Approaching Multicultural Literature in the Malaysian Teacher Training Classroom

Today’s classrooms must reflect the growing diversity of our changing world. Multicultural literature can be a mirror, window, or sliding glass door (Bishop, 1990). Windows through which students can see a bit into the lives of individuals who are different from them, mirrors in which they see aspects of their lives reflected in the literature, and sliding glass doors where the reader can “walk through in imagination to become part of the whatever world has been created or recreated by the author” (Bishop, 1990, p. 1). Multicultural literature is literature that represents an ethnic, urban, or diverse multicultural perspective and therefore can process a dualistic approach in conceptualizing identities and strengthening the cultural background (Davis, 2016). Including multicultural literature as part of the curriculum could perhaps be a way to find that elusive middle ground between all our principles, values, beliefs, and yes, our prejudices and stereotypes as well.

One of the courses that is offered to the Year 1 student teachers in institutes of teacher education is Introduction to Multicultural Literature. The course covers the concepts multicultural literature placing them within the contexts of different literary genres such as short stories, poems and novels. As teacher educators who teach multicultural literature courses, one of the challenges is selecting quality multicultural texts that could encourage open dialogues concerning issues on racism, discrimination, gender roles, second generation immigrants and cultural dislocation to name a few. That Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was one of the selected short stories that we covered in class. While the story itself was not a difficult read in terms of the language, the nuances dealing with cultural stereotypes, displacement and alienation however was something that my student teachers struggled with having no contextual/foundational knowledge of these issues. One of the approaches is to personalise the stories, such as getting them to write a note or a short email to the author or to the main character expressing their thoughts and views. I also got them to come up with hashtags captions with images expressing their response after reading the story on PADLET. Approaches of this natures encourages them to think beyond the story and make connections in their own way.

One of the other stories that we explored in our multicultural classroom was The Sex Lives of African Girls by Tayie Selasi. The story deals with heavy subjects such as sexual exploitation of young girls, the plights of immigrants and even the implied inferences to the practice of incest. My student teachers were understandably mortified as we went through the text and uncovered these issues utilizing the Culture Circle activity. Culture circles begin with the codification of generative themes. Generative themes are common experiences that can be starting points for problem posing. Through dialogue, the participants share their various perspectives and move towards problem solving through action (Sotto-Manning, 2013). The whole idea was to encourage conversation about the issues highlighted in the story. One of the activities I did was to get them to write an alternative ending to the story and share the reasons as to why they chose to end the story that way. Writing reviews of the story is also another interesting way for them to provide their own insights of the story.

Reaction-based approaches to multicultural literature opens up opportunities for learners to reflect as individuals and as members of the global community. Colby and Lyon (2004) postulated that the impact of openly examining beliefs and practices and eventually creating new ones can leave a profound impact on beginning teachers. They go on to expound that “as teachers become more aware of their beliefs, attitudes and practices” (p. 28) relating to the pertinent issues raised in multiculturalism, the children they teach will benefit as they develop into productive citizens in a pluralistic society.

References:

Bishop, R. S. (1990). Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Perspectives: Choosing and Using Books for the Classroom, 6(3), ix–xi.

Souto-Manning, M. (2013). Multicultural teaching in the early childhood classroom. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Davis, S. L. (2016). How Multicultural Literature Effects African American Students’ Literary Responses. Education Masters. Paper 329

Colby, A.S & Lyon A.F (2004). Heightening awareness about the importance of using Multicultural Literature. Multicultural Education. 11(3), 24 – 28

Written by Shubashini Suppiah