Final Project: Summary of Learning

Summary of Learning:

The three books I chose are all picture books about disabilities. These books are all what I consider quality literature for children of all ages. All of the books I chose portray disabilities in a positive way encouraging discussion and questions after reading the books. These books share what a day in the life is like with the specific disability. All these books share the many things that disabled people can do rather than what they cannot do. The first book I chose is called Someone Special Just Like You written by Tricia Brown. The book shares photographs of children with all different types of disabilities playing and having fun. The second book I chose was We’ll Paint the Octopus Red written by Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen. This book is perfect for teaching a family about Down syndrome, especially if a member of that family has Down syndrome. The last book I chose was Looking Out for Sarah written by Glenna Lang. This book shares a story about a day in the life of a guide dog and his owner. All three of these books show excellence in portraying disabilities and constitute as great pieces of literature to inform children and adults disabilities.

Critical Review: Someone Special Just Like You

Someone Special Just Like You
By Tricia Brown

Brown, Tricia. Someone Special Just Like You. New York: Henry Holt And Company,

1984.

“In dispelling the fear of the unknown and showing our common needs for physical affection, community, skills, and independence, this book should do much to help the disabled [child] gain independence from other children” (Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books). I read the book Someone Special, Just like You by Tricia Brown. This quote was written on the back cover of the book. Brown is an outsider yet she wrote this book because of a little girl in her son’s class who had a disability. She wanted to find a book “to help him understand that we should accept one another for the love we have to share with the world and not judge on the basis of physical appearances or limitations” (Brown, 1995). She soon found out that none existed. She originally wrote this book for preschoolers hoping that they will learn to accept other classmates with disabilities. However, Brown soon realized that her book was not only about children with disabilities, but about all of us. “Everyone has their own disability, and each of us is someone special” (Brown, 1995).
This picture book contains photographs taken by Fran Ortiz which shows pictures of children with all types of disabilities. Throughout the book, there was a boy who was visually impaired climbing through a tunnel, and a girl who was using a walker walking down a hallway. There was a boy who was hearing impaired playing an instrument and a girl with leg braces blowing bubbles and sliding down a slide. There was a little boy with Down Syndrome swimming in the pool and playing with toys. There was a boy in a wheel chair at school who was talking to his classmates that were sitting on a bench. There was another picture of a little boy using sign language, and making art projects.
The point of all these pictures was to show children that may not have a disability that other children with disabilities can still do many things that any little kid loves to do. There was minimal text on each page because the main focus was on the pictures. The text just explained the pictures. For example, on the page with the picture of the girl going down the slide with her leg braces it said, “I like to go down the slide like everyone else.” Brown was showing her young readers through her pictures that all kids love to play with toys, take naps, dance, play the piano, brush their teeth, go to a museum, smell pretty flowers, eat ice cream, etc. Even though a child might be in a wheel chair, or have a hearing impairment, they still want to be looked at as being a normal child. They don’t let their disability get in their way, so other kids need to be able to accept them for who they are.

Critical Review: Looking Out for Sarah

Looking Out for Sarah
By Glenna Lang

Lang, Glenna. Looking Out for Sarah. Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge Publishing, 2001.


Winner of the ALA Schneider Family Book Award (2004) Looking Out for Sarah tells the day in the life of Sarah and her guide dog Perry. Perry is a Labrador retriever and takes his job very seriously as a guide dog for his blind owner Sarah. During their day, Perry and Sarah go for walks to the grocery store, catch a ride on the train, and play fetch in the yard. Since Sarah is a musician, Perry guides Sarah to a school where she plays the guitar and sings for the children. Toward the end of the story, Perry dreams about the time where he and Sarah walked all day every day for a month along country paths and small town sidewalks meeting many people along they journey. The book portrays her disability is a positive way because it shows all the things Sarah can do with her guide dog, rather than showing her limitations. In the back flap of the book, Lang shares with her readers that this book was based on a real black Labrador retriever named Perry and his owner, Sarah Gregory Smith. Although she is not an insider herself, she informs the reader about this true story of Perry and Sarah and how Perry first met Sarah at a guide dog school in New York. After Perry’s graduation from the school, Sarah and Perry went back to Sarah’s home in Massachusetts to begin their life together. Lang also explains to her readers how Sarah lost her sight as an adult from diabetes. The illustrations in Lang’s story are very captivating and show her readers that Sarah’s disability does not stop her from living her life to its fullest. This is a great story for readers of all ages because it shows how a blind woman did not let her disability stand in the way of living her life like everyone else.

