- Ernest & Jodene Morrell
Freire & Children’s Literature
Before we read the word, we read the world (Freire, 1970). Before children set foot in formal school settings, they are immersed in beautiful and complex worlds of language and culture, images and sounds. If we assume that a child comes to school with these experiences and an insatiable curiosity and deep desire to learn, how can educators nurture this basic human desire in loving, supportive, and engaging ways? How can educators create learning environments where every child’s voice and lived experiences are honored? How can educators incorporate the learning modalities that happen outside of school into our literacy practices in K-12 classrooms? And finally, how can educators make room in the curriculum to build bridges between popular youth culture and the skills and knowledge that students need to be successful not just in college or a job, but as empowered citizens in their communities and as future world changers?
In our recently published book, Freire and Children’s Literature (Bloomsbury, 2023), we aim to address these and many other questions by sharing examples of how we, as educators for a collective 50 years, have either enacted practices or worked closely with teachers who make joy, voice, agency, responsiveness, and revolutionary love the foundation of their literacy pedagogy. Ultimately, we sought to address the questions above by forefronting ways to honor students’ knowledge and lived experiences, to create spaces for them to share their ideas and voices, and to strengthen their literacy skills in meaningful and authentic ways.
Despite being published over 50 years ago, Paulo Freire’s classic book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, from which we draw many theories that serve as the theoretical framework for our book, remains relevant today. The most notable, and perhaps the most often cited theory associated with the Brazilian born educator and philosopher, is critical pedagogy - in particular, the banking concept of education. Critical pedagogy makes humanization possible because oppressed individuals develop conscientizaçāo (critical consciousness) or the ability to identify and critique social and political contradictions which can then lead to actions against oppressive elements in one’s life. In education, critical pedagogy challenges the banking approach which assumes students are containers in which educators “deposit” knowledge into their passive students who are expected to “patiently receive, memorize and repeat” (Freire, 1970, p. 72) the teacher’s knowledge without acknowledging their own existing knowledge. In contrast, Freire argues for a “problem-posing” education which encourages critical thinking that values the students’ experiences and knowledge and ideally leads to tangible solutions focused on social justice and equity. By engaging in critical readings of multicultural literature or by reading texts through a multicultural lens, students’ voices and perspectives are valued and students become engaged and empowered, which challenges the banking concept of education and argues for a problem posing education that leads to conscientizaçāo.
We begin each chapter with vignettes of classroom life - either poignant moments we as K-12 teachers had the privilege to observe or imagine for educators committed to teaching through a Freirean approach. Each chapter then provides a theoretical frame to address the primary focus of the chapter including: (1) reading all literature through a multicultural lens; (2) promoting social awareness via literature; (3) creating learning environments that encourage student voice and agency; (4) maximizing family engagement in the literate lives of their children through Family Literacy Nights and other means; and (5) imagining the future of children’s literature. Each chapter includes examples of K-12 literature - canonical, classic, and contemporary - and how they can be taught to improve students’ literacy skills and empower students to become world changers. The book is a collection of chapters that reflect on our past as educators in traditional K-12 school settings, in summer seminars with high school students, and our current work at the collegiate level. Our intention is to show how reading literature through a critical and multicultural lens can help children to understand themselves, their communities, and the world. While our life’s work has been to support teachers and students to maximize students’ literacy learning and achievement, at its core it has always been about equity, nurturing each child’s genius (Muhammad, 2020) and decreasing the “imagination gap” (Thomas, 2016) that continues to perpetuate inequitable outcomes and access for historically marginalized and minoritized children.
By looking back and sharing examples of impactful Freirean approaches to teaching literature, we can continue to build on what we know about the best research-based literacy practices and teaching through a humanizing approach. The final chapter, “The Future of Children’s Literature is Already Here” considers the complex, literacy rich worlds of children outside of school and the skills and knowledge they draw on to be successful in these various spaces. Without a doubt, digital technology and media literacy come to mind. On average, most eight- to twelve-year-olds are spending approximately fifty-five minutes each day playing computer and console games and thirty minutes playing mobile games (Boston Children’s Hospital - Digital Wellness Lab, 2022). What makes these games and spaces so engaging? How are children losing track of time and becoming fully immersed in complex and challenging tasks - often “failing” to win or move to the next level - but motivated to keep playing? The term “literacy” is constantly evolving and responding to cultural, technological, and changing purposes - but how are schools preparing children for these important changes that will directly impact their lives outside of and beyond formal schooling?
