Farewell

I have grown so much from learning through this program. I have opened my mind to the issues and trends in the world, and I have equipped myself to grow and learn with students and their families to face the challenges in the future.

One insight that I have learned is about anti-bias education. I chose this program, because this program is called teaching and diversity in early childhood field. I wanted to learn more about diversity and the strategies in teaching to meet diversity in my school. However, once I stated this program, I realize that diversity is part of anti-bias education. If I want to fulfill my dream of treating children fairly and equally, I have to promote anti-bias education in my programs and my daily practices. I have learned many strategies to promote anti-bias education, like the usage of personal dolls, home language and culture support, anti-bias learning environment set-up, and the positive attitude toward differences in the world.

Second insight that I have gained is about the importance of play. Since many schools and teachers focus on school readiness, children are losing time at playing and interacting with others. Children can learn and improve their cognitive development and their social skills in play. That is one thing we cannot teach from books or tests. We should let children play and grow. Our educators should be the supervisors to provide appropriate toys and materials for children to choose from and be part of playing too. It helps build trustful relationship between teachers and children. Children have the right to learn for fun and learn through fun.

The third insight that I benefit from this program is the significance of collaboration. The instructors and colleagues are very professional and supportive. I learned many experiences and stories from my colleagues to be used in my daily practices, and the instructors gave me very professional recommendations for my assignments to help me integrate myself in the whole process of the program. I also learned that a good teacher should be a good team player too. It is crucial for early childhood educators to realize that children are not the only people we have to work with. We also need to work closely with their families, our colleagues, and people from the community. We have to have the skills to work collaboratively with all people who are involved in children’s lives, as they are all part of children’s learning and living experiences. Only if teachers and families are working collaboratively, children can experience consistency both at home and at school. It is important for children’s development.

One of my long-term goals is to promote anti-bias education in as many international schools as possible. I take this one as my long-term goal, as international schools have vey large population of diversity. It is important for children in those schools to acknowledge and respect differences in the world, and anti-bias education can help children build up positive attitude toward diversity and differences in the world.

I cannot believe that I am already here to finish off my Master’s degree. I still remember the day I started this program and how nervous I was. I have met so many wonderful instructors and colleagues. I really appreciate the time we spent together to approach our dreams. It is time to say goodbye as colleagues, but it is also a new start for us to become partners and friends to share our stories and ideas. I hope we all can keep in touch, as we have been through this program together as a big family. I will definitely miss you all.

Thank you Dr. Teri for your patience and guidance in the past 8 weeks, and thanks to all the colleagues that I have in the course with wonderful insights and ideas. I will miss the learning experiences here in Walden, and I will think of you all.

Here is my email, and I am looking forward to hearing from you at anytime. sissiklesch@gmail.com

Thank you all.

Xiyue

International Early Childhood Organizations

The first international organization I was looking at was International Baccalaureate Organization. It is a recognized leader in the field of international education, encouraging students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right. I think that is also what I believe and try to do to my children. I hope my children in the class and in the school can have open and positive attitude toward differences and diversity. I hope they can become lifelong learners with a global perspective in the future too. I was looking at job opportunities at IBO, but currently they do not have any openings of my interests. They have different categories of jobs that I can choose from, I think I will be interested in their communications, project management, language services, and curriculum development domains, once they have the openings there. In order to work there, I have to be open-minded to accept and value the differences and be flexible to work with people who share different languages and cultures with me. Meanwhile, it is an international organization, so I have to be ready to go from place to place according to the needs in the organization. 

The second organization I was looking at is Save the Children. I am interested in this organization, as I know there are more than I know children in the Southwest of China need help and support to have access to early childhood education and to school. I wonder what Save the Children organization do in a world wide way. They work closely with other organizations, governments, non-profits and a variety of local partners to help children and families help themselves. I think that is a great way to help children, as we can give them money and clothes, but showing them the way to help themselves out of their situation to have a better life is more important. When I looked at their job opportunities, there are several job opening in US headquarters, but I am not qualified to do those jobs. They also have international job opportunities, but nothing is posted yet. I do not mind going to other countries to work, since I am like a nomad in some ways. I like to go to places to help people if I can, and I would like to make a change. I think if they have some oversea job openings, I would like to go and help. In order to work in this organization, I must be fully prepared to see what I have never seen before. I have to deal with poverty, the effects of war and conflict, and natural disasters. I have to be a collaborative worker to work with local organizations and government to figure out what is the best for the current situation. I need to be flexible and collaborative.

