Written Inspiration

August 29, 2019

Guys, I’m going to be honest with you. Keeping up with this website is work when you go back to work after summer vacation. I have to carve out time now instead of that leisurely pace I went at during the months off. I’m not complaining for all those non-teachers out there. I promise you that I’m not. I’m just realizing that this is a task… but it’s fine!

I just spent over an hour perusing the website Teaching Tolerance. Woah. Talk about some crazy amazing resources. Why am I sharing this? What does this have to do with reading?

The latest novel that I finished, Love, Hate, & Other Filters, inspired this.

The review will be published to the blog, I promise, and it’s definitely worth reading for a myriad of reasons. But one HUGE take away is that I am so far removed from the trials of minorities… and if I am, I bet others are too… maybe my students?

We are going to read the novel Walkabout as our first unit text, and the novel centers around three main characters– Mary, Peter, and the bush boy, who is native to Australia, where the book is set. Without giving much away, Mary really struggles with the acceptance of the bush boy as she comes from a pretty divided southern state during the ’40s or ’50s.

I think this book can be a struggle because readers begin to wonder how this is relevant to their lives. I get it. How can you relate to wandering through the Australian outback after a plane crash and then having to rely on the help of an Aboriginal boy on his walkabout.

However, what I wish to point out to my youngsters is that Mary’s internal struggle to accept is one that we are still dealing with today. Take, for example, the novel that I referred to above. The main character, Maya, is a Muslim Indian who was born in America. Because of an incident in the novel, she becomes a target of bullies and intense fear. Right there we have a lack of acceptance, and this book is set in present day.

I also read and reviewed Monday’s Not Coming, which was written to bring awareness to the missing minority children that mostly go unnoticed. These texts are fueling my desire to bring awareness to my students about the world in which we live in. It’s far from perfect, and we can do so much if we just treat others with kindness and respect… and so much more that I can’t even really put to words.

Oy vey.

I guess the takeaway from this is that books can inspire the heck out of me, and the ones that do, man, those are worth reading….

Wish me luck on incorporating teaching tolerance during times of prejudice! My head is still spinning from reading the material on that website.