International children’s Book Day
Today is the International Children’s Book Day. Since 1967, close to Hans Christian Andersen’s birthday, 2 April, International Children’s Book Day (ICBD) is celebrated to inspire children to read and promote children literature.
Each year a different country, has the opportunity to be the international sponsor of ICBD. Lithuania is the sponsor for International Children’s Book Day 2019.
Literature’s place in education was established centuries ago, but it is also a great tool to be used in multicultural classrooms. Children from different backgrounds can feel proud of their heritage language through children’s books.
You may introduce library books or digital books, or you can ask the children to bring books from their own collection. If you can find translated books, it would be great, but don’t be discouraged if you don’t. You can encourage your students to share their favorite books with the rest of the class, even if they have to translate them themselves, make a presentation and take pride in their first language and heritage culture.
Acceptance is an important step towards supporting diversity in your classroom. Respect is developed towards the ethnic background of students when the learning environment is imbued with multicultural education, and in this case, it is in the material that you will use for reading. This would be the beginning of a dialogue between the students of different background, you, and the rest of the class in order to raise sensitivity. The former are expected to take part in a syllabus that you designed in order to promote diversity.
Lina Vaska-Paidoussi