The third international organization I was looking at is United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). It aims at helping build a world where the rights of every child are realized. They advocate for measures to give children the best start in life, because they believe proper care at the youngest age forms the strongest foundation for a person’s future. I want to help all children have the same access to high quality early childhood education to have a good start of their lives too, and I also know that there are so many children in the world cannot have any early years education at all. I hope I can help solve this problem. I did not see any job openings that I am qualified to do, but I hope in the future that I can have the opportunity to do some temporary job in some regions like Africa and Asia to help children and families there.

I enjoyed exploring the international organizations of early childhood field, as it gives me the chance to know the world is a big families that so many people are working so hard to help children to have a better lives everywhere in the world. I am just an early childhood teacher, but I would like to do and contribute whatever I can to help children and their families too.

The national organizations and job opportunities

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) is the first national organization coming to my mind. I like this organization, as it is a major one that I can always find almost all the information that I need. I should say NAEYC is really new to me, as I started to know about it two years ago. When I started my Master’s degree, I saw many resources are from here, and many colleagues talked about it. I started to pay attention to this organization, and I am really fond of it now. I regularly go back to their websites to look for the information that I need about Early Childhood Education, and the questions or issues about my study. I like how clear everything is about NAEYC, as I can see they truly want the best for children in early years. On the website, it contains the information in early childhood field for children, and educators. I do not think I will take any job that they posted on the website, as I am still new to early childhood field. All I want to do is to be an advocate in early childhood field as a teacher to be with children on a daily base. I wouldn’t mind working in one of the schools that is accredited by NAEYC, like Rainbow School or Children’s village child care, as those schools practice what I believe and want to achieve in early childhood field. I hope families and teachers can be a team in supporting children’s development together.

The second one I chose is the National Head Start Association(NHSA). This organization appeals to me, as it is a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization. It stands up for the vulnerable children and their families, and most of time, those children do not have access to high quality early childhood education. It aims at providing high quality early childhood education to all the children, as they believe quality early education fundamentally transforms children and families. I share the same belief as they do, and that is why I am so into the collaboration with families in supporting children’s successes both at school and at home. I did not see any job openings in the website, so I do not know what I can contribute to this organization. However, the same, I can picture myself working in one of the Head Start schools someday to be a teacher there. I just love to have interactions with children.

The third one that I chose is National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators (NAECTE). This one drew my attention, as the members of this organization are from all the parts of United States and all over the world. I feel if we want to help children of diversity, we have to open to the news, trends, and issues around the world as well. We cannot just focus on our own classroom, but to open the eyes and ears to see and to hear what is going on around the world. Our children in the future are going to be global citizens. This organization offers the platform for teachers and educators in the early childhood field to grow, integrate, and communicate about everything happening in early childhood field. The more I learn in my Master’s degree, the better I understand the importance of collaboration. Therefore, I like how NAECTE does to provide the opportunities for early childhood teachers and educators to interchange of information and ideas, and to collaborate to serve children better as a family. From their job postings, I found there is a job to be the head teacher of Tufts University Eliot-Pearson Children’s School, I like it. As this children’s school is part of the university, so I would have the chance to work with undergraduate and graduate students. I think it would be fun to see what new generation of teachers think about early childhood education, while exchange the thoughts, insights, experiences, and stories with them at the same time.

I liked composing this blog, as I feel I can have so many resources that I can refer to about early childhood education. I also had a chance to explore the organizations in the country, which was fun.

