In field study last week, the students were given some free time; the students were allowed to work on puzzles quietly at their table, color etc. There were a group of 5 students drawing. I went over to the table to see what their pictures were looked like. There was one student who was drawing a picture of Cinderella. She was using one of the students' lunch box pales as a aid for drawing it. I noticed that it was the Disney depiction of Cinderella (white, blond hair, blue eyes). The student was black and so I asked her what she was drawing. She said that she was drawing Cinderella. Curious, I asked her why she made Cinderella white with blonde hair etc. She said because that is what Cinderella looks like. I asked her if Cinderella could have a different skin color or hair color . She said no.
This brief conversation that I had with the student really sparked some thoughts into my mind. I remember in my TE348 class, my instructor read us a Malaysian version of Cinderella. It was interesting to see a different culture's perspective of Cinderella with different depictions of the characters. I guess basically I feel it's not fair for Americans to depict Cinderella or any other folklore as Caucasians. I wish there were versions of Cinderella where Cinderella is black, Korean, bi-racial, latino etc. I want students to see that famous characters can be the same color as them and not just for what they were made famous for.
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Hey Sarah!
I have an Egyptian Cinderella book. I used it our TE 348 class for the last book set. I understand your frustration with using books that depict only one social group. This issue arose in my TE class and it made me want to find a book that uses our cultures. It was very hard to find the book, and when I did it was uber experience. I was thinking that when if you do not have many books that depict our cultures in similar stories that your could always have the class make them and use those. Or if a situation like this occurs again, try using different questions to get the students to draw the same picture in a different culture. I know when I was a kid; I drew everyone the same color as me. It must me an understanding type of thing, that make the student knows that there are different skin types but assimilates everyone to the same color.
--Becka
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