Just last week, I had to read Baseball Saved Us for TE 401. After reading this book and then reading Yamate's article on Asian Pacific American children's literature, in which she mentions the book, I find myself once again feeling frustrated and ignorant.
I have to admit that I was completely ignorant to what went on with the Japanese internment camps in America after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The fact that I learned something like this from a children's book during my senior year of college both saddened and encouraged me. I was upset that I was deprived this information throughout all my years of school...after reading the book and looking into it on my own to learn more, I find it amazing that this topic never came up during my twelve years of elementary, middle and high school or in any of my college history courses (not that I'm a history major or anything). But, I was also encouraged by the book--I felt better knowing that at least here is a book that I can have in my classroom someday that students can learn from--so they may know about this awful situation that happened (before they're 28 years old!).
Yamate's article, however, brought back more frustration...it made me think more about the book: yes, it did open my eyes to something major that I had no knowledge of, but I was so caught up with the new information that I didn't realize what Yamate later pointed out to me: "[Baseball Saved Us] masks some very negative messages [and] misses a prime opportunity to explore why racial epithets are dangerous and hurtful and what can be done in the face of such incidents". She also points out that "the intimation that playing baseball and developing greater skills in the game [of baseball] and developing greater skills in the game was some sort of positive outcome of the internment is appalling".
This brings me to my last point for today, which Yamate also wrote about in her article--the reviewing process. Like Yamate says, reviewers can be basically anyone...there is no standard for who reviews books, and if "an outsider" reviews a book about a certain culture, something may be lost or omitted in the review. (Great, now we have an "insider/outsider debate" for reviewers as well as authors?) But her point is well taken--my 401 professor obviously thought this was a good choice of literature to bring to the class of future teachers...and without Yamate's article, I may have never looked at any differently than that. I'm pretty sure that I will never be able to choose the "right" or best literature 100% of the time, but I can say that because of the articles that we've read throughout our 448 course, I feel like I am better educated to make decisions on what types of literature to include in my classroom.
3 comments:
Kim,
Hey! Well this is what I have figured out from all of this, NOTHING IS THE RIGHT CHOICE!! A book can be praised for it's historical content but poorly portray the ethnicity. All books can not be the best at everything, just like a human can't be the best at everything. You have to pick a book and judge it on it's good qualities but be aware that not all its qualities are going to be good. It's a matter of if you as a teacher believe the good outweighs the bad! It's like life....there will never be an answer!!! HOWS THAT FOR FRUSTRATING!!!!!
Hope that makes since!
Teresa
Kim,
I too read this book last week in my TE 410 Social Studies class and one of the groups in the class did a microlesson around it. I had heard about the camps previous in my life do to seeing it in a movie and then asking my mom about the event when I was in high school. I had some information about it but the book "Baseball Saved Us" gives a different perspective of the happenings and going ons in the camp itself. Try not to be too frustrated overall, as we have all discussed in class, you just have to read the books and trust your own feelings about the subject to decide if you would want the book in your own class. Angie
I'm with you on the mixed feelings about learning new things as a college senior, but I think it's better late than never!
I also agree with Teresa when she said that there is no such thing as a right or wrong choice when choosing a piece of literature for your classroom. We must not be discouraged, rather take what we've learned and use our better judgment.
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