Roles in the ECE Community: Local and State Levels

Currently I am working in China, in an International school, but I can see some time in the future that I will go back to Washington State. I might teach there as well. Thinking of that, I was looking for the organizations and agencies that I might have interests in, as I never thought of doing any research of that before. YMCA is the one drew my attention. It is a national-wide organization, and it has branches here and there. There are few in Washington State too. I was checking on their website, their mission statement is really inspiring. I like the flexibility of YMCA, as they provide various programs for parents and families to choose from. They can put their children in a full day program, a partial day program, or an after school program depending on the unique situations of each family. Meanwhile, parents will be confident to know that their children are in somewhere safe and stimulating. Parents can better focus on their work, when they know their children are taken good care of. I really like the flexibility of YMCA, and the varieties of their offers to support children’s cognitive, physical and social development. There are job openings for early childhood teachers, and I think I would be very interested in working in the organization. I can work either part time or full time, as long as I can serve children the best. I would like to bring my anti-bias educational ideas and stories to the organization to benefit children. I need to be more flexible and more observant to children’s needs and interests. I need to see children individually, and plan my curriculum to support their development. Last but not the least, YMCA aims at creating safe, caring, educational environment for children to learn and thrive, and that is my goal for all children in the world. I hope every child can have equal access to a nurturing learning environment to show their potentials and to be proud of who they are.

In the neighborhood that I live, there are many communities of origins, like Korean community, Chinese community, and German community. Children all go the the English speaking international school, and white middle class culture is the dominant culture at school. Chinese community offers after school programs to help children from China to practice their English and Chinese, as they believe their children need to learn both languages to thrive as healthy and happy children in the world. People in this community share the same goal is to support their children to be bicultural children, so they can fit in both at home and out of home.  I agree, as their home language is Chinese, and language is the best carrier for children to learn about their home cultures. They always want to have some teachers to work for their after school programs, and they hope the teacher can both speak fluent Chinese and English. I think I might take the chance to volunteer to work there. As I grew up in Chinese educational system as most of those parents did, and we want something new and inspiring for children in nowadays. Memorizing is an efficient way, but not the most inspiring or creative way to educate children. With the educational background I have, the knowledge that I have learned through my master degree, and the working experiences with a large number of ELL students, I think I can be a creative Mandarin teacher to those students.

There is another charity organization in my neighborhood called Pfrang. Its mission is to help children from poor areas in the North Jiangsu Province in China. Our school is part of that charity organization. I want to contribute more than before, as I only donated money in the past. I would like to take children from our school to visit the schools in rural areas in China, and children from both schools can have activities and classes together for 3 days. I think it is a mutual beneficial way for students from our school and children from local schools. Children from our school, the trip may help them build sympathy and empathy for children and others who cannot have sufficient support from their lives, while students from local schools can learn something new from the outside of the world. Pfrang organization has regular visits to schools in rural areas in Jiangsu, and I would like to be a volunteer to go to those schools to help children. Meanwhile, I would be interested in taking a part-time job in Pfrang to bring more ideas of teaching and learning to the schools that Pfrang sponsors. Learning supplies can only give children the pen to write with, while the way of teaching and learning can offer children the future for them to write about. 

I hope more children can be involved in a caring, nurturing educational learning environment, as all children should have the equal access to high quality early childhood education. I am working on it with many other colleagues, and children’s families, and I think we will do whatever we can to help as many children as possible.

My Wordle

Reflection on the course

In the last eight weeks and throughout the whole Master program, I have grown so much. I used to think teaching diversity only means to meet children’s different learning styles and interests, but now I have a fuller picture of diversity and equity. Diversity is a fact of who students are and a tool to help teachers make our teaching more globalized. 

One of the passionate hopes that I have in early childhood education field is to implement anti-bias curriculum into current curriculum to support children to understand and to appreciate similarities and differences in the world around them. Building the positive partnership with families will be the great backup that we can get. Children need consistency, which makes it essential if families and the school are on the same page for the anti-bias education. As diversity is the trend happening in the world, it is significant if children, families and educators can learn, value, and respect diversity and differences among people. Children should be proud of who they are, and be valued for who they are.

I have been working with many colleagues in the past two years, and we have helped and learned from each other.  Thank you all for your wonderful stories and insights that are shared in the courses. I believe our class is a class of diversity, and I have seen how we respect and value each other throughout the journey. I hope everyone in the course can reach the finishing line of Master journey soon, and let’s keep in touch. 

Impacts on early emotional development

The region I chose is East Asia and Pacific, as I have been to some of the countries in this area. I am in China, so I feel I need to know more about the situation in this area. I have been to Cambodia with my husband to visit an orphanage, and the situation is bad. When we were there, there were 80 children in the orphanage aging from 10 months to 17 years old. Most of them were waiting for people from other countries to adopt them, and some of them gave up the hope. We went there, because one of our colleagues has adopted two children from that orphanage. We went there to travel and to buy them some stationaries. They do not have enough resources to support their study, and they were extremely to see the stationaries that we brought with us. On the way to the hotel, we saw many people walking and resting on the streets, sometimes, people will approach to us to ask us if we want to adopt their child. I feel really bad about that.

