Final Reflection

I believe the general rule for college classes is that you get what you put into them. That might even be true for everything else in life, but I don't think I have the time to try to prove it :) But I found that to be especially true for this class. I could see a few of my classmates coming to class unprepared, and they didn't really get much out of our discussions. But after doing the readings and thinking critically about the books, I found that our class discussions were quickly taking on lives of their own, taking us down paths that none of us expected. And that was the most exciting part of all: watching our discussions begin with a common starting point (the books we had just read) and take off in all sorts of different directions. I've been avoiding reading other reflections because I didn't want them to alter my own thoughts, but our class discussions were definitely my favorite part of the class. They really opened up my imagination to worlds of possibilities that I never considered when reading on my own.

If nothing else, participating in this class has reinforced the idea that reading is social. We get so much more out of a book when we discuss it and share our ideas with other people - that's why children love read-aloud time, that's why book groups still exist, and that's why we take Children's Literature classes and discuss our thoughts and feelings as a group. And that's why as educators we must do our best to embrace the "social-ness" of reading within our future classrooms. No matter what age your students are, they will be capable of reading and having enlightened conversations about what they've read. They might need support and guidance, but to remove reading from a social context does an injustice to everyone involved.

Overall, I found this class to be really beneficial, and it really opened my eyes to the plethora of ways that literature can be used in the classroom. It also got me thinking about how we judge literature. What makes "good" children's literature is as much up to the children as it is to us. As teachers we must be able to help students locate literature that is exciting, thought-provoking, and developmentally appropriate. It is not our job to impose our own values onto our students. We can show them examples of what we think is "quality" literature, and hope that they'll agree. But if little Billy still wants to read Goosebumps in his free time, then he'd probably best off if his teacher could find some way to support or acknowledge that.

Even though I struggled a bit to keep up this blog, I think that blogging has been a helpful tool for our class to use. Blogging is a great way to get our thoughts "out there" for the rest of the world to see - that includes classmates as well as random Korean strangers :) It would also be a great resource for any teacher to use, whether to make book recommendations to students, to connect with other teachers via the internet, or to keep an up-to-date newsletter informing parents of classroom happenings. That's the great thing about the internet: it's easy to use, the information is free, and it connects us to a potentially infinite audience.

I really enjoyed this class, and I have taken a lot of great ideas from it. Hopefully with the information I have acquired this semester, I can help instill in my students a life-long love of reading. I guess we'll just have to wait and see...

Mid-Semester Reflection

I have really been learning a lot about children's literature from this class, but more importantly I have continued to learn about myself as a reader and an educatory.  I have been thinking a lot about how I plan on making the important decision of what books I want to use in my classroom.  I want to expose my students to not only a wide variety of genres, but also a wide variety of media in which reading appears.  It is very important to teach children that reading and writing have real-life purposes, and to do that we need to expose them to the infinitely large selection of literature out there.

I have come to realize just how important "controversial" literature can be in the classroom.  Though it is often up to debate whether a particular book is controversial or not (controversy is in the eye of the beholder, perhaps?), but I have become ever more aware that it is essential to expose our students to a wide variety of literature that portrays many different cultures and lifestyles.  This may push some parents or students (or even myself) out of their comfort zones on occasion, but it is absolutely necessary to expose children to as much of the world as we can.  This is more true today than it has ever been before, and I'm sure it become ever more important as our society continues to become more diverse and more aware of other cultures in the world.

Lastly, I have learned that there are many things that happen in the classroom that we can't foresee until they happen, but we can prepare ourselves in order to best serve our students.  Just as important as the literature we put in the classroom is the attitude we bring with ourselves into the classroom.  The language we use, the responses we make to student comments or questions, and the literature and stories we are willing to share with our students all show our children what we view as "normal" and acceptable, so it is important to be able to create a safe and nurturing environment for all of the students we teach.  This requires being very self-aware so we can be sure to avoid making any students feel singled out or out of the "norm."