deep talks

On Friday afternoon to celebrate the 13th for Anna, the two of us went to a fun deli in the neighborhood on the Ave called Fat Ducks that has some of the best desserts around.  We took the book Out of My Mind to talk about (which is one of the two books I wanted Anna to read this year before her 13th birthday. The other one is To Kill a Mockingbird which is next on her list.) 

Here is the summary from Amazon of Out of My Mind: 

Eleven-year-old Melody has a photographic memory. Her head is like a video camera that is always recording. Always. And there's no delete button. She's the smartest kid in her whole school—but no one knows it. Most people—her teachers and doctors included—don't think she's capable of learning, and up until recently her school days consisted of listening to the same preschool-level alphabet lessons again and again and again. If only she could speak up, if only she could tell people what she thinks and knows . . . but she can't, because Melody can't talk. She can't walk. She can't write. Being stuck inside her head is making Melody go out of her mind—that is, until she discovers something that will allow her to speak for the first time ever. At last Melody has a voice . . . but not everyone around her is ready to hear it.From multiple Coretta Scott King Award winner Sharon M. Draper comes a story full of heartache and hope. Get ready to meet a girl whose voice you'll never, ever forget.

As we talked about what she liked about the book, I loved hearing some of her insights and the details that she remembered.  We started into a discussion on stereotypes, and Anna referenced the TED talk she watched recently in her language arts class called "The danger of the single story." (see summary of the TED talk below.)  This is a video that I was first introduced to when I taught at UT with the Urban Multicultural Department, and it was powerful to show this talk and to challenge students to think about stereotypes.  Ever since then, I have shown it every quarter to my students in classroom management at SPU as well, and it has been pivotal in some of the conversations I've had with interns about identity in the classroom and about building relationships with families and students.   

There we were talking about things on such an adult level, and it was amazing to sit there and see Anna growing up before my eyes.   I am so grateful for the deep well that Anna has... I look forward to many more books to read with this girl through the years. I know I will learn so much from her! 

and here's our little reader bundled up on the front porch this afternoon.... 

Here is the summary of the TED talk: 

The speaker, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, begins by telling us a story about what she would write about as a child. She would write stories that were similar to the foreign stories she would read which contained white skinned children with blue eyes, nothing like her. Until she found African stories is when she realized that people like her could be in stories. If we hear or read stories about a part of the world we tend to perceive that part of the world as the stories describe those places. Those stories we receive make us feel certain emotions, emotions like pity, towards the people that live in those places. Adichie gives an experience of her own about a single story when she heard the debates about immigration in the United States. Immigration in America became equal to Mexicans, Mexicans that were sneaking across the border. When she visited Guadalajara she was a bit surprised to see Mexicans differently than the immigrants that America talked about. She then goes to say, “Show people as one thing and one thing only over and over again and that is what they become.”  That is the consequence of the single story about a person, place, or issue. A single story also robs people of dignity and emphasizes how different people are.  By engaging with all the stories of a person, place, or issue, the trap of a single story can be avoided. Adichie could have looked at the Mexican and the U.S. side of the immigration issue so she would have balanced the stories and not fallen into the single story trap. I agree that the single story makes the differences in people stand out and the single story is an incomplete description.