By Chris Gavin, PFP Educator
One of the most formative parts of my identitity development came from learning about the world through the lens of anti-racist literature - although that is not a term I learned until much later in life. I am a white person and I was educated for 13 years in the Poughkeepsie City School District, which is also where I now engage with youth through my work at Poughkeepsie Farm Project. And for those of you who are not familiar, PCSD is a BIPOC-majority school district (what does BIPOC mean?). I was educated and socialized in a school setting in which many educators nurtured positive racial identity development and empathy for those who are different from ourselves. I was educated by many teachers - especially Black women teachers - who had the audacity and heart to push back against the mainstream narrative that centers Whiteness and upholds values of White supremacy culture.
And one of the primary tools these teachers used was literature and storytelling. In elementary school, I did my first book report on a biography of Amira Biraka - the radical Black Muslim poet/playwrite/activist/educator. I learned about oral story-telling traditions of enslaved people through books like The People Could Fly retold by Virginia Hamilton. In third grade, my class read Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry by Mildred D Taylor, a story set in 1930’s Mississippi and featuring topics like lynchings, Jim Crow segregation, and Black disenfranchisement from land ownership. In high school English class (shout out to Ms. Jackson!) I read books like Black Boy by Richard Wright, Lakota Woman by Mary Crow Dog, Roots by Alex Hayley, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and many other stories with affirming representation and centering the lived experiences of BIPOC people and communities. Sure, we also read books by White male authors like Shakespeare and John Steinbeck and Jack London, but it wasn’t ALL we read. I can only speak from my positionality as a white person, but it was deeply impactful for me to learn (and relearn) from a young age that my worldview was not the only one, nor was it more valid than any other.
So why was BIPOC representation in literature so important to me as a young white person being educated and socialized in America? It wasn’t until I attended an elite, mostly white college that I really understood how radically different my literary education had been compared to most of my White peers. They had never heard of these authors let alone read their books - although they were coming from districts or private schools considered far superior to mine. I had been learning from a young age to use literature as a tool to combat anti-Black racism while my peers had been taught to uphold our mainstream narratives centering the lived experiences of white Americans.
I recently came across a concept in children’s literature called “mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors'' coined by Dr. Rodine Sims Bishop in a paper of the same name. To paraphrase, she asserts that books can be all three of these things - books can be mirrors that show you reflections of yourself, they can be windows that show you worlds and lived experiences different from your own, and they can be be sliding glass doors that invite us to learn about these differences with empathy and respect. And we need all three kinds of books so that all students can feel valued and affirmed by the stories they read. As Dr. Bishop says, “When there are enough books available that can act as both mirrors and windows for all our children, they will see we can celebrate both our differences and our similarities.
What if you grow up reading books that are all mirrors, that all reflect and affirm your lived experiences and the characters all look like you? You gain a false sense of your own value and believe that your version of reality is “normal” in a world that is only growing more diverse and colorful. What if you grow up reading books that are all windows into other worlds and none of the characters look like you? You undervalue your own lived experiences and home culture, assuming that you are outside the norm. And if we look at mainstream American curriculum, white kids are getting a lot of mirrors and BIPOC kids aren’t getting enough. As children’s book author/illustrator Grace Lin says in her TED talk, “kids that always see themselves represented need to be able to see things from other viewpoints. How can we expect kids to get along with others, to empathize and share, if they never see outside themselves?”
At PFP, we deeply value using diverse and multicultural literature in our teaching. We understand that all children - but ESPECIALLY BIPOC children who are so often under-represented in school curriculum - need to see themselves in the stories they are reading. Teaching through the lens of multicultural literature increases a student’s sense of self-worth, increases educational equity, promotes cultural pluralism, reduces stereotyped thinking, and builds capacity to empathize with those who are different from ourselves. We are all constantly immersed in a mainstream culture that upholds White supremacy, therefore we as educators need to be actively anti-racist in our work and consistently pushing back against this system of oppression. And high-quality multicultural literature can be an entry point to engage children and youth in much needed conversations about race, equity, diversity, and inclusion.
Ready to dig deeper? Check out this list that includes resources collected and produced by our education team here at PFP, as well as some of my favorite resources that have helped build my capacity as an ant-racist educator and parent. I will leave you with a quote from author James Baldwin that I hold close to my heart as an educator - “If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.” And the deepest gratitude to all of the educators - especially the Black women educators - that helped shape me, who had the nerve to imagine a better world and make me conscious of the things I didn’t see.
Multicultural Literature in the Garden - webinar featuring our own PFP Education Director Jamie Levato
PFP’s Virtual Storytime featuring some of our favorite books
Grace Lin’s TED TALK - Windows and Mirrors of your Child's Bookshelf
Chimimanda Ngozi Adiche's TED TALK - The Dangers of a Single Story