Critical Review: We’ll Paint the Octopus Red

We’ll Paint the Octopus Red
By Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen

Stuve-Bodeen, Stephanie. We'll Paint The Octopus Red. Bethesda: Woodbine House,
1998.


We’ll Paint the Octopus Red, by Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen is a picture book written for children from the ages of 3-7 years old. This story is about a little girl named Emma who just found out her new baby brother has Down syndrome. At first Emma did not even want a baby brother but then she had a talk with her dad about the things she could do with her brother. When the upsetting news came home to Emma that her baby brother had Down syndrome things got a little more complicated. Emma began to ask all the questions again about having a baby brother and her dad soon explained to her that her brother with Down syndrome will be able to do all the things that a little brother can do but it will just take a little more time and help from their family to teach him new things. Every page in the book has water color pictures with vibrant colors and minimal text. The pictures were very inviting and written in a way where a child could understand the positive messages. The back few pages of the book contain questions about Down syndrome written at a childs level. These questions answer the basics about what Down syndrome is and how a baby cannot grow out of Down syndrome. These questions also explain how a person with Down syndrome will act when they are older and why they are special. This book is perfect for teaching a family about Down syndrome. The pictures throughout the story reveal a baby with his family, and not a baby with Down syndrome. This showed young readers that babies born with Down syndrome can do the same things that babies do without Down syndrome. The author, Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen wrote this book as an outsider, however she has background on disabilities from getting her B.S. in education and teaching early childhood classes at the YMCA.

Professional Resource

Tingstrom, Dh, and Lb Bischoff. "Siblings of children with disabilities:
Psychological and behavioural characteristics.." Counseling Psychology
Quarterly 4.4 (1991):311-321.

"Siblings of children with disabilities: Psychological and behavioral characteristics"

In this article the reader learns about a study they conducted to “assess the behavioral and psychological characteristics of siblings of children with disabilities and the perceptions of parents and children regarding sibling relationships” (Tingstrom and Bischoff, p. 311). I found this article very interesting especially after reading, We’ll Paint the Octopus Red, by Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen. I have always been interested in finding out about siblings of children with disabilities and how it affects their lives. This article was very long, so I chose to focus on the beginning of the article when the authors, Tingstrom and Bischoff, talked about their research on the sibling relationship and how many factors affect the outcome of the relationship. Tingstrom and Bischoff stated, “Sibling relationships in families with children with disabilities are complex and may be mediated by a number of variables. Care-taking responsibilities, age, birth order, individual temperament, socioeconomic status, and severity of disability may determine whether siblings are negatively or positively affected by the presence of siblings with disabilities” (Tingstrom and Bischoff, p.311). Throughout this article they talked about how “Although many studies have found negative effects for siblings of children with disabilities, a number of studies suggest that the presence of children with disabilities does not necessarily indicate that siblings without disabilities will develop problems” (Tingstrom and Bischoff, p.311). They even indicated that, “several studies suggest that the presence of a child with a disability may provide siblings with an opportunity for positive growth” (Tingstrom and Bischoff, p.311). In this article they also include a quote from an older brother of a child with autism. He stated, "Being in a family with someone 'special' to take care of not only makes you mature faster but gives you more experience and a better understanding of how to handle people as well"(Tingstrom and Bischoff, p.311).

