Freedom Summer

Today we discussed the book Freedom Summer and Its appropriateness for the age/grade levels we would be working with. The book was very complex and gave an account of a historical event but did so utilizing the present tense. Furthermore it did left a great deal of initial ambiguity as to who the heck is actually telling the story (when the reader in my group was going through the book I played it off like I knew who was narrating the story…but I didn’t).
Although I had a problem with the structure of the book, I was ok with the subject matter. I think it important that we teach children, particularly minority children, about their historical past. For a wide variety of cultures here in the U.S. and around the world, the process of educating a child is one that runs parallel to, and in fact complements, the developing a strong sense of cultural self. These two processes are not seen to be mutually exclusive for it is understood that a strong sense of cultural self, is inherently tied to high self-esteem, high levels of self-efficacy and enhanced academic performance.