From the website, I have learned that the health care is one of the biggest challenges in the region. As there is a large population of poverty in this area, most countries do not have enough money to give free immunization to people who cannot afford them. Many children in this region still die of diarrhea and pneumonia. Those two are still the top two killers on the list, even though they are easily prevented and treated today. The other challenge that I have found is about inequity. Most countries in this region still have a very conservative way to look at boys and girls. Most orphans are girls, and girls still do not have equal rights as boys do at home in many countries here. This inequity prevents children from having the equal rights to be educated to create their own futures. Poverty is another challenge for the children in this area. They barely have enough food to keep them away from starving, let alone having some food with nutrition that they need every day. It is not healthy for their development.

All the challenges that I listed above can have the impact on children’s development. They will not have a chance to know what the world looks like, as they do not have the access to it. They do not have the chance to change their future, as they cannot go to school or have enough educational resources for them to use and learn. They do not have health care when they need to be protected from the diseases. Their parents will even talk about adoption right in front of children, it will hurt children’s feelings. They cannot feel loved or safe from their homes. It will not help them grow to be the resilient people.

I do think no matter how hard it is for parents, they have the responsibility to take care of their children. No one can be better than parents in a child’s life. Children in the orphanage  that we went to have smilies, but I still can see sadness in their eyes. They want to be loved; they want to have visitors to make them feel they are visible to the world; they want to have the same rights as other children to be educated to be able to change their futures. All those needs are the basic ones, but only visiting them cannot help them. We need the whole society and the world to work together to make certain children can all access to education, so they at least have a chance to change their lives in the future.
Reference
UNICEF (2011). Retrieved from:http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html

Sexualization

I was shocked when I read the stories that are shared in the article. I did not have that extreme experiences yet, but I can imagine the reality of sexualization in nowadays. I think the whole society has the responsibility to protect children from being exposed too early to sexualization, as I do no think it has positive impact on children’s development in their lives. Media, toys, posters on the streets, those are the things that we cannot control to be part of our children’s lives, especially right now children growing up are bombarded from a very early age with graphic messages about sex and sexiness in the media and popular culture(Levine & Kilbourne, 2009). However, if the toys, movies, books are meant for children will contain something about sex in them. I should say if it is meant for children to watch, to use, or to read, it should make sure that it is age appropriate.

One of the stories that I would like to share here is about three German children (two boys and one girl) in the class. They were five, when the story happened. They lived in the same compound and were neighbors. One morning, when two boys were talking and doing their morning routine jobs, one of them stood up like a rocket from his chair. He shouted to the other boy who was still drawing, “ No, you did not, you did not kiss her.” He was angry when he let those words out of his mouth. The other boy was sitting there, relaxed, saying, “ Yes, I did, I did kiss her under the tree in her garden. She liked me.” I did not response to that situation, as I did not know what I was supposed to do. They were talking like to men who were fighting for a beautiful young lady.    Apparently, they knew that kissing is part of love or likeness. If the boy got the chance to kiss a girl, and the girl did not get angry. This love can be mutual. They probably got this message from the movies, or books. However, I did ask them individually later if they liked the girl and why. They gave me the similar answers “ She has long hair, beautiful and thin, just like the princesses in the movies, and I am the prince.” Thinking of that comment, it proved what was stated by Kevin & Kibourne (2009) that children can learn at a very young age about their value which can be about how beautiful, thin, hot and sexy they are. No wonder, why another German girl was not that popular among the German children community in the class, it probably because she is a little bit chubbier than other girls. It made me feel sad, because children at such an young age, they start to judge friends by how they look.

Another story that I remember was also about a child who was five. It was school’s sports day, and all the kindergardeners went to watch the middle school students’ relay races. All of a sudden, a boy said “ whoa, she is sexy, she has big boobs.” We were shocked by his judgement. Children who sat next to him looking at him. He was trying to tell other children that girls with big boobs are beautiful. We stopped him, and asked him to focus on the game itself. I do not know who to blame for, as I do not believe it is healthy for children at this age to expose to sex so soon.