This article made me realize that there are many factors that determine how positive or negative a relationship is with siblings of children with disabilities. I believe this article was written in a very clear and concise way, showing different ways that siblings can be affected by other siblings with disabilities. After reading this article and reflecting on the pictures books about disabilities, I learned that specifically the books I critically reviewed on disabilities can become great teaching tools to inform anyone on specific and general disabilities and would be a great start to begin forming positive relationships for siblings.

Final Blog Post

During our last class session we talked about the syllabus and what we accomplished during the semester in TE 448. We covered the definitions of stereotypes versus generalizations which I have learned, throughout this course, that I have misused these words in my writing. We covered identity and self discovery when discussing different cultures and religions throughout the novels we read. These issues of self discovery allowed me to think of what I consider to be my own culture and religion and how important those are to me. We covered the insider/outsider debate and how literature from different views can make the reader review the work as quality literature or not quality literature. I have never thought about the author’s point of view before when reading a book, and this debate allowed me to analyze what is quality literature to me. In our final project we were allowed to chose books to critically analyze in our own way. I really enjoyed this assignment because even if someone may not agree 100% with our review we were allowed to back it up with what we believe is quality literature not what someone else believes.

Another big portion of our class was blogging. Before this class I had never created a blog on Google that my other classmates could respond to. I loved reading my classmates blogs and seeing their opinions on different issues we discussed in class. Through my own blog writing, I was able to construct and organize my thoughts in a professional way because I knew that they were going to be public on the internet. For me, I know that during class I had things I wanted to talk about that I did not know exactly how to bring up during discussion. This blog allowed me to formulate my thoughts and allow others to read what I had to say.
Finally, we had to write many questioning the text papers on different novels. When going into my first QTT paper I had no idea where to start. I had never written a paper like this before and I had lots of trouble trying not to answer my own question. However, as the papers progress I believe I got better with understanding why we were writing papers like this. As teachers, we will have to bring up questions that allow for thought provoking discussions in our classrooms. These questions will not have a straight answer because the author is not present, and it is up to our students to bring their own thoughts and opinions to the discussion. It is not the teachers’ responsibility to answer the question.

All I all, I really enjoyed this class. It opened my eyes to literature that I did not know even existed. I had never read books on disabilities, GLBT, Asian-American…etc. This class forced me to critically analyze professional articles and books. Before this class I would have just read through these books and not thought anything of them. However, I did more analyzing and reflecting on pieces of literature in this class than I have in my entire life. I would recommend this class to any future teacher because I feel that it is very important to include many different types of literature into you classroom to make every student feels safe, comfortable and happy to come to school everyday.

International Day Extra Credit

On Wednesday November 19, 2008, I attended International Day at the Engineering building. When I heard about this happening on our campus I thought that there was going to be a bunch of booths with people from all different cultures displaying art work and sharing part of the culture with us. However, it was completely opposite. When I walked it there was a little drummer boy (about 10 years old) playing a drum to authentic African Music. I was so impressed! He was so good and the audience really enjoyed listening to him playing his drum and watching a lady dressed in clothing from her culture dance along side him. Then after his song was over, a music teacher spoke about her experience working with children and how talented they all are. She also announced all the songs we were hearing and then proceeded to teach us a song that she teaches her students. It was called “Sunshine in Africa” and it had a very nice beat and very easy to remember. She got the audience all involved and everyone was singing along! I was very interested in hearing their music and watching the dancing because I had never seen anything like this before.

After we sang the song, A group of Mexican dancers preformed a traditional dance for us. There were two boys and two girls dressed in authentic Mexican apparel and they explained to us how this is a common dance that many young adults learn in Mexico to keep their culture alive.

also got to see artwork from Julian K. Van Dyke. He had paintings for sale and on display. His paintings were very beautiful and included horses, and many outdoor settings. He also had a painting representing MSU! I learned he is an actor, illustrator, and an author. His work in is galleries, on the front cover of books, on the exterior design on churches, and on murals in Benton Harbor Michigan. He was the recipient of the silver anniversary in the arts from the Greater Lansing Area Club of National Association of Negro Business And Professional Women’s Club Inc. He said he was very grateful and appreciative to be asked to show his work at MSU.

