Insider/Outside Debate

After reading over the Patrick Shannon article I Am The Canon: Finding Ourselves in Multiculturalism and the articles written in response to Shannon's article, I find that I lean more towards supporting insider writers versus outsider writers. Insider writers are able to draw upon their personal experiences, as Rudine Sims Bishop states, "it is the way they have been acculturated" (6). A writer who has not experienced the struggles of being of a minority culture wouldn't be able to convey the emotions as accurately as one who has endured them. I'm not saying there aren't noteworthy authors out there who have done the research and possess the "cultural consciousness" necessary to write a powerful book (for example, Donnarae McCann, according to Violet Harris), I would just find an author more credible if he/she is a member of the culture they are trying to portray.

Despite my tendency to lean towards insider authors, I found many parts of Shannon's article to be interesting and worth noting. Shannon discusses how many people tend to classify culture as "us versus 'the other'" instead of realizing that we are all part of culture. He states,

"Culture, then, is not limited to race because it includes region, gender, language, ethnicity, economic class, and other social markers which can demarcate a social group from others. In this broader conceptualization, neither teachers nor anyone else can stand apart from culture, and each is a member of many sub-cultures within her or his social contexts" (2).

The idea that a white, middle-class, Protestant male is not part of a culture is a mistake. Every human is part of the culture as well as every human is a contribution to the diversity of the world we live in. I used to be under the impression that I hadn't experienced diversity until coming to college (I even wrote that in my first post!), but I had yet to realize that diversity is something that is not limited to ethnicity. Diversity can include a variety of abilities or preferences, henceforth making every human being unique and an addition to the world's diversity.

Introduction

Hi, my name is Elizabeth Allen and I am a senior in Elementary Education with a teaching minor in Language Arts. I currently work at an elementary school in Lansing and have a great time learning about how young minds think (and hearing the funny things they say)! My interest in diversity stems from the fact that I've seen what non-diverse classrooms look like, such as my elementary classrooms growing up, and I know how that can hinder a person's world-view later in life. A diverse classroom allows students to learn about other cultures and, as a result, have a better understanding for other students' differences. I didn't get a real dose of diversity until my freshman year of college and it was quite shocking to me to see what I had been missing in terms of knowledge about other cultures. I look forward to the diverse literature we will be reading and learning how to incorporate diversity through literature in our classrooms!