See the attachment ‘Creating an Anti-Bias Learning Community: Diversity of Race and Gender’ ?form. Consider how you would ?build help children get to know themselves better, build respect f

Week 6: Creating an Anti-Bias Learning Community: Diversity of Race and Gender

© Laureate Education, Inc. Page 1 of 1

In today’s society professionals working with children want to provide what is best for all children. This requires them to be culturally responsive in their approach to children and their families. Part of being culturally responsive is to be knowledgeable and sensitive to issues of race and ethnicity. However, this is difficult to do, because race and ethnicity are concepts that young children simply do not understand. However, psycholo- gists, multicultural educators, and prac- titioners know that race and ethnicity are central components of each person’s individual identity; further, that racism in society can have a negative impact on a child’s school success. Given all of these realities, what are professionals who work with diverse populations of young children supposed to do?

Provide a culturally responsive approach to children and their families

Each of us has created in our minds a unique, complex identity based on the

interaction between many characteristics (West, 2001). These characteristics include, family, education, languages, abilities and disabilities, religion, gender, community, and race and ethnicity (Wardle, 1996). It is critical that professionals help children develop a secure and accurate identity, and a sense of pride and respect in that identity. Young children are beginning to notice physical characteristics of them- selves and their peers, and also beginning to pick up some of society’s views and attitudes around issues of race and ethnic- ity. Here are some ideas to assist teachers in this critical task.

Be knowledgeable and sensitive to issues of race and ethnicity

The U.S. government has divided race and ethnicity into five broad categories: American Indian or Alaskan Native; Asian or Pacific Islander; Hispanic (can be any race); Black, not Hispanic; and White, not Hispanic. However, sensitivity to race and ethnicity requires us to go far beyond these categories in several important ways.

First, much of the world does not see race as we do. For example, Brazilians do not view themselves as Latinos, but rather as Afro Brazilian, Amerindian, Asian, Euro- pean, and Mixed-race (Carvalho-Silva et al., 2000). Mayans from Guatemala are

also classified under the Latino category, but view themselves as Indigenous Peoples. With the increased number of immigrant families attending our programs, we must be sensitive to this reality.

Secondly, the U.S. approach lumps Japanese, Hmong, Koreans, Indians, Chinese, Vietnamese, and many other national groups into a general Asian category. Yet these countries have long been historical enemies, and each has it own unique history, culture, language, and identity.

And, thirdly, we must appreciate diver- sity within diversity (Wardle & Cruz- Janzen, 2004). It is a well-known fact that there is much more diversity within any large group than between two groups, whether the group is based on gender, race, ethnicity, income, age, ability, pro- fession, or national origin. For example, my wife is African American, her mother was Catholic, she attended K-12 Catholic schools, and her family has a proud heritage of college graduates. She is also enrolled in the Chickasaw tribe.

There are many ways we can honor this wonderful complexity! On application forms the race/ethnicity question can be open-ended, so parents can record their family identity.

68 DIVERSITY EXCHANGE MARCH/APRIL 2011

Francis Wardle, PhD, teaches for the University of Phoenix (online) and Red Rocks Com- munity College. He has been a Head Start director; he is cur- rently a board member of Part-

ners of Americas International, and a founding board member of Educação do Instituto Estrela do Mar (the Starfish Educational Institute), which sponsors an annual teachers’ conference in Maceió, Alagoas, Brazil. He is the director of the Center for the Study of Biracial Children; his newest book, Approaches to Early Childhood and Elementary Education, was published in 2009.

Responding to racial and ethnic diversity in early childhood programs by Francis Wardle

Reprinted with permission from Exchange magazine. Visit us at www.ChildCareExchange.com or call (800) 221-2864. Multiple use copy agreement available for educators by request.

DIVERSITY 69 MARCH/APRIL 2011 EXCHANGE

and dislikes. Also, since children this age love to experiment with language, we can use this to explore issues of empowerment, support, kindness, and hurtful expressions.

All age-appropriate activities can sup- port this effort. Activities that are par- ticularly helpful in developing and solidifying children’s identity include, painting, music, dance, dress-ups, dra- matic play, face painting and hair care, looking at picture books, reading (and being read to), crafts, writing songs, writing personal journals, painting murals, and creating literary and photo- graphic records of the family and of the community. Various technology proj- ects, from biographies and families his- tories, to photographic documentaries and creating a website, can be created by older children.

Finally, we must make sure all of our children are successful in as many activ- ities as possible. Self-image at this age is largely based on what children can do (Erikson, 1963; Wardle, 1993). We must never limit what a child can do because of a disability, gender, race/ethnicity, or because they have not completed an assigned task. A central role for identity development is to enable children to be successful in as many ways as possible.

