Evaluating Impacts on Professional Practice

There are no words to describe how racism feels. Everyone deals with it differently. Some people lash out verbally, others withdraw into themselves. Some people can talk openly about how it feels, others hide it deep within. It’s imperative that we talk to our children and prepare them for the possibility that they might experience racism. 

Most ethnic minority parents teach their children about their culture by passing down information and traditions from their country of origin. However, research suggests, with the exception of African-American families, they are less likely to talk to their children about what it means to be a minority in a country that is primarily Caucasian and discuss experiences related to discrimination and racial teasing they might experience because of their ethnic differences (Caughy, Nettles, O’Campo, and Lohrfink,  2002). Preparing children for racist interactions is important because it allows them to attribute the discrimination and bullying to the bully, not to a personal defect within themselves or with their culture, and will encourage them to talk about it, if when it occurs.  

As early childhood professional young children look to us as role models, so by being assertive it teaches them to find their own voice and to stand up for themselves and others who are being teased. My girlfriend, who is Korean, constantly experienced racial slurs at her job as pet groomer from co-workers to point where she quite a job.  It’s important that we, the community as a whole get involve and stand up for what is right. 

If we as educators know racial teasing or discrimination is occurring in our school, in our neighborhood, I believe we should get organized and get support to stop it.  Don’t ignore racism if you see it. It doesn’t go away if you close your eyes and don’t look.

Reference

Caughy, M. O., Nettles, S. M., O’Campo, P. J., & Lohrfink, K. F. (2005). Racial socialization and African American child development: The importance of neighborhood context. Paper presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Atlanta, GA.

Observing Communication

This week we were asked to observe communication between an adult and a young child.  While in Walmart waiting an extremely line check-out line, I decided to take this opportunity to complete this week’s observation assignment.  A mother and a child who was no more than three years old was ahead of me in the check-out line.  The mother seemed very agitated because the child keep taking items off of the rack near the check-out line and throwing them in the cart.  After constantly telling the child no, and taking the thrown items out of the cart, the child began to scream and told her mother, “I want my daddy”.  The mother tried reasoning with the child to no avail, as the child continue to throw items into the cart and continued to ignore her mother’s response of No.  When the mother finally reached the cashier and began taking her items out of the cart, the child began screaming and hitting her mother in the chest.  The mother tried to hold the child’s arms while attempting to unload her cart at the same time. After several minutes of watching this scene between the mother and child, I found myself feeling sorry for the mother as another women immediately behind her offered to hold the child while she unload her cart only to refuse her help and struggled to resist the swinging child hands while unloading her cart. 

Finally after paying the cashier and pushing the cart out the door.  The mother yells at the child saying, wait until your father hears about how you’ve behaved.

In this particular scene it was hard to determine who the parent was, and who the child was.  Because the child clearly was use too getting her way.  The mother showed no type of meaningful communication with the child other than saying “no, no, no, no” to the child.  Instead of trying to communicate to the child that it’s not nice to try to hit mommy, or maybe say to child “you wouldn’t like it if mommy hit you in the chest, would you?”  Maybe, if the mother took just a few moment prior to reaching the cashier to communicate to the child that what she is doing is not good and that good little girls don’t behave that way.  Instead she showed no emotions or any attempt to communicate with the child.  Children sometimes act out to receive attention from a parent who they feel is neglecting them.

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.

What I Have Learned

The one hope that I have when I think about working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds is to be able to always find a medium, one where everyone no matter what culture, class, race, greed, nationality or sexual orientation, that I will be able to create an anti-bias environment where everyone will feel welcome.

The one goal I like to set for the EC field related to issues of diversity, equity and social justice is that we must teach our children to honor cultural diversity in the classrooms, it’s easy to celebrate what we can see, hear, or taste, such as food, art, crafts, music, costumes and customs, but what I am referring to is to honoring cultural diversity by being sensitive and respectful to the differences in other belief, values, practices as well family traditions.

And finally, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my colleagues for sharing their insights, knowledge and success over the course of the last eight week.  It has certainly been a rewarding experience. 

The Crayon Box That Talked

While walking into a toy store the day before today

I overheard a crayon box with many things to say

“I don’t like Red!” said Yellow and Green said “Nor do I”

“And no one her likes Orange but no knows just why”

“We are a box of crayons that doesn't get along

Said Blue to all the others “Something here is wrong”

Well, I bought that box of crayons and took it home with me

And laid out all the colors so the crayons all could see

They watched me as I colored with Red, Blue and Green

And Black, White and Orange and every color in between

They watched as green became the grass and Blue became the sky

The Yellow sun was shining bright on White clouds drifting by

Colors changing as they touched becoming something new

They watch me as I colored – they watched me till I was through

And when I finally finished I began to walk away

And as I did the crayon box had something more to say

“I do like Red!” said Yellow and Green said, “so do I”

And Blue you were terrific! So high up in the sky

“We are a box of crayons each one of us unique

But when we get together the picture is more complete”

                                                             Shane DeRolf

I’ve always tried to incorporate attention to diversity and equity into the classroom, however this course as given me a tools to help me more created in the classroom by creating a program environment that is inclusive, multicultural and reflects the communities of the children I serve.

"We Don't Say Those Words”

 Hello everyone, and Happy Valentine’s Day. 

I have a child in my class who has a birth mark on her face right above a left eye.  On more than one occasion I’ve overhead a few of the other children asked her “what’s that on your eye” or “why do you have that boo boo on your face”.  She never replied she’d just run away or continue playing.  On this one particular day we were out on the playground and one of the other children “screamed run from her she has a disease on her face that can make you sick”.  Immediately the child started crying because all of the other kids ran to the other side of the slide.  I walked over to the child kneeled down comforted her, once I got her to stop crying I called for recess to be over and we all went back inside.  I asked the little boy to apologize to the little for making her cry.  I also explained to him as well as the other children that the scar on the little girls face was a birthmark, and that we all have a birthmark, I should them my birthmark which was located on my upper left arm.  I told the children that birthmarks comes in all different shapes, sizes and that some birthmarks can also look like a scare like the one on Dena’s face.  A few of the other kids begin pointing out on their legs and arms what they believed or were told by their parents their birthmarks.  It turned out to be a very interesting discussion.  One child believed his birthmark looked like a hammer while others began to pull-up their shirts to show the other children marks on their upper shoulder or the lower part of their stomach.  By end of the discussion the kids were telling Dena that her birthmark looked like a baby butterfly.  She was laughing enjoying the comments she was getting about her birthmark.

Several weeks later I found out that a family member of the little boy who lived on the West coast had did from Aids.  I believe that the child must have overheard someone talking about the lesions this person may have had and related this to the remark he had made about Dena.

Gender, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation

Being able to include and welcome all families is an important in the early childhood classroom.  When a child’s family includes same-sex parents, we has early childhood educators should not make either these families rather they are Gay or lesbian families, feel invisible are excluded.

When families who different from the traditional family norm feel included and welcomed into the early childhood classroom, children are introduced to the richness of diversity (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010).  Anti-bias curriculum guides encourage educators to discuss and introduce children as early as possible to diversity, including family diversity, as one means of stemming prejudice, yet many educators have reported feeling discomfort in welcoming families headed by gays or lesbians (Souto-Manning & Hermann-Wilmarth, 2008).