Creating Affirming Environments

Helping children accept and honor differences can create good memories and support multicultural understanding.  We can never know exactly what someone else is feeling.  But we can continually support the growth of empathy by creating a culture of kindness.  As an early childhood professional I believe it is important for us to make a point to discuss diversity and feature the heritage of students in our classroom.  With that being said, I would invite family members to come into the classroom and share their customs and traditions.  For example maybe have a Native American parent come in talk to the children about their customs from their culture and have the children help make table top Indian teepees or make pottery, while explaining to the children how a person’s culture and background can teach honor and respect for their history.  I would have a library filled with books that illustrate diversity where the children can read and explore the different parts of the world.  I would also have an arts and craft area where the children would be encourage to create collages or pictures that represent something from their culture or the different countries around the world as we explore diversity.

During story time instead of always reading a book to the children, I would have the children tell the class stories that were told to them by their grandparents, which are usually stories passed on from generation to generation. The children learned about courage and determination, and reflect on valuable lessons about tolerance, integrity, and generosity.

Children are curious and notice the difference in others, they ask questions so I believe talking openly with children about cultural, racial, and language differences is very important in creating an anti-bias learning environment.

For the infants and toddlers, I would have parents to bring in songs and lullabies in their home language and play these at nap or quiet time.  I would also invite parents to read stories in other languages and tell the children the meaning in English.

I’d also like to have an area that displays different careers, talents and hobbies that represent the many different cultures and backgrounds and possible invite parents and people from the community that can come in and represent the different careers.