The Education of Margot Sanchez

What I enjoy about literature such as this is its ability to bring more perspectives and cultures into the classroom, thereby creating a more worldly, inclusive, and accepting classroom culture. While others might see the difficulty in getting boys in a class to read it, I see an opportunity. Sure, it'll be a rough start, but I think proper encouragement and consideration for points of view and opening students up to the possibility of seeing things from another angle is incredibly important, especially in a world where the common societal attitude is "my opinion is the best and everyone else is wrong." By showing students events that occur through someone else's eyes, we're not only helping the students at a scholastic level, but at a level of empathy, as well.

As to whether it's appropriate to teach in a classroom is another matter entirely. I think new teachers would struggle with the content in this book, especially if the students are below 10th grade. Personally I wouldn't teach it below 11th, but that's just me. For more experienced teachers, I think that this book could work wonders in a multicultural classroom with the proper support and class discussion. The romance may be a tough sell for some teachers, but I think it's a good way to have students relate to the novel via the experiences they're currently muddling through. In fact, the entire "coming-of-age" subgenre deals with issues that these high school students deal with on a daily basis--that's why we call them "coming-of-age." I know that as I read, I found myself reminiscing about my own experiences at that age and how differently--and yet similar--the experiences are between Margot and myself; confusion about romance, the intrusive sexual thoughts, issues regarding friends and enemies, the notion of experimentation with substances, all of that. And on these bases, I'd likely teach a unit on this novel once I'd gotten a few years of teaching under my belt.