December 8, 2012

Quote:

The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.

~Sydney J. Harris

The significance of this quote is of great value. When educators get educated there are more opportunities available for educators. The mirrors become what could have been of the educators who were not educated, but the windows become the path of opportunity.

Article:

For Young Latino Readers, an Image Is Missing

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/05/education/young-latino-students-dont-see-themselves-in-books.html?pagewanted=1&permid=24

Today a variety of cultures are becoming widespread throughout this country. This article explains how the Hispanic students are accumulating and how most young Hispanic students notice that most main characters in books are white. This article also explains how Latino children try to relate to these white main characters, but they find it difficult to relate to a main character that does not have the same cultural values that a Latino child might have. As a Latina I agree with this article because I believe that children should be able to relate to a character in a novel that is being read by them or a novel that is being read to them. For instance, this article shows how the Hispanic population is rising and that there are few novels that are available with Hispanic characters in them. It is not just Latino children, but it is also other non-English speakers as well. As shown in this article Jeff Byrd, senior product manager for reading at Houghton Mifflin, shows a significant point by saying that “students should be able to see themselves in a high-quality text.” I agree students should be exposed to novels that are a way of relating with their culture and language. As this article points out, if there were novels only about white characters a Hispanic student like I might not feel as if they were to belong in the school with their own different cultural values and languages. Teachers should also be willing to collaborate and put in their part to make sure that there are variety of books with different cultural values and characters. For example, a third-grade teacher in this article says a valuable statement about how she would like to tell students with different cultures and languages “‘this book reminds me of you.’”

Observations:

It is very useful that our high schools have a variety of novels with different cultural values, languages, and barriers that students can relate to. Students tend to read more books if they can relate to them. Therefore, it is important for schools to have a variety of novels available so it can help interest students into reading more novels.