Start with the child to learn about their family and community

We must always start with the individ- ual child, and not a racial, ethnic, cul- tural, or other group. Further, we cannot automatically assign a child with the characteristics or attributes assumed to be stereotypical of a group, be it racial, disability, gender, income, and so on. What we should do is learn about indi- vidual children, their families, commu- nities, and the other important ecologi- cal contexts of the child and his family (Bronfenbrenner, 1979).

We can ask families to provide us with books, artifacts, songs, and other aspects of their unique backgrounds; and we can learn about the wonderful diversity of each of our children and their fami- lies. Each of us also needs to expand our own understanding of global diversity beyond the limitations of our American view.

Help children develop a secure and accurate identity and a sense of pride in that identity

When my son, Kealan, traveled to Bra- zil, he left as a black person (his mother is African American) but arrived as a mixed-race person (the Brazilin govern- ment’s category for people of European, Indian, and Black heritage). Race and ethnicity are socio-political category systems. This means they are created and maintained for social and political reasons.

Further, young children do not under- stand race as adults do. Sure, they notice physical differences (i.e., skin color, height, body build, eye shape, etc.) and they also pick up language and behavior used by peers and adults. But they don’t understand what this means in racial terms. In fact, race is very confusing to a young child! The other day a little girl from Bangladesh asked in puzzlement, “I am darker than Johnny, does that make me black like him?” And when told by a peer from México that she was black and he was not, my own biracial daughter asked, “How come I’m black and he’s not, when he is darker than me?” Therefore, we must find ways to help children see how they are similar to and different from other children. And we must help them feel good about their unique physical characteristics.

Since children this age are concrete learners, we should focus on concrete aspects of skin and hair color, eye color and shape, physical abilities and dis- abilities, and natural expressions of likes

Early childhood professionals are good at focusing on individual children. We carefully observe children to determine their strengths and areas where they need extra assistance (Wardle, 2003). Emergent curriculum approaches require that we carefully observe children in nat- ural settings — play, peer interactions, private speech — to discover their inter- ests, language, past experiences, and dis- positions; the Reggio Emilia philosophy focuses on each child documenting her strengths, development, and progress (Edwards, Gandini, & Forman, 1998). These skills should be used to determine the child’s family, community, and over- all national, racial, linguistic, and ethnic contexts.

Let the child and his family inform us about their values, behaviors, and beliefs

We need to extend our observations and insights of the child and family men- tioned above to inform us about values, behaviors, and beliefs important to them.

n How does the child acknowledge and celebrate his skin color and nation of origin?

n How do parents want their child’s first language to be acknowledged?

n How does the family support the child’s race and ethnicity outside the school or child care program?

n How does the family want children to respond to older people, to people outside their community, and to people in authority?

The child and her family can inform us about their community: religion, food, traditions, male and female roles, impor- tance of grandparents, role of the child in the home, etc. Again, a variety of meth- ods can be used in collecting this infor- mation:

n Questionnaires n Questions on application forms n Open discussions at parents-teacher

70 DIVERSITY EXCHANGE MARCH/APRIL 2011

Teach another language to English-speaking students

It is interesting to note the number of early childhood experts who advocate for bilingual activities in our early child- hood programs and schools (Nieto, 2004; York, 2003). While all these recom- mendations are for programs to teach the child’s home language and English, to be truly diverse we must also teach a second language to English-speaking students; further, that second language should be one of the world’s major lan- guages. These include Russian, Japa- nese, Chinese, Portuguese, and French. There are a variety of approaches that programs can take to implement foreign language efforts in their programs (Neugebauer, 2005).

Evaluate curricula and policies and differentiate activities for all students

All policies, procedures, curricular con- tent, and curricular materials and activi- ties should be carefully evaluated to determine if they are good for all chil- dren, and not just for specific groups of children. Criteria to consider in this evaluation include the use of all of Gardner’s eight learning styles (1983), use of field dependent and field inde- pendent approaches to learning, cooper- ative and individual activities and proj- ects, hands-on learning, technology learning, and enactive, iconic and abstract-symbolic learning.

Differentiation for gifted students, special needs students, and twice exceptional students must also be inte- gral to the curriculum and activities. These changes, adaptations, and new approaches should not be designed for groups of children, but rather for indi- vidual children. This requires a flexible approach to time and schedules, with the possibility of advanced students pursuing projects and tangential activi- ties, while other students might need to move on to new activities. Further, it

their community work well here. But of most importance is not to isolate race and ethnicity, and not to use curricula approaches that focus on these factors above all others. My ecological and anti- bias model (Wardle, 1996) can be used effectively in this process.

