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While reading Sensoy & Marshall’s (2010) article, I couldn’t help but remember back to when I taught The Breadwinner and Parvana’s Journey to my Grade 7 and 8 students two years ago. I remember the discussion and debates we had regarding the role of Parvana and how we looked at it from a postcolonial feminist perspective. My students at the time were mostly Middle Eastern, but many of them had Western passports, and most importantly, they have never lived like Parvana. Their lived curriculum was closer to that of the US than Afghanistan. In the beginning, just like the article mentions, my students kept asking me to tell them more about Afghanistan, many of them didn’t even know it was located in the Middle East. After discussing the setting and context of the story, we spent a session discussing the author. At the beginning, the students didn’t really understand the importance of learning about the author, they weren’t really interested in learning about Deborah Ellis. They wanted to read and discuss the story. But later on, the girls in particular, shared their thoughts on how they felt that while Deborah did a fantastic job portraying Parvana, it felt like the story was too stereotypical in its portrayal of the characters. They didn’t like how the story was different to their lived experience as Muslims or as children who had Muslim friends, because they or their friends did not have to go through similar circumstances, nor did they share the same views that were portrayed in the story. They also had many questions regarding the Taliban and Afghanistan and why the country was going through a war. These are all valid points that they felt that the story didn’t answer satisfactorily. When we remove important aspects, that would provide us with greater insight, and focus on telling a single story, we are doing exactly as Chimamanda Adichie (2009) warns us of in her powerful Tedx Talk, “it robs people of dignity”. We are reducing Parvana and other women in Afghanistan to helpless beings controlled by men with no willpower of their own. Stories are powerful and impactful, especially on younger minds, we need to be more responsible with what we decide to write and share. We need to decolonize our stories and offer different viewpoints, especially towards those who are being written about.

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Throughout Sensoy & Marshall’s (2010) article I kept thinking about two short videos we watched for the course Globalization & Comparative Education. They were made by PLAN Canada as they launched the ‘Because I Am a Girl’ campaign. So much of the ‘missionary power’ referenced in the reading was on display; young white girls talking about if they could just ‘save’ one girl at a time. The narrator also referenced helping girls find ‘decent and useful’ work and I wondered who decides what is decent? That seemed laced in moral judgment.

I haven’t read The Breadwinner, but the issue of it being written by an outsider aligns with Rebecca Thomas’ point in the Decolonizing Your Bookshelf panel, which was to refrain from telling stories that aren’t yours to tell. This would be a great book to ask students to think critically about how the author is positioning the protagonist and why. Whose purpose does it serve?

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Last week I was on a business trip, scouting locations to host a conference in the next two years. We visited L'hotel des premieres nations. We were are asked to look at this venue because of an emphasis that management wants to put on EDI and better inclusion of BIPOC. As we were leaving the sales rep who gave us the tour said "I don't think this venue will work for your event but I understand why you're looking at it - it's trendy right now."
To me this is how I've rationalized using post colonial/feminist lens in literature. The intentions to include a certain text or book can come from a good place but it doesn't mean that it's creating any change or initiating any critical thinking of the topic. Something can be "trendy" right now but that doesn't necessarily mean it can just be mentioned, taught, or read in a passive way. Especially when considering children's literature it should be presented with more information in a more mindful way.

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Sensoy and Marshall (2010) demonstrate the need to dive deep into literature. Not only do they provide insight into breaking apart literature to problematize it in a way that allows us to choose meaningful books. Just because a book has characters from a specific group in it, does not mean that the book is accurate. The examples of The Breadwinner is striking yet it is one of many. The messages can be extremely harmful to the particular group of people (in this case Muslim women). As an educator it is necessary to break apart each book prior to introducing it to students. We often turn to books to educate ourselves but we have to be weary of what we choose to use.

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Anna Maria Nicalek - Feminist Theoretical perspectives to broaden understandings of children's literature

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Anna Maria Nicalek - Feminist Theoretical perspectives to broaden understandings of children's literature

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Using a feminist lens Sensoy and Marshall (2010) highlights the toxic constructed binary between Western and Southern women as Western women are seen as civil, individual, having agency, being progressive, educated, and needing to push their feminism onto Southern women who are viewed as being uneducated, trapped, uncivil, and subordinate. Victimizing all Muslim women creates a false us versus them mentality that does not respect differences and pushes a single Western ideology onto Southern women that as viewed in The Breadwinner come from different historical backgrounds and experiences. It is vital not to homogenize groups of women or universalize a single form of feminism when Western women still have issues, difficulties, and oppressions of their own.

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Sarah Douhaniuk - Theory provides insight

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Sarah Douhaniuk - Theory provides insight

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After viewing these videos and reading the article by Sensoy & Marshall, I am thinking more about the ways in which I view texts about other cultures. I regret to say I am one who probably thought I was learning a lot about other cultures and ways of life through a small sampling of texts. My takeaway from these materials is that reading or viewing information about a cultural group that is not my own is just hearing one story with one perspective - a sand in the hourglass of possible realities and existences. It is important to use post-colonial and feminist theory when approaching and delivering literature to students to ensure that we are not delivering one story as a full truth, but as an interpretation or “snapshot” where many other facets are at play.

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Adrienne McEwen - Embracing Discomfort in My Learning

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Adrienne McEwen - Embracing Discomfort in My Learning

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I have read Sensoy's (2010) article twice now - once for the Feminist Perspectives course and now this one. I feel like I have layered my understanding of Ellis's, The Breadwinner. From a children's literature perspective and in line with Adichie (2009), Ellis' story exposes the danger of a single narrative, as well-meaning as it might be.

Anecdotally, the other day, my mother was telling me about how awesome her TV show/books, Three Pines, is and how it has changed her view of indigenous culture. I couldn't help but ask her about the author's background, to which she responded that the author is Louise Penny, and she is white. I told my mom that while it is good she has more empathy for indigenous culture, does she find it troubling that once again a white person is telling the story of indigenous people? At first, she didn't think so, but after we talked further, and I told her about other books, like The Breadwinner, she saw how books like Penny's ultimately contribute to a false narrative. Note. I did take time to go to Penny's website. She was born in Toronto, of Irish heritage, but did consult with indigenous elders. Even so, I don't think it is enough.

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Daniel Rogers - Postcolonialism and children's literature

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Daniel Rogers - Postcolonialism and children's literature

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By applying a postcolonial theoretical lens to The Breadwinner, Sensoy and Marshall (2010) broaden our understanding of children's literature by systematically analyzing Western biases towards Afghan girls (viewing them as oppressed individuals in need of salvation), as well as Orientalist perceptions of the East in general. Similarly, Chimamanda (2009) discusses the importance of authentic storytelling, and the necessity to have stories that do not exclusively adopt a Western worldview. With this in mind, as educators, it is important to avoid engaging in paternalistic discussions of other cultures, especially when working within an oppressor-oppressed paradigm. When possible, we should opt for narratives written or told by members of the culture in question, or at least by those who are familiar with the sociocultural context and have some lived experience related to the content of their story.

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When considering the role of theoretical perspectives when reading/discussing literature with children, I can feel frozen, stuck, as if I don’t know enough so perhaps cannot or should not attempt to hold space for certain paths of critical literacy, such as postcolonial feminism in The Breadwinner. And I am reminded of the steps outlined in a previous reading, of how to hold space for critical observation and discussion with a group of learners, about posing questions, recording responses, and coming back to them after we’ve all had some time to do research. Of course I need to keep informing myself as much as possible, keep learning and questioning. And I might miss some things because of where I’m at on certain journeys of understanding, and I need to keep trying.