Girl Rising
The Fight for Education
After reading the book Girl Rising: Changing the World One Girl at a Time, I attended an event in which the author, Tanya Lee Stone, answered several questions about the writing process, how she became involved, and other insights into the global fight for education.Throughout the book, the various stories from girls around the world highlights the disadvantges these girls face for reasons out of their control: gender and location. Due to the fact that they are both females and living in developing countries, the girls interviewed throughout this process are victims of institutional limitations.
Tanya Lee Stone offerred insight into how she became involved in this process. Guess what?! Girl Rising was actually a movie first! I know, I know... books usually come before the movies! This time is different, though. Tanya Lee Stone actually watched the movie with her adolescent daughter and he daughter's friends. When they continued the discussions surrounding the personal stories in the movie, Stone became interested in all the other girls with similar stories. She reached out to the producers of the movie to get some more information and eventually ended up writing the book version depicting the more intimate details of the interviewing process. The book provides an insight into girls' lives that the movie could not offer due to time constraints.
This book, and event, both connect to PC 2.2: Diverse Cultures & Communities and PC 9.1 Continuous Professional Learning. Girl Rising discusses access of education and its larger implications primarily involving female students. As a future educator, understanding diver cultures and how they might impact a student's outlook on education is imperative to establishing a positive and safe learning environment. In light of PC 9.1: Continuous Professional Learning, attending this author talk highlights how committing to education involves seeking out community resources and experiences. After attending this event, I was provided with more insight into how the book was written, the author's inspiration, and the importance of activism.
The most striking part of this chat with Stone was that she decided to stray from the movie script completely. The movie focuses on a select number of girls but Stone expands the scope and incoporates many, many more stories. Stone never got to interact with these girls in person, and yet she was so moved by their stories that she felt as though she needed to do more. As a future English teacher, I found this portion of study very interesting and relevant as I hope to inspire my future students to take part in the community and spark curiosity in them through the kinds of texts I incorporate into my class.
I hope you enjoyed my review of the experience I got to have with Tanya Lee Stone! If you're looking for something to read, I highly recommend Girl Rising! Thanks for reading! See you soon!
Hi Rylee!
ReplyDeleteYour blog post is very insightful. I liked reading about the author talk from Tanya Lee Stone. I did not attend, but it seems you got a lot out of it. She is a very motivating and interesting woman who we can all learn a lot from.
I think it is interesting that you mentioned P.C. 2.2. I wonder how else you are going to increase your knowledge of diverse cultures and include that in your classroom? Are you going to teach books about diversity? Will you include girl rising in your curriculum?
Rylee, These experiences clearly had an impact. You mention one very concrete and important next step: Being deliberate in addressing some of these issues and raising awareness through the texts you select and use as an English teacher.
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