GLBT "For the Bible tells me so" Extra Credit

I attended the Safe Schools Seminar on October 30th, 2008. I was very glad I was able to make it to this one, along with the last one because each one was a little different. This seminar allowed me to think about GLBT issues surrounding Christianity. I enjoyed the introduction on families in the beginning of the seminar however what really struck me as being powerful was parts 2 and 3 about what the bible says and unconditional love. The movies talked about the ability to procreate and how that was a violation of the norm in homogeneous relationships. Then it talked about how a man who sleeps with another man should be killed because god said it and we should obey. When I heard this comment, it made me sick to my stomach because I call myself a christian yet, I would never, ever think about believing someone should die if they were gay. In the unconditional love part of the seminar, I was also so shocked by the story about the girl who committed suicide because her family did not accept her. I cannot believe how some families beliefs stretch so far into making your own child commit suicide. I learned though this seminar that they are 3-7 times more likely to commit suicide. This just makes me very sad to think that people out there are saying that being gay is preventable and that their can be treatment to get rid of it. I just cannot believe that in today's society people are still showing so much hatred for GLBT members. This seminar opened my eyes to these issues going on today centering around religious beliefs. As teachers we need to make sure that our students feel safe and secure in our classrooms no matter what our religious beliefs are.

"Blindness"

I understand why The National Federation of the Blind stated “The female actor is portrayed as physically, mentally and morally superior to the others because she still has her sight. Blind people in this film are portrayed as incompetent, filthy, vicious, and depraved. They are unable to do even the simplest things like dressing, bathing, and finding the bathroom. The truth is that blind people regularly do all of the same things that sighted people do.” These statements were really powerful to me because after seeing the trailer for this movie I felt the same way. Today they can make movies just about anything. I feel its wrong for our society to point out a disability and mock it in the way it looks like they do in this movie. “Blindness” points the finger at the blind community portraying them as incompetent of doing anything because they do not have their vision. In the trailer these “blind” actors acted as if they were animals crawling all over the floor losing their minds.
However, I do understand why someone would argue this point. This movie took people who have had their sight their whole life, and then randomly one day they lost it. I believe any of us would feel like they lost their mind if they went randomly blind one day. I believe that a movie premise like this would make a lot of money for box offices because it has a strange story line. All the controversy give people the drive to go see it and see for themselves what it is all about. Even I feel after personally giving negative reviews of the movie, I kind of want to go see it to see the full movie. It is sad though that they are taking a disability and portraying it negatively on the big screen.

GLBT Safe Schools session, October 8, 2008

Today I attended the GLBT Safe Schools session on the topic: "Issues of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Schools." I have been to three of these sessions before put on by different leaders. However, I particularly enjoyed this one because of the panel present. At the beginning of the session we had a man discuss all the labeling of LGBT. He asked if anyone had any questions about these terms before we got started with the panel of speakers. Only a few questions were asked and then we got right into the panelists. Each panelist brought something different to the discussion. One was a former teacher in New York where she had many students in her classroom that came from lesiban/gay parents. Another was a lesbien women who works for MSU resource center and leads discussion group on issues of identity and sexual orientation. The third was a man who talked about having a lesbien daughter along with a granddaughter who has two moms and her struggle in school. Finally, the last panelist was an MSU student who said he was homosexual in the education school studying music.

