January 19th, 2021
Last year the famous author who wrote the “Harry Potter” books tweeted out disparaging remarks against the transgender community. Her insensitive comments alienated and angered the Transgender community. With Transgender becoming more commonplace, Educators, Librarians, and Parents are having to make the difficult decision in deciding what books stay and go in their personal libraries.
The article “Do Works by Men Implicated by #MeToo Belong in the Classroom?” written by Emma Goldberg described in detail the difficult decisions teachers and librarians have to make in deciding what books make it into their libraries for their students and community members. One key point that stood out to me in the article was Ms. Gowen’s opinion on being able to distinguish between the Author and their writings. She stated that she wants her students “to know that art is nuanced and complex, and in any artist’s life there is going to be something objectionable, but that’s not an excuse to close ourselves off from engaging with the art.” As with the video, Ayishat Akanbi states in the beginning that “And so to cancel people for tweets they made years ago, potentially even things they said last week I think it’s just to lie to yourself. It lacks a certain self-examination that I think is crucial. If everybody was to act as though they’ve never said something homophobic, especially if you’ve ever grown up in a strongly religious family, I think you could be telling porkies (lies).”
I think that we can separate the life of the creator from the creation, the art from the artist, the writer from the writing. This is because I think that humans are fundamentally more alike than different. Just because you don’t agree with another’s opinions or actions shouldn’t mean that their differing opinions and mistakes should define who they are to you. With this being said I do not agree with how J.K Rowling shared her opinion on the Transgender community on her social media platform. I wish everyone was more accepting of others and their differences. We all should feel safe with expressing who we love in this world but sadly this isn’t always the case. Imagine if we lived in a world where everyone liked and agreed on everything. How boring would that be?
The difference between windows and mirrors is their different perspectives. A window is when children can see and understand the world outside of their own point of view, whereas a mirror is when children view the world from their own point of view. The three books that I plan to use in my classroom library are
1.“Wonder” by R.J. Palacio
2. "Red: A Crayon’s Story" by Michael Hall
3. “It’s Okay to be Different” by Todd Park.
All three of these books teach the valuable lesson of being different from the rest of the world is okay. They also invite children and young adults in on the joys of being unique in life. Being different means you stand out, which is a good thing to be in a world where everyone is so fixated on blending in with the crowd. A favorite quote of mine from Elaine S Dalton states that “If you desire to make a difference in the world, you must be different from the world.”
Lastly, before I end this post, I would like to quickly mention that I would be more than willing to also include the book “And Tango Makes Three” into my classroom library. I fell in love with this book and adored the message it portrayed that families may come in many different variations.
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