Mirrors, Windows, & Sliding Glass Doors

I recent­ly looked into Rudine Sims Bish­op’s anal­o­gy of “Mir­rors, Win­dows, and Slid­ing Glass Doors” after see­ing a video ref­er­enc­ing her work in the con­text of social media. The video (DISCLAIMER: includes explic­it lan­guage) addressed the issue of using lan­guage sen­si­tiv­i­ty online after anoth­er user com­plained about see­ing an increase of terms such as “unalive” and “self-dele­tion” being used to talk about sui­cide, claim­ing that the cen­sor­ing of the orig­i­nal lan­guage in unnec­es­sary. The response video urges its audi­ence to take a look at their social media; more specif­i­cal­ly to take a look at their fol­low­ing list. 

It explains how the con­cept of “Mir­rors, Win­dows, and Slid­ing Glass Doors” has a very real impact on our world­views. The video sug­gests that the rea­son peo­ple are get­ting upset about vio­lent lan­guage being replaced by oth­er words is because their fol­low­ing lists are mir­rors. They are “not fol­low­ing black, Indige­nous, and oth­er peo­ple of colour,” and the rea­son why lan­guage is being replaced online is because “black, Indige­nous, and oth­er peo­ple of colour had to start using dif­fer­ent words” to share their sto­ries online with­out hav­ing their videos being report­ed and tak­en down. 

With all this in con­sid­er­a­tion, it becomes crys­tal clear why it is so impor­tant for teach­ers to make sure the books they are mak­ing avail­able to stu­dents are not just mir­rors, but also win­dows and slid­ing glass doors. Stu­dents need to be able to see them­selves in the sto­ries that they read- but a mir­ror that reflects one stu­dent does not nec­es­sar­i­ly reflect them all. Read­ing is an oppor­tu­ni­ty for stu­dents to gain empa­thy, under­stand­ing, and cul­tur­al aware­ness. They need to under­stand that even if some­thing isn’t rel­e­vant to their own lives or does­n’t affect them per­son­al­ly, it is rel­e­vant to oth­ers and affects others. 

This is where it becomes cru­cial to include authen­tic books that speak on the expe­ri­ences of dif­fer­ent cul­tures, races, iden­ti­ties, sex­u­al­i­ties, and reli­gions. Stu­dents who are only exposed to their own expe­ri­ence will not have a chance to gain the cul­tur­al aware­ness and under­stand­ing of the peo­ple around them. Hav­ing a diverse set of read­ing mate­ri­als is a major step teach­ers can take to ensur­ing their stu­dents have a chance at being good people.