Post # 1

My name is Elisabeth Hartner, but I have always gone by Libby. I am a senior at Michigan State University majoring in Elementary Education, with a focus on Language Arts.

My love for reading started in Elementary school which has greatly encouraged me to take this class along with TE 348. I am looking forward to having a classroom of my own someday and hope this class will provide me with some valuable resources. I feel it is important for teachers to provide students with a diverse selection of books in the classroom. Books are a very successful way to expose children to other cultures and issues of diversity that they might not have personally encountered. I feel that the more children know and are exposed to the more open and understanding they will be when faced with issues of diversity. It is important to provide children the tools necessary to establish opinions of their own rather then take on stereotypes that are often portrayed to them. My future students will come from many diverse backgrounds, and I want my class to be able to embrace the differences among each other as well as have each student feel equally represented. I hope to provide literature that is directed towards many different groups of students rather than just one or two specific groups. From this class I hope to learn meaningful strategies for bringing diversity into the classroom and honoring students differences. Literature is an important way of introducing students to new ideas and concepts. As an aspiring teacher I want to learn effective ways to teach children to honor diversity, and hopefully they will grow into understanding considerate adults making the world a better place.