About Us

I am a graduate of Georgia State University with a Bachelors's degree in Film & Video with a minor in Economics. 

When I was a kid, I would achieve my school reading goal halfway through the year and then add more books to my plate for fun.  

I would read books on just about everything: warrior cats on a quest for justice, middle school students learning the meaning of friendship, historical dramas about kids my age - the list goes on... 

I read hundreds of books about people that looked like me, navigating a wide array of situations. When I would read books about people who did not look like me, they were exclusively about slavery,  segregation, or war torn countries. 

 I never read about what types of food other cultures would cook at home, how other races navigated their everyday lives, or even how they did their hair.

Let's face it, that's not what the other kids were reading either. School is a place we so desperately try to fit in, so I read what everyone else was reading.

Did I have the option available to me to read more diverse books? 

Of course. 

I grew up in a household that was accepting of all people regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or background. My parents would have welcomed any type of book into our home. Had they have been more popularized by our society, I know I would have had a diverse bookshelf.

The question is: Would every child growing up in America have parents who would welcome these books of diversity into their homes? 

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I believe it's time to make a change. While we can't change a home, we can try to change a classroom.

You can reach me at:

kaylin@diversifytheclassroom.com

I am a graduate of the University of Central Florida with a Bachelors's degree in Radio/TV Management with a minor in Film.

I loved to read as a child. My dad often described me as “always having a book in my hand”. Growing up in a household as a person of color, my parents wanted me to feel represented - so they bought me books with characters that looked like me on the cover. 

I remember one Christmas my parents gave me the “American Girl” collection about Addy, a newly freed slave. It was a beautiful thick hardcover with edges of the pages painted in gold. 

I can tell you for a fact I did not appreciate receiving that book in that moment as much as I do today. 

As a child, I never felt like the books that featured characters that looked like me were as good as the ones with a pale face on the cover. With age, I am able to understand that I only felt that way because those weren’t the kind of books the other kids were reading at the time. I was too young to understand the importance of representation. 

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I read the whole Addy series - and a dynamic group of many other books. Books that featured all races, ethnicities and religions - some of these books have even made it to our list! Eventually, each book became just another book to me, and it didn’t matter who was on the cover. 

I want kids to take pride in their differences. I want every kid to feel so represented that each character they read about is simply just another character. There should be no superiority of a book simply based off the protagonists’ skin color -  just as there should be no superiority of a person based on their skin color, race or religion.

This is why we need diversity in the classroom. 

Representation matters. 

Let’s start while they are young.

You can contact me at: 

maya@diversifytheclassroom.com