Respect

An online check of teacher-education programs in the United States and the courses required for teacher certification at state and private universities across the country reveals that some institutions have chosen to place responsibility for children's literature courses on community colleges or to give them “general education” status, with the result that they are not offered within teacher-preparation programs. Other universities have eliminated stand-alone children's literature courses from teacher education, integrating them instead into existing methods courses, including those for content area subjects such as science or math. In many teacher-education settings, children's literature is given only a 1- to 2-credit hour schedule or is attached to a 1- to 2-hour reading methods course to make a convenient 3-credit hour block.

While a host of complex -- or even simple -- reasons may be responsible for the current low status of children's literature courses in teacher-education programs, it is reasonable to assume that what underlies these scenarios, in many cases, is a lack of respect for the importance of children's literature to teacher education and children's education.

Consider this: When aspiring teachers enroll in children's literature courses prior to beginning their teacher training, as they do when such courses are only offered outside of the teacher-preparation program, their professional understanding of children's literature takes shape without the supportive structure of developmental courses such as educational foundations or child psychology, or of classroom field experiences with children and teachers. They have yet to develop a framework that might help them reflect on the importance of literature in children's lives and in educational settings.

Dewey (1938) and Schon (1983) insist that teachers must reflect in action in order to examine critically any educational content and theory. Posner (1996) states that “the foundations of education help us raise questions and supply concepts for thinking about our own teaching practices” (p. 67). Shulman (1986) explains that in order to be thoughtful and deliberate problem solvers teachers require a set of guiding theoretical principles on which to base instructional decisions. Huck, Hepler, Hickman, and Kiefer (1997) state, “Adults who are responsible for children's reading need to be aware of child development and learning theory” (p. 51). Preservice teachers develop their guiding set of theoretical principles through experiences in the early stages of their teacher preparation. They should not be enrolled in children's literature courses before they have some understanding of the possible educational circumstances in which literature might be used with children.

This is a serious issue for teacher educators who know and love children's literature. We must demand that children's literature courses be offered within teacher-preparation programs. Furthermore, we must require that students master the appropriate prerequisite content prior to enrolling in such courses. Without a relevant or meaningful context for thinking about the value of children's literature, a course on children's literature becomes just a class where students have to read a lot of kids' books. It's one thing to ask adults simply to read about a poor peddler who shakes his fist at mischievous monkeys; it's another thing entirely for them to reflect on how Caps for Sale might be used to capitalize on opportunities for emergent literacy learning offered by the repeated phrases, to stimulate children to think about the story's subtle irony, to appreciate the humor the monkeys' unexpected imitation of the peddler generates, or to encourage children to dramatize the story's events. Huck et al. (1997) explain that “to have a successful literature program, teachers and librarians must know books well, but that is only half the task. It is also necessary to understand children...” (p. 39).

So what about the suggestion to keep children's literature firmly grounded in teacher-preparation programs, but to integrate its content with subject area methods courses? Many leaders in science education (e.g., Sasche, 1989; Shymansky & Kyle, 1988), social studies (Parker, 1989), and math (Dossey, 1989; Richards, 1990) agree that thematic or interdisciplinary teaching is necessary to cultivate greater student learning in these subject areas. Interdisciplinary instruction is part of the curriculum in more and more elementary and middle schools and has been proven effective for assisting learners in making connections across subject areas (Tchudi, 1991; Tchudi, 1994).

Some might wonder whether this is really a serious issue for those who know and love children's literature, but matters of subject area turf and territory are certainly relevant in this discussion. If faced with the need to compromise in order to effectively integrate subject area content and children's literature content, many instructors will want to cling to their areas of interest and expertise in their courses. This makes sense. With only so much time to go around in teacher-certification programs, instructors in the various disciplines feel they have to guard against losing the precious few credit hours they are allotted. For an interdisciplinary approach to curriculum to work anywhere, the faculty who teach the various disciplines have to talk to one another, make plans together, and teach cooperatively, if not collaboratively. Some faculty are willing to do this, but it usually takes extra commitment, patience, energy, and willingness to compromise -- things rarely rewarded by merit pay, benefits, or promotions.

But the real issue for children's literature experts is not whether an interdisciplinary curriculum is beneficial, or even whether it can be accomplished effectively in university settings. The real issue is respect for children's literature -- whether the valuable content of children's literature can be maintained if it is integrated with other courses. Consider this: Integrating children's literature courses (or most any course) would call for dramatic changes to traditional teacher-training programs. Most subject area experts in higher education have such specialized knowledge that asking them to teach the content in their discipline as well as content in children's literature is not appropriate or sensible. Likewise, asking children's literature experts to juggle science, math, social studies -- and, in some cases, reading -- content doesn't work either. Most can't do it -- at least not well. Moreover, there is no guarantee that children's literature content would get the time or attention it deserves and requires by being meted out into separate methods courses.

Additionally, the mere act of apportioning bits and pieces of children's literature content here and there among methods courses implies a lack of respect for children's literature. No one in higher education is proposing to slice up the math methods courses and integrate math content into literacy and literature courses. Integrating children's literature content gives the unfortunate impression that it is not valuable enough to the education of teachers and children to warrant a separate 3-credit hour course designation. Many already hold a low opinion of “kiddie lit,” and combining children's literature with subject area methods courses may serve to reinforce these negative attitudes regarding the actual and impressive value of children's books to children's lives.

Debates about respect for children's literature and course configuration, however, are practically irrelevant if the children's literature course itself has little to do with substantive content. Is children's literature really worth all the fuss and bother if all that preservice teachers have at the end of the course is an annotated bibliography? Does generating reports on a handful of Curious George books and building shoebox dioramas based on Little House on the Prairie really deserve respect or require 2 or 3 hours of university or college credit -- or even part of a single credit? The real issue related to children's literature, then, is not just its configuration in a teacher-training program, but the particular content associated with children's literature courses in those programs.

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Reading Online, www.readingonline.org
Posted February 2000
© 2000 International Reading Association, Inc. ISSN 1096-1232