hoping that someday the war will stop. This is another important topic to address in our classrooms as we prepare to teach refugees and immigrants from this part of the world. [paragraph 18]

Beverly Naidoo's Journey to Jo'burg (1986) tells a story of a young boy experiencing strife, uncertainty, and injustice. Through the eyes of Naledi and Tiro, readers experience first-hand what Apartheid is like. The children struggle to reach their mother, who works in a part of town forbidden to them. As they try to reach her, they walk us through the many hurdles the Apartheid system has created for South African people of color. Classroom discussions are invigorated by this detailed reality. [paragraph 19]

The multicultural exploration through shared readings is now an enriched classroom environment where students exercise a new and very articulate voice. The evolving multicultural lens which students have cultivated throughout the semester allows them to explore a newly found freedom and to speak their minds in class. A transformation occurs, as students understand the social consciousness expected of them as citizens of the world. The opportunity to re-visit the familiar in order to explore the unknown opens new ways of thinking and viewing our surroundings. Because we begin to peel off layers of the familiar things, we are able to handle issues that are not-so familiar in a safe classroom environment. Students begin to uncover their feelings and to articulate their reactions to the mistreatment of individuals. They also make connections with situations that are unfair in today's world. [paragraph 20]  
 

References
 

Alcott, L. M. (1989). Little women. New York, NY: Penguin.

Banks, J. (2002). An introduction to multicultural education. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Bronte, E. (1906) Jane Eyre. UK: Century, Co.

Brown, S. C. & Kysilka, M. (2002). Applying multicultural and global concepts in the classroom and beyond. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Carey-Webb, A. & Benz, S. (Eds.). (1996). Teaching and testimony: Rigoberta Menchú and the North American classroom. New York, NY:  SUNY Press.  

Dejong, M. (1988). The house of sixty fathers. New York, NY: Penguin.

Filipovic, Z. (1994). Zlata's diary. New York, NY:  Penguin.

Golding, W. (1954). Lord of the flies. London, UK: Faber & Faber.

Gonzalez, J. L. (1996). Racial and ethnic groups in America. Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt Publishing.

Hawthorne, N. (1850). The scarlet letter. Boston. MA: Ticknor, Reed & Fields.

Heide, F. P. & Heide, J. (1990). The day of Ahmed's secret. New York, NY: Clarion Books.

Heide, F. P. & Gilliland, J. H. (1995). Sami and the time of the troubles. New York, NY: Clarion Books.

Hemingway, E. (1952). The old man and the sea. NY: Bantam Books.

Hernandez, H. (1989). Multicultural education: a teacher's guide to linking context, process, and content.  Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill & Prentice Hall.

Kurusa. (1981). The streets are free. Caracas, Venezuela: Ecaré, Banco del Libro.

Lee, H. (1960). To kill a mockingbird. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott.

Martinez, V. (1996). Parrot in the oven. Mi Vida, NY:  Harper-Trophy.

Naidoo, B. (1986). Journey to Jo'burg. New York, NY: Harper Trophy.

Pratt, L. & Beatty, J. L. (1999). Transcultural children's literature. Columbus, OH:  Merrill & Prentice Hall.

Steinbeck, J. (1937). Of mice and men. New York, NY: Penguin Books.

Twain, M. (1998). The adventures of Tom Sawyer. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications

Valle, R. (1997). Ethnic diversity and multiculturalism: Crisis and challenge. New York, NY: American Heritage.

Zemser, A. B. (1998). Beyond the mango tree. New York, NY:  Harper-Trophy.  

Ana Maria Klein, Ph. D., is a teacher educator. She teaches graduate courses in cultural perspectives, undergraduate courses in cultural and linguistic diversity. (Contact her at anamaria.klein@fredonia.edu; contact the editors of EMME at emme@eastern.edu.)

Recommended Citation in the APA Style:  

Klein, A. M. (2003). Re-visiting juvenile literature as shared contexts in multicultural education. Electronic Magazine of Multicultural Education [online], 5(2), 20 paragraphs <Available: http://www.eastern.edu/publications/emme/2003fall/klein.html> [your access year, month date]