Weekend Fun and Good Vibes

Hey everyone! So last week I went a little heavy with my post and wrote about my thoughts on censorship and children's literature. This week though, I'm feeling like going in a bit more of a casual direction and just talking about my weekend. I have decided to do this because, before every tutoring session  that I have (with both young and old students), I always begin with the questions "how was your weekend? Do anything exciting?" I feel like I always want to start with that little ice breaker, that little nod of caring. I like showing my students that I'm not only invested in them as an educator but that I'm also invested in them as a fellow human being.

Anyway though, I had a fantastic weekend. My best friend, Jack, crushed his LSAT this past Saturday (if you don't know what the LSAT is, it is the test you have to take to get into law school). I surprised him by showing up to his house with a huge box of donuts and a bunch of balloons. Then we went out and got ice cream at Cold Stone. We also stopped and picked up a new bottle of whisky. My friend is a whisky guy and refuses to really drink anything else. We thought it was appropriate since we were celebrating and all. Then we went back to his house. My boyfriend came over too and we all hung out drinking whisky and watching Fight Club, which is Jack's favorite movie. Way later that night my boyfriend and I stopped at another friend's house for a birthday party that was going on. There I talked someone into helping me dye my hair soon so get ready for that. We didn't get back home and into bed till like two in the morning. It was a super fun day/night filled with happiness and some of my favorite people in the world.

So that was my weekend. How was yours?? ell me in the comments guys. I wanna know :)

Musings of a Future English Educator: Censorship and Children's Literature

Two weeks ago I read Sherman Alexie's one and only middle school book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. I read this because I had assigned it to one of the kids I tutor. He and I both ended up loving this book. For the first week of reading, he was only supposed to finish the first fifty pages of the book. Instead though, he read the full thing. This was really exciting, especially since he is usually a very reluctant reader. I think there were many things about this book that drew both me and him into it. For one thing, the story feels very true to life. It doesn’t censor much. I did worry that this might be a problem, since I was asking a younger student to read and think about much more complex issues than he is normally exposed to. This ended up not being a problem at all though. In fact, I think it might have been one of the main reasons as to why he was able to engage with the text on a level I had not seen from him before. I feel like the main character of this story is a very relatable character for younger readers because of how he goes through some very realistic struggles throughout Alexie’s novel.  

Overall, the experience of teaching The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian really got me into thinking about the censorship of children's books. I know from the small amount of research that I did that The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian has been highly contested within the school system. It does, after all, deal with heavy subjects such as racism and alcoholism. The main character of the novel, Junior, also uses a lot of profanity to express his emotions. At the same time though, I think it is important to keep in mind that children are often subjected to these things in their actual lives. Keeping a child from reading or watching something that has something that has been deemed “inappropriate” does not mean that that child has not been already exposed to that thing. Therefore, doesn’t make sense that we should encourage these kids to read books that deal with such subjects? Isn’t a good thing if they are able to find someone to relate to in the pages of a book? A character who might be going through a similar problem that they or one of their friends is having to deal with in the real world?

What do you guys think? Is censorship for children's literature a good or bad thing? I’m really curious to know how you all feel about this topic :)

Hi reader :) This is an introduction to my blog. I guess I'll tell you a bit about myself. My major at UCF is English Lit. I am currently taking education classes for my minor. I am two semesters away from graduating. Someday I hope to be a professor at Valencia College, which is where I work currently as a Supplemental Learning Leader. I have a real passion for teaching and I hope to talk a lot about this passion on this blog. Besides that, I am also a huge book nerd, compulsive coffee drinker, proud Hufflepuff, and happy owner of five cats (yes, you read that last bit right). I love to have fun and try new things. I am very easy going and hate  to stress out about things.

Overall, I think this blog is going to be very fun to maintain. I'm excited to see where my writing leads me this semester.