Final Blog Post

For my final blog, I would like to reflect on the semester as a whole.

Coming into TE 448 this semester, I was expecting a course similar to TE 348, which I took last year. 348 was a useful course which made me aware of many diverse types of children's books. We did a lot of analyzing of them, however, I feel that the work we did with the literature in 448 has been much more relevant for my current and future life. I feel that I have become a much more active student on this campus, attending events and lectures that were required for the course, but ended up being not only informative, but enjoyable. Attending these events made me want to join more groups on campus and attend more events and lectures on my own time, not just because I might get extra credit points for them.

I feel inspired through the topics we explored this semester, though I think we only skimmed the surface of each diverse group of people. I would like to delve much deeper into these types of literature for future use in my classroom, as well as for the simple fact of expanding my cultural knowledge. Doing this will make me a more active participant in society, understanding social issues that concern me and the people I know and love. It will make my voice as a citizen more meaningful and strong.

My favorite two weeks of the semester were the LGBT week and the People with Disabilities week. I think I enjoyed these the most because I knew the least about them before coming into the semester. At least, I felt I had studied these two cultures the least throughout my education. I still have a lot of questions about these groups, mainly for people that are hesitant to open their minds to differences. One of these questions is, how can you support one oppressed cultural group but put down another?

I think in order to tackle these issues, the key is education, education, education! People need to know the issues and be aware of some of the terrible things that are still going on today that oppress certain cultural groups that go ignored every minute. After taking this class, I really plan on being more of an activist for the issues I care about.