What are we teaching and how are we teaching to prepare students not just for college and employment, but to be empowered and engaged citizens with a strong voice and innovative ideas? We make a case for turning to anime, manga, graphic novels, and digital media, creating maker spaces in the classroom, making time for independent reading, and helping students to move from being merely consumers of texts to becoming producers, distributors, and inventors of texts (Mirra, Morrell, & Filipiak, 2018). We understand the importance of the five paragraph essay, but how can we diversify and expand our pedagogy to still include traditional texts and literacy practices that remain valuable while introducing current, engaging, meaningful, and essential literacy practices? In the final chapter, we aim to build on the existing body of research on the connections between literacy and popular culture (Morrell, 2004) and various ways to demonstrate sophisticated literacy skills (e.g. debates, multimedia projects, YPAR) while reimagining the literacy skills that students need for a rapidly changing world.
The future of children’s literature is already here - just ask the kids. It’s what they are doing for hours outside of school. Ask them if they would rather read a “classic” novel or a contemporary graphic novel or manga that comes from a popular anime series. If given a choice, would they rather create a multimedia project that addresses an issue they care deeply about that also demands high level digital media knowledge and literacy skills, or a traditional essay on a topic that is of little relevance and interest to their lives. We can tell kids we respect their interests and intellect or we can create classrooms and practices that allow them to showcase this knowledge while developing critical literacy skills. Our privilege and responsibility is to create classrooms that are engaging, exciting, and humanizing with authentic opportunities for students to share their voices. More importantly, we should be guided by love - not a romanticized notion of love, but what Freire called “an armed love” which is the “fighting love of those convinced of the right and the duty to fight, to denounce, and to announce” (Freire, 1998, p. 42).
This can happen with a Freirean approach to teaching. We believe this is possible through literature and most importantly, through a genuine “armed love” for children that encourages them to love themselves and their communities even more and to become powerful world changers.
REFERENCES
Boston Children’s Hospital - Digital Wellness Lab (2022). What should I know about video games and kids? Retrieved from https://digitalwellnesslab.org/parents/video-games/
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Freire, P. (1988). The Paulo Freire reader. New York: Continuum.
Mirra, N., Morrell, E., & Filipiak, D. (2018). From digital consumption to digital invention: Toward a critical theory and practice of multiliteracies. Theory into Practice, 57, 12 - 19.
Morrell, E. (2004). Linking literacy and popular culture: Finding connections for lifelong learning. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon Publishers, Inc.
Muhammad, G. (2020). Cultivating genius: An equity framework for culturally and historically responsive literacy. New York: Scholastic.
Thomas, E. E. (2016). Stories still matter: Rethinking the role of diverse children’s literature today. Language Arts, 94(2), 112 - 119.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ernest Morrell is the Coyle Professor in Literacy Education, a faculty member in the English, and Africana Studies Departments, and Director of the Center for Literacy Education at the University of Notre Dame. He is also Director of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) James R. Squire Office for Policy Research in the English Language Arts, an elected member of the National Academy of Education, an elected Fellow of the American Educational Research Association, and a past president of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). Ernest has authored over 100 articles, research briefs, and book chapters and 16 books. His scholarly interests include Critical Pedagogy, English Education, Literacy Studies, Postcolonial Studies, and Youth Popular Culture.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jodene Morrell is a Teaching Professor and Associate Director of the Center for Literacy Education at the University of Notre Dame. She taught elementary school in large public school districts in California and was a middle school literacy specialist in Lansing, Michigan before earning a doctorate at Michigan State University. She has published articles in academic journals including Language Arts, Reading Teacher, and The International Journal of Multicultural Education as well as several book chapters. Her research focuses on literacy pedagogy in K-8 classrooms, the role of multicultural and diverse children’s literature for making literacy engaging and accessible for all students, and teachers as scholars and researchers.