From: Monica R. Edinger <edinger>
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1999 12:44:00 +0000

A few points that have struck me as we end this month on a contentious and difficult topic.

1. Many have concluded that the greatest responsibility in all of this lies with teachers. Yet, how difficult it is for the good books to become known by the majority of classroom teachers, to become a comfortable part of their practice, and thus read by children. Aside from the issues of review, distribution, and marketing there is the reality of classrooms today. My teaching colleagues nation-wide work under a wide variety of conditions. I'm very fortunate in that I teach in a private school where I have a great deal of power in determining my curriculum and the books I use. Not all teachers have that freedom. Many are very constricted by required book lists, standards, high stakes tests, textbooks, principals, central office language arts specialists, laws that control what is taught and how, and fear of offending (which means they quietly self?nsor to avoid controversy.) I suspect many teachers have a quiet goal which is a variation of the medical profession, "first do no harm". That is: "first do nothing to draw attention." I recall a Child_lit post by someone who teaches children's literature to pre-service teachers commenting on her students' fear of any book that was remotely controversial. For teachers who already feel embattled the easiest route is complete avoidance. Rather than replacing Little House with The Birchbark House or seeking out some of the other fine books recommmended, better to spend a day on the topic via the social studies textbook and then just move on and away from it as fast as possible.

2. What does it mean to know a culture and then write about it? Just being there does not suffice. Nor is research alone always enough either. I spent two years in Sierra Leone as a Peace Corps Volunteer which I don't feel gives me sufficient knowledge to write about the country in any other way other then through my limited viewpoint as a very young American there in 1974v. Others, however, have no such compunction. I particularly hated an adult book of a few years ago which was a National Book Award finalist by an author whose last name was Dooley, I believe. The author had spent a few weeks in Sierra Leone as a tourist which already is very different from being there to work for a few years. The male main character spends some time in a Mende village, becomes involved with a local woman, comes up against magical beliefs related to secret societies and many other very culturally-sensitive practices. The author's use of Krio (the lingua franca of Sierra Leone) made me very nostalgic, but the way he wrote about women was horrible and I was extremely uncomfortable with the secret society stuff because it reinforced all the worst stereotypes of Africa as a dark and alien continent. And today Sierra Leone has become the latest African country to be on the news only because dreadful atrocities occurred there. No doubt some well-meaning individual even as I write, someone who may have spent a couple of weeks in a refugee camp, is working on a book about a limbless child. This will do absolutely nothing to help my students better understand the many different cultures in Sierra Leone.

3. The issue of seeing oneself in literature. My students are not Native American so my main concern with this literature is finding the best material to help them see that those who are culturally different and live far away from us are real, living, multi-dimensional people with rich, complex pasts not simplistic one-note historical icons. So, I can only try to imagine what it must be like for Liz Reese and others in her situation. I do know that if she was in my class and I was teaching anything that involved her family history that it would totally affect my choice of teaching materials. I can't imagine using Little House under such circumstances.

I apologize for now turning to my own experience, but it is the best I have for empathizing with Liz and others in similar circumstances. As a child I was pretty marginalized as the daughter of German Jewish refugees in the various southern and midwestern communities in which we lived. In these places everyone seemed to have lived in the same house since birth
(we moved every couple of years), went to Sunday School (my parents described themselves as atheists), had young parents without heavy accents
( my mother was 30 when she had her first child, and my father still sounds like Kissinger), and ate peanut butter sandwiches on white bread
(I ate liverwurst on black bread). This is, of course, nothing remotely like being marginalized because of race, but it was isolating nonetheless and those are the memories I draw upon when attempting to consider how children feel when marginalized in the classroom.

I was a voracious reader, but none of the books available then (in the 60s) were about my parents' experience or mine. The first even remotely close was The Diary of Anne Frank which I was given when I was in seventh grade (and in Germany for the year, by the way.) Her family history was similar to mine (assimilated Frankfurt and Berlin Jews.) While I was haunted by Anne's fate it wasn't described in any sort of detail. However, the current well-known titles now available about the Holocaust don't feel at all like my story either. Jane Yolen's The Devil's Arithmetic would have given me nightmares in fourth grade as I well knew my grandfather's fate in a concentration camp, but sure wasn't ready to have it described to me in any detail. I can imagine sweet Mrs. Jennings suggesting I teach the class something about Germany and Judaism and my refusal to go to school for a week. Or worse, the playground bullies saying things about Nazis just to get to me. Thus, my pleasure last year to read Anita Lobel's No Pretty Pictures. While I could not have handled this in fourth grade I could have in seventh and I can't tell you what a solace it would have been to come across someone like my parents. This book distressed some as they felt it would encourage anti-Semitism. I suspect people will shy away from it for that reason. But, I must say, it is the only book other than Anne Frank that I have ever encountered where I see anything like my family history.

So there you are. I'll continue to do all I can to find books that speak to my students and help them to learn more about the world. I'll watch them carefully for unintentional hurts. I'll work on learning more . And I'll also support my teaching colleagues nationally as they are continually bashed about in every media and forum. I'll advocate for Sierra Leone where I can. And I'll remember that being on the margins can take many many forms.

Monica Edinger The Dalton School New York City edinger at dalton.org
Received on Sun 31 Oct 1999 06:44:00 AM CST