Do not impose your ideas of race/ethnicity on the child

Never, ever, impose your ideas of race or ethnicity on a child. This includes forcing a child to select a specific federal racial category. Further, a child should never be prejudged based on their racial or ethnic identity, including behaviors, academic expectations, or specific skills and dispositions. Allow the child — and his family — to define herself, and to define her own values, dispositions, likes and dislikes, and behaviors. Clearly this mandate also includes children with complex elements that create unique identities (multiethnic and multiracial), adopted children, and the increasing number of children who do not fit neatly into the U.S. census cat- egories. It is not our job to define a child or to determine that child’s behaviors, predispositions, and world view. This does not mean children do not have racial, ethnic, and cultural attributes that impact their behavior and learning. But it means that we must follow the child’s (and the family’s) lead.

One of the best ways to encourage children to be everything they can be is through modeling. Modeling includes books, pictures and posters on the walls, visitors to the classroom, and visits to the community — workplaces, museums, stores, etc. I work with a school in Brazil that serves poor children from the local favelas (slums). Central to their curriculum is a Profes- sional Day. The purpose of this activity is to model to these children that people like them can be successful.

conferences n Input from parents during parent-

education activities n Casual, informal discussions between

teachers and parents n Visits to the communities where your

children live, both through field trips and by frequenting local stores and cultural centers.

When I was a Head Start director, we had a large influx of Hmong families. No one in the program knew much about these children and their families. I discovered a Hmong church in their community where the elders provided us with a great deal of helpful informa- tion and support.

Always view the whole child with all the factors that make up his identity

All the factors that make up a child’s identity — race, ethnicity, language, personality, income, gender, family structure, and so on — should be inte- grated throughout the curriculum. Do not use a tourist approach; do not use a curriculum by celebration approach, either. These approaches are not inclu- sive and are not developmental.

And we should not engage in what is called essentialism — just focusing on a few components of a child’s full identity (Fish, 2002). We should always look at all the aspects that make-up the child’s identity, and also look at the sum of the these parts — the Gestalt. Martha West reminds us that children construct their own meaning of their unique realities (2001). This includes their social and contextual reality. Teachers can support this developmental effort that continues throughout a child’s entire school life. Provide multiple opportunities for chil- dren to explore all the factors that make up their unique identity, and the inte- gration of these factors into their over- all, unique Gestalt. A variety of activities that engage children in exploring them- selves, their family background, and

DIVERSITY 71 MARCH/APRIL 2011 EXCHANGE

Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.

Neugebauer, B. (Ed.). (2005). Literacy: A Beginnings Workshop book. Redmond, WA: Exchange Press.

Nieto, S. (2004). Affirming diversity. The sociopolitical context of multicultural edu- cation (4th edition). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Wardle, F. (2003). Introduction to early childhood education: A multidimensional approach to child-centered care and learn- ing. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Wardle, F. (1996). Proposal: An anti-bias and ecological model for multicultural education. Childhood Education, 72(3) 152-156.

Wardle, F. (1993, March). How young children build images of themselves. Exchange, 104, 44-47.

Wardle, F., & Cruz-Janzen, M. I. (2004). Meeting the needs of multiethnic and multi- racial children in schools. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

West, M. M. (2001). Teaching the third culture child. Young Children, 56(6), 27-32.

York, S. (2003). Roots and wings: Affirm- ing culture in early childhood programs (Revised edition). St. Paul: Redleaf Press.

requires us to allow students to be suc- cessful at what they are good at, not what the standards or curriculum say they should be good at.

Conclusion

It is important for professionals working with young children to be sensitive to issues of race and ethnicity. We can do this by always beginning with the indi- vidual child and his family, viewing race as one of the child’s many ecologi- cal contexts (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), and understanding that children actively construct their own reality, including their racial and ethnic identity (West, 2001). We must never automatically respond to a child as a member of a racial or ethnic group; rather, we must respond to the child as a unique indi- vidual with a dynamic identity that includes, but is not limited to, race and ethnicity. Our goal is to provide the best possible environments, curricula, activi- ties, and interactions for all the children we serve.

References

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). Context of child rearing: Problems and prospect. American psychologist, 34, 844-850.

Carvalho-Silva, D. R., Santos, F. R., Rocha, J., & Pena, D. J. (2000). The phy- logeography of Brazilian Y-Chromo- some Lineages. American Journal of Human Genetics, 68.

Edwards, C., Gandini, L., & Forman, G. (1998). The hundred languages of children: The Reggio Emilia approach — advance reflections (2nd edition). Greenwich, CT: Ablex Publishing Co.

Erikson, E. (1963). Childhood and society (2nd edition). New York: Norton.

