READING SELECTIONS AND THE REAL WORLD

Literature teaches lessons about culture, society, and human behavior.  However, many students sometimes fail to make the connection between what they read in an English class and what is happening in the world today.  When my 11th grade class read "Self-Reliance," by Ralph Waldo Emerson, a student told me that Emerson over-thought the concept; and I agreed with him. Then I asked, "If Emerson wrote so much about self-reliance, why do so many people fail to have it? Why do we have generational poverty?  Why are so many communities failing to thrive and prosper?  Why do we have global poverty?  How can we help people around the world to achieve self-reliance?" The class was silent for a few minutes before students began to talk about why they thought some people had difficulty breaking the cycle of poverty.  Then they talked about what they saw every day when they went home.

 My class of predominantly Black and Hispanic students talked about their career goals and how they would be first in their families to attend college.  Others talked about how hard their parents worked; many parents had two and three jobs and my students were proud of their parents.  We talked about the skills a person needed to break the cycle of poverty in families, communities, in the country, and around the world.  We discussed what people were doing now to break the cycle of poverty and what else could be done. Many were able to apply what they learned in social studies.  During the discussion, no one talked about the way their communities were portrayed by the media.  If one were to believe the news and the "statistics", you'd think every minority person was poor and destitute.  I was proud of my students for focusing on what was working in their families and their communities.  That will be their strength.