Although all the panelists brought a lot of useful and thought proking information to us tonight, I feel like I got the most from the first panelist who used to teach in NY schools. I came to this session because I want to make sure that if I have a situation in my classroom where a student of mine comes from a family where they have two mommys or two daddy's or are even struggling with sexual orientation themselves, I would know how to handle it. This teacher shared with us that in our classroom we have to make sure that we always have to be careful how we advertise Mother's Day or Father's Day and how we should call it "A female who is important in our lives" or "A male who is important in our lives" just to make sure that every student would have something to write about. I also enjoyed how she talked about how every teacher's primary responsibiliy are their students and no matter what you believe in you have to make sure that child feels safe and comfortable learning in your classroom. She told us that teachers make a bigger deal over what could happen if we address it rather than thinking about all the little small things that a child will have to go through if we don't address it. We need to put our students first. She concluded with saying that teaching is powerful. That really made me think about the impact I will make on many students in the next few years as I start my student teaching and into my carreer. I need to be ready for anything.

The Bronx Masquerade Discussion

Today in class we discussed the book "Bronx Masquerade". After reading the book on my own, I felt the book was a great read for students because it not only discussed issues of diversity but it also discussed issues that teens encounter no matter what their ethnicity. After reading Nikki Grimes' website, I found out some reasons why she wrote the book. She stated, "I knew people like Raynard, and Sheila, and all the rest. The characters in Bronx Masquerade are my peeps! So, while these characters are all fictional, they come from someplace real. (There is one real person in the book, though: Mr. Ward. That character is based on a teacher and poet I am honored to call my friend.)" I felt this said a lot about being an insider to the book because she did experience the issues she wrote about.
People in class today talked about how this book might have portrayed negative stereotypes because it put an issue with a certain ethnicity. I do agree with this point of view, but I also see how she wrote about these ethnicity's with these certain issues because they were real stories. In her website she wrote about the book "Each small story has its own theme, or core idea. However, the overriding theme of the novel is the power of poetry, specifically the power of poetry, the power of poetry as a means of self-expression, as a strategy for shaping community, and as a tool for teaching us that we are all alike beneath the skin. We all bleed when cut, and when everything else is stripped away, the greatest common denominator is the human heart." After I read this I realized that that explains the whole story. Grimes wanted her readers to see how every individual has a voice and you can't judge someone by looking at them from the outside.
When talking in my discussion group we discussed how this book would even bee a good book to pick apart as a teacher and make copies of certain poems for class discussion without even having your students read the book. This way as a teacher you could make sure these stereotypes are discussed in a positive way without leaving students feeling mad about what they read.

Vikki Grimes website :http://www.nikkigrimes.com/bronx/bronx1.html

Habibi: Book Debate

After our discussion on the book Habibi the other day in class, I had a lot of thoughts going through my mind. We read an article about the book and how it was banned in West Bloomfield school district. The article stated that they felt this book portrayed negative stereotypes and was one-sided. They felt is was a bad book to use for what they were trying to teach.
However, I felt the book was a good read for young adults. When I was in school I was never exposed to Arab or Jewish literature before. I felt this story was very interesting and kept my attention throughout the entire novel. I never felt that it was very one sided, I just felt that since it was written about an Arab girl, I was going to get more Arab history rather than Jewish history.
West Bloomfield is known for having a large Jewish community. I understand that when they read this book they might have felt betrayed because it did not represent their history very well. However, I believe that choosing this book to read in your classroom could turn it into something positive. I believe that this could lead the teacher to lead a discussion on the Histories of the two groups and really dig into the stereotypes of both groups. I believe this book would be a good introduction to the unit to sprout the students' interest in the Histories.

I wish I would have been exposed to culturally diverse books growing up as a child. I believe if there is always going to be debates over books like these then teachers are going to give up on picking a culturally diverse book in fear that they will be criticized for picking the wrong one. This fear is what has stopped discussion in classrooms. I believe teachers need to use books like Habibi, whether they are 100% correct or not, just to allow students to begin to think about topics dealing with cultures and religions different from their own.

How is blogging going?

