I remember reading "To Kill a Mocking Bird" in Middle School and watching the movie at home and in school. There was something transformative about those experiences in my youth that helped make me the teacher, son, brother, husband, and father I am today.
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” ~ Harper Lee
As a Literacy Educator, I am informed by a rich body of research, and experiences in the classroom. Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop said diverse Books are mirrors, (places we see and reaffirm ourselves), Windows, (places we come to see and know others), and Sliding Doors, (places where we step inside the lives of others). Literature is more than print on pages, it can be a communion with transformation of hope, peace, joy, and love. I would say diverse books humanize us. It is that potential to humanize us that racists fear most. The Humanizing factor is why people seek to ban books. I have asked college over a thousand undergraduates and graduate university students what the reason teachers gave you is to make you a reader. Their answers seldom come close to any transformative answers. Most are linked to employment or access to university. Mrs. Stanfield my Hornor's English Teacher told us Frederick Douglas said " Once you learn to read you will be forever free". She was my first Black Teacher, she always linked literacy to freedom. Father Fitzgerald told us reading gives you another doorway to God when your ears are blocked. Reading is God's gift to all, and Brail is his gift to the blind.
If we spent more time with young learners explaining why we want them to read, we would find powerful ways to motivate and engage them. It is my opinion that we spend too much time teaching how to read, and not enough time teaching why we read.
Respectfully,
Dr. Jesse P. Turner
CCSU Literacy Center Director
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