Fish, J. M. (Ed.). (2002). Race and intelli- gence: Separating science from myth. Mah- wah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

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EDUC6358: Strategies for Working with Diverse Children “Learning About Fairness Race and Gender”

Program Transcript

[MUSIC]

NARRATOR: Early childhood professionals must create environments where it is safe for children to talk about diversity, ask questions, and offer opinions. Listen as educators Leslie Cheung, Eric Hoffman, and ReGina Chavez, share their thinking and experiences about young children, race, and gender.

LESLIE CHEUNG: In the young children's classroom, race and gender comes up quite a bit. Children are at an age typically, in zero to five, that is discovering I'm a boy, and I'm a girl. And wow my skin color is different from your skin color, why is that? How come Bobby's skin looks like chocolate, but mine looks like this apricot? And why does Joey have a penis, and I don't?

And a lot of these questions come up. And there's a lot of stereotypes and biases that come along with this. And sometimes that's a trickle down from the way a family thinks about certain things. Maybe a religion that they are a part of, an experience they may have had. I have worked with families that have two moms, have two dad's, who have one mom, one dad.

So as children are making these discoveries, parents don't always know how to react. Sometimes teachers don't always know how to react. When a child's sitting at the toilet and all of a sudden looks over and says, oh well you look different. And everyone gets startled, grown-ups get startled. We're experienced, we've been around this. We've had experience looking at racism, and looking at gender, and looking at sexual orientation, and looking at all of these pieces in our society that impact our children. And then in the classroom, you have something very simple in front of you. Very simple, it's simply noticing differences. And that's all the children are doing, without bias. It's us who bring that in going, oh you shouldn't say that. But they should, they should say that. They should say, well my skin colors different from yours. And you say, it is. Your skin looks like apricot or peach, and Bobby's looks like milk chocolate. Isn't that beautiful?

ERIC HOFFMAN: Preschool children are so interested in how the world works, they're trying to figure it out. And one of the things that they look at is, how do we categorize people? And more importantly, which categories have strong emotions attached to them? And gender and race are two of the big ones. Preschoolers are particularly interested in gender, it's one of what I call their big questions. What does it mean to be a boy, what does it mean to be a girl? Am I always going to be that gender? If I'm a boy, do I have to behave in certain ways? Can I play with girls? These are all important questions for preschoolers.

And again I try not to step in and say, you're wrong about your beliefs. Preschoolers are trying to take the best information they can, and they come up with these judgments about the world that are often incorrect. My job is to give them real experiences, not lectures, but real experiences that might contradict the stereotypes that they've come up with. So I had children who were telling girls that they couldn't play basketball, because they were girls. I happened to have one of the parents who was on the college basketball team, the women's basketball team, she brought a few of her teammates over, they did a dribbling and shooting demonstration. And that was the end of that talk. And all of my talk to the children wouldn't make a difference, but then having real people that they watched made a difference. There were still some children who insisted that girls couldn't play it, but it lasted about two weeks before everybody agreed that well, of course girls can play basketball.

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So looking at these big things that adults are often afraid to talk about, children are not afraid to talk about it. They want to talk about it, they want to talk about gender, they want to talk about skin color, and it's our job to make it safe for them. Partly it's by not just jumping into that, but creating this atmosphere of we've talked about all these ways people are similar and different. And we're celebrating all of it. And skin color, and other racial issues, gender, those are all things that we're going to keep celebrating. And they're not huge things to worry about.

One of the things that I like to do is to use dolls and puppets to bring up these issues. Because I can talk about some of the stereotypes children hold, without talking about specific children. And I find that children really want to talk about those with dolls and puppets that they think are alive, and part of their classroom. So one of the things I did was to have a boy doll who liked to wear pink. And I can tell you that I had to break up fist fights about this, and to keep the discussion safe. But it was an incredible discussion. With children saying yes, he can do that. No he can't. It really brought out what the underlying issues were.

REGINA CHAVEZ: If I walked into a classroom and I pretended that race and gender didn't exist, if I just deconstructed everything and was like that's a social construction. And I'm going to ignore that in my classroom. I would be doing a disservice to my children and to the families. Because it's the world that we live in. Where race, class, gender, those things are socially constructed. And it's part of the world that we live in. And knowing that, my job as an educator, I get to help children and families navigate how we're going to interact with that in our classroom and in our space. And how to make children and families feel safe, and worthy, and loved. No matter what their race, or class, or gender may be. But the human experience is messy and complex, and our responsibility as educators is to help children navigate that. Because they're learning so much. And so they get to learn all about this fascinating world, and children have a really inherent sense of what's fair and what's not fair.

And in my classroom, one of the activities that we've done around gender specifically, we had these capes. And there was one pink one. And this little girl was saying, boys cannot wear the pink cape. And

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