Sam Gurwitt Photo
Kara Breen’s personal bookshelves.
The story of a young transgender girl who everyone knows as a boy named George grappling with gender. A collection of prose and poems about race and racism. A girl from a low-income family who feels alienated as the only scholarship kid at her private school.
These are just a few of the books that Kara Breen has students at Hamden’s Ridge Hill Elementary School reading these days.
Using the online fundraising platform DonorsChoose.org, Breen, a reading and literacy specialist, set up a fundraiser to raise $2,933 in order to buy 60 different titles that feature diverse characters written by authors from all backgrounds.
Breen has made it her goal to make her collection include characters and authors who are diverse in every way.
“We have to make sure that the characters and authors are reflective of the children in front of us,” she said.
In October, Breen switched over from the Church Street School, where she taught sixth grade, to Ridge Hill. As reading and literacy specialist, she provides books to classrooms throughout the school that correspond to the topics the class is working on.
When she first came to Ridge Hill from Church Street, she said, she felt that there were not enough books by authors of color in her collection. So she made a Donors Choose fundraiser to raise additional funds, on top of those provided by the district, for books that would make her collection more robust. Now, she’s doing it again.
In each class, students take part in reading groups, where they read and discuss books with their peers. Oftentimes, teachers will pick themes for their reading groups, and they draw from Breen’s collection to provide their students with books that fit the themes. Breen does her best to find books that suit the needs of teachers, but sometimes her collection is not big enough to accommodate the demand for a certain book, or she doesn’t have any books that address a certain topic.
“Windows And Mirrors”
Kara Breen.
Breen said she wants the books that students read to be “windows and mirrors” — windows that help students understand other people’s lives, and mirrors that reflect experiences familiar to them.
In order to find books, she follows authors and educators who are “well-established” in the field of primary education. She said many books coming out by new authors do a great job of representing the experiences of her students and deal will complex social issues. She tries to stay “at the forefront of literature and have fresh new books so that our kids are socially conscious.”
Her fundraiser, entitled “Diverse Books Inspire Readers!”, includes books that talk about race, poverty, gender identity, disability, religion, and a whole host of other topics that are potentially relevant to students’ lives.
To make a donation, access the fundraiser here. As of Wednesday, the fundraising effort had received two donations. It will need $2,608 more before June 9 in order to reach its goal.
“I want to make sure that as much as possible, races and religions and lifestyle choices are honored,” she said. A part of choosing the books that would allow her to do that, she said, is making sure that people of color are not portrayed only in stories about poverty.
Having books available to students that talk about themes relevant to their lives is extremely important for emotional and intellectual growth. For some students, the difference between hating reading and loving it, Breen explained, can be a great book where they see themselves. She said she has seen rapid transformations in students when they discover a book that speaks to them, and they suddenly become passionate readers.
Books that “mirror” students’ experiences can help them work through difficulties in their lives.
“A book can open your eyes to: ‘Oh, I’m not alone,’” said Breen. If students see characters in books struggling with the same things that they are, it helps them open up to their teachers and peers about their home lives. For instance, when Breen once read a passage to students that talked about a young boy who noticed that his parents always got up for work, no matter what, students related the passage to their own parents, many of whom work extra-long hours to make ends meet.
Emotional growth, said Breen, precedes intellectual growth. The emotional needs of a student “have to be addressed before any academic instruction happens because otherwise you have not reached that kid.”
Books can also help students empathize with people who live very different lives than they do.
Fifth-grade teacher Kelly Wade said that one of the most popular books among her students is George, which is about a young transgender girl, born a boy named George. George, who calls herself Melissa, wants to play a female part in a school play but can’t because her teacher thinks she’s a boy. She likes to read fashion magazines, but she has to hide them from her family.
Gender A Hot Topic
Kelly Wade.
Wade said that her students loved the book, and many of them had ever been exposed to transgender themes. They were able to relate to George, or Melissa, because they related to the feeling of not being able to fit in.
Sixth-grade teacher Stephanie Mannle, who has a social-issue-themed reading group in her class, said that gender is a hot topic for her students. Discussions about gendered toys often get heated, and students sometimes relate toys to the dynamics they see in music and other forms of cultural production.
Liz Tremper, who is the media specialist at the school, said that the books students read can help them develop the empathy that they need to approach the world. “Whatever motifs are in the books,” she said, “they’re learning through the plot to be more tolerant of those things in their own lives.”
Books wait for readers.
Breen and Tremper are also preparing another fundraiser, which will support the “one school, one theme” program in which the whole school will read books based on the theme of diversity come April.
If the fundraisers succeed, Ridge Hill should have some more material for important discussions. “Matching kids with the perfect book for them,” said Breen, “is going to lift the level of thinking and learning.”