I think blogging is a great addition to use in the classroom. For our TE 448 class, it is useful for us because we can look at responses from our classmates and see their opinions and insights about topics we have discussed in class. I know personally, I checked out many of my classmates blogs about the insider/outsider debate. Before writing my own blog I wanted to see where everyone else stood so I could get ideas because I was very undecided about the debate. Also, it allows the teacher to read their students responses on certain issues so they can figure out what needs to be discussed in class.
Before taking TE 448, I had never blogged before. I always heard of people blogging but I never knew how you could read blogs or how you could create your own. I was even kind of confused about what a blog contained. Now, I know that anyone can create a blog, and can write and anything in their blog. I really like that freedom that blogs have. People are allowed to state their own opinions and are able to receive others opinions. I am sure this creates some controversy, but it also allows for everyone to have a voice.
Most of us in our TE 448 class are going to be teachers one day. I believe blogs would be an excellent source to use in our own classrooms. If I will be working in a district where most students have internet access at home I think creating a classroom blog would be a great idea. I could do daily posts where I write what we did during the day, and post homework for the night. That way parents could know what is going on, along with students being able to look up their homework if they forgot what was due the next day. I believe communication is very important in a classroom, and I believe if parents are well-informed about what is going on in their child's classroom there will be a very positive atmosphere for the year. I know as first year teachers parents are skeptible and fear that the teacher isn't ready. Blogs would maby lessen this fear and allow for positive feedback from parents.

Group B discussion

Today I led the discussion on the book Habibi. I was nervous going into this discussion because I felt this paper was difficult to write. My question was: Did Poppy move his family to Palestine to allow them to challenge stereotypes? The members in my group had a lot of good information to add to my topic allowing me to make my discussion easy. I really liked the other question in my group because it discussed why Poppy did not prepare Liyana's Uncle that Omer was Jewish when he came to dinner with the family at the end of the book. Her Uncle was surpirsed that he was allowed in their home. This led our group to discuss the issue of stereotypes and how different generations are more accepting of other cultures. We then related it to our personal lives and talked about how different people in our families accept other cultures. After discussing this book, I realized that there were so many questions that I could have used for my paper. Our discussion also allowed me to look at my furture role as a teacher and see what types of questions are good for group discussion.

Insider/Ousider debate

I believe the insider outsider debate is an interesting topic to discuss being a future teacher. On the one hand, I believe that the best kind of book to have in my classroom would be a book written by an insider's perspective. My mom used to always say to me, "You don't know what it feels like until you are in that person's shoes". Most often, being the insider you have experienced first hand what you are writing about and have created a story to educate others about. The knowledge an insider is sharing can be trusted to the average reader because it was part of their culture and lifestyle growing up. The tone and language used in the story sometimes even feels more authentic coming for an author who is an insider. An insider will create real illustrations in their books and not the "fake" "stereotype" drawings. To think about it logically, it is much easier to tell someone a story about yourself then to tell a story about someone that you heard about. More often than not, the story that you tell about someone else will get altered every time you tell it.

However, on the other hand I do not think it is wrong for an outsider to write a story either. I believe that if they research what they are writing about thoroughly then that outside author can create a story which appears to be very authentic and accurate. By doing this research, an outsider can create these "real" illustrations, and not the "fake" "stereotypical" ones. The outsider just needs to make sure that they are not making a story that give a false sense to its readers. It is not fair to the children/teenagers/adults who are reading the story to lie to them and given them a false portrayal of what they are reading about. If outsiders continue to write books that misrepresent what they are writing about, then as a society, we are going to continue to receive false information.

As future teachers, we need to make sure every book that we have in our classroom is a good story to have our students reading. I know when I was growing up, I read many books that now seem so inaccurate to me. I do not want my students getting these false impressions.

I would like to explore more children's books authors who are insiders and outsiders. I would like to compare books written about the same things with these authors and see their strengths and weaknesses of their writing and illustrations.