The Destructive and Pervasive Ideology Undergirding Literary "Windows and Mirrors" in Your Child’s Education
Part One of a discussion about this damaging notion
Thank you to Jessi Bridges for this enlightening piece on a notion that has gained a great deal of traction in the children’s literature space. You can follow
on X and on Instagram.Maryland’s Montgomery County School District recently posted this Sydney J. Harris quote to its Instagram page:
The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.
Aside from the fact that the quote was truncated to completely remove the authorial intent, the concept of mirrors and windows in education is quite common and prevalent in our current system. The history of such an idea, the ideology underlying it, those involved in its dissemination, and how far-reaching it has become should give all a cause for concern.
Harris meant one thing by his use of mirrors and windows as analogies in education, but in subsequent decades, others like Emily Style, Rudine Sims Bishop, and Laura Jimenez would propose something else entirely in the use of literary mirrors and windows as analogies, and this use is far more likely the purpose of MCSD posting Harris’ quote to social media, which would explain the truncation.
The Origin
In 1988, Emily Style first introduced this concept in her paper, Curriculum as Window and Mirror.
According to this approach, readers, in this instance young students, should be exposed to books and particularly literature that act as mirrors in which they can see themselves and to books that act as windows through which they can look to see others. On the surface, such a suggestion seems innocuous or even beautiful. But on further consideration, the assumptions of systemic racism and sexism, along with white and male privilege that underlie such a proposal become apparent. In her essay, Style writes in part,
“White males find, in the house of curriculum, many mirrors to look in, and few windows which frame others’ lives. Women and men of color, on the other hand, find almost no mirrors of themselves in the house of curriculum; for them it is often all windows.”
Emily Style not only proposed this concept, but in the year prior she co-founded an organization called the National SEED Project, or SEED (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity) for short, with colleague Peggy McIntosh. McIntosh is widely known for her essay White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, in which the theory of “white privilege” was first introduced, coined, and defined. Together, these women created a project (SEED) that would spread their beliefs and ideology throughout the education system by facilitating “conversations that drive social change within institutions” to ultimately “transform the system.” The logo of SEED is a dandelion seed head with seeds being taken up by the wind, symbolizing the quick and far-reaching spread of their ideology.
According to its website, SEED originated and continues to operate at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) at Wellesley College, whose mission “is to advance gender equality, social justice, and human wellbeing through high quality research, theory, and action programs.”
Executive director of WCW, Layli Maparyan recently wrote, “The National SEED Project, with its New Leaders Week trainings, has transformed the thinking and practice of nearly 2,600 attendees, who in turn have influenced 30,000+ teachers, changing the classroom experience of over three million students, in the United States and around the world.”
Maparyan writes that Style’s work, including her essay on books as windows and mirrors, should be praised and recognized for “transforming society through the institution of education.”
Style’s desire to see her curriculum proposal, along with the ideology underlying it, disseminate widely through education has come to fruition.
The Spread
Since 1988, Curriculum as Window and Mirror has been expounded upon by many educators. In 1990, Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop published MIrrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors. Her focus was primarily upon how reading books can be a means of “self-affirmation” or give insight into others’ lives regarding racial identity, but as Professors Jonda McNair and Patricia Edwards later assert, “it should be noted that the analogy can be thought about in ways that move beyond race.” They include other “identity markers” such as socioeconomic status, disability, and sexuality. Others have added gender identity, religion, approaches to spiritual practices, family structures, or living situations.
One of the major focal points in the use of the mirrors and windows analogy is that of “identities and life experiences.” There is a desire among many educators to see to it that children in their classrooms “learn to recognize, appreciate, and celebrate identities that are different from their own across multiple matrices” including the several identity markers previously mentioned. Or as Laura Jimenez writes in her article Mirrors and Windows with Texts and Readers: Intersectional Social Justice at Work in the Classroom, “the reader can visit a new way of being in the world.” She stresses that, “identity must be a central part of the curriculum and not simply an add-on.”
Jimenez then goes on to share an example of how she has achieved this in her own instruction. She writes, “To prepare, I had the teacher candidates read a chapter from Reading the Rainbow: LGBTQ-Inclusive Literacy Instruction in the Elementary Classroom. I asked second graders to write about their homes and families, and I used my own rather poor drawing featuring my kids, my partner, and our dogs as a model for their own descriptive illustration. I used the word lesbian to describe myself and my partner, and some of the kids didn't know what that meant. I explained, ‘Like gay, but we are women.’ What ensued was a lively activity and discussion around LGBTQIA members of children’s families, their definitions of family, and of course, pets.”
In her article, When DIversity Isn’t the Point: Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors in the Classroom, Kaitlin Jackson discusses what she calls “the normalization of diversity in all identity markers” through the use of books as windows. One example she discusses is, “a hilarious read aloud about a wild collection of singing chickens whose caregivers happen to be two men” which “normalizes gay parenthood by showing children that is valid and good.” Jackson argues that teachers must give students examples of characters who do not fit that societal ‘default.’” She describes the “societal default” as, “white, upper-middle class, able-bodied, heterosexual, cisgender, male, Christian.” Some may be familiar with this characterization as hegemony.
Ultimately what all of these educators desire to accomplish isn’t simply that children would see themselves and others in the literature they consume, but that by “dismantling the hold these systems have… by thinking and writing about ways to disrupt those oppressive systems” (Jimenez), students would then “take action” and “put anti-racism to work” (Jackson).
Kawi explains in her essay for PBS, The Importance of Windows and Mirrors in Stories, that educators ought to “use a critical race lens” when selecting books. She goes on to explain exactly what she means by this: “To have a critical race lens means to understand oneself deeply in relation to dominant culture and its racist and oppressive system and policies. It involves seeing how our experiences may differ from others based on these systems and policies”.
It is clear that the seemingly innocuous use of books as mirrors and windows in education has not only an alarming inception and history, but its current use is pregnant with Critical Theory, Social Justice, and Intersectionality ideology. This belief that children must be exposed to literature that allows them to “try on an identity that isn’t their own” (Jackson) doesn’t end with race. Because the underlying belief is that our libraries are too white and oppressive to those not of the “societal default”, this quickly moves into normalizing and endorsing even sinful lifestyles and behaviors, namely that of LGBTQ.
Within the last couple of years, many parents have recognized the Critical Theory pedagogy taking place in their child’s classroom and have spoken out against it in school board meetings, worked to elect conservative local politicians and school board members who would do away with this sort of curriculum, or have even pulled their child out the traditional classroom in order to homeschool. But surprisingly, this use of literary windows and mirrors with its underlying Social Justice ideology has spread beyond the public school system. Part two will discuss how it has made its way into homeschool curriculum and book lists.