The last story that I want to share here is about a 4 years old girl who was adopted and chubby. She was sweet and caring, and she loved to run. However, she did not have any chance to play with boys in the class, because they told her that they did not want to play with her. She was resilient, and tried to show boys that she could ran as fast as they could. She did it, but it did not make a change at all. Boys still did not allow her to play with them. She was sad and did not know why. I went to ask a couple of boys why they did not want to play with her. It turned out to be that a boy in that group was telling everyone that she is fat. If someone plays with that girl, it means he likes her. Boys did not like that rumors, so nobody played with that girl. 

Children are easily convinced and biased from what they are exposed to. If they expose to early to sex and related topics, they will lose the happiness of their childhood. As sex is often liked to violence, it cannot be good for children’s development (Kevin & Kibourne, 2009). If children are exposed to sex and violence, it is a robbery of their valuable time for age-appropriate development tasks, and they may begin to engage in precocious sexual behavior (Kevin & Kibourne, 2009). As early childhood teachers, we have the responsibility to work closely with families to help children grow in a healthy way to eliminate the negative impact of sexualization in their childhood.

Sexualization is happening earlier and earlier each year with the high development of technology and media. We cannot control what children see, as most of them will have older siblings. Parents can control what babies are watching and exposing to, but it is hard to tell if children will absorb information from other tunnels. As teachers in early childhood field, we need to know that children today are different children from the old days. They can be more open and relaxed about certain topics that we cannot imagine of. They probably do not know exactly what they are saying, and they bring the topics up to show how cool they are. However, once we figure that out, we need to work with families to see what we can do to help children develop in an age -appropriate way.

References

Levin, D. E., & Kilbourne, J. (2009). [Introduction]. So sexy so soon: The new sexualized childhood and what parents can do to protect their kids (pp. 1-8). New York: Ballantine Books. Retrieved from: http://dianeelevin.com/sosexysosoon/introduction.pdf

My own experiences

As a Chinese working and socializing among the people from various backgrounds, I can feel and see some people have their stereotypes against Chinese people and culture. On the other hand, we Chinese have our own biases and stereotypes when we communicate with people who are different from us. All those stereotypes and biases cannot be eliminated straight away, as those biases and stereotypes have been in our lives for so long. However, what we can do now is to unlearn those, and to get to know people individually.

I remember sometimes people will complain how loud Chinese are, and they will ask me why I am talking in a soft voice. I do not know how to answer that question. I am a Chinese, and I am who I am. Not every Chinese has the same attributions. One time, I was on holiday in Indonesia, and at the airport, one Indonesian girl asked me where I am from. I told her that I am from China. She looked shocked and commented, “Oh, you are too dark to be a Chinese!” “Yeah, I just went to the beach for three weeks,” That’s all I could tell. Another time, I was having a conversation with one of my friends, and she said before she came to China the only impression that she got about Chinese is wearing a camera in front of their chests, taking photos all the time. She said, I did not see any one do that when I am here in China! 

All those stereotypes that people hold about China and Chinese people are mainly from TV and other media. They come to China with the biases they held to treat the local people differently than people who share the similar culture with them. From those people’s interactions and attitudes, I can feel that Chinese local staff are not valued or respected much in our community. That makes me wonder if we cannot treat our colleagues equally, how can we promote inclusiveness in our school community. There is not much I can do to change the whole school’s atmosphere and tone, but what I can do is to collaborate with the team members to implement anti-bias education in our classes. We have experienced unfairness and it hurts, so we do not want children to be hurt emotionally or physically. We want the children in our classes to treat each other equally with respect, and to be proud of who they are and value the differences from each other.

Observing Communication

A Chinese American boy named Kevin was in my class two years ago, when he was five. He was sweet and soft. Sometimes he could be annoying, as he did not want to do any work in the class, but to chat with me. I talked to his mom, and his mom did not seem to care about what happened to hime that much. She told me that they had the tutor at home for the boy, and she believed the boys are meant to be tough even when they are young. I could tell that Kevin wanted to be hugged and cared, but he did not seem to get it from mom. Obviously, dad was too busy with the work to take care of him. Two years later, this year, I heard that Kevin’s mom died, and everyone worried about Kevin. However, I overheard the conversation between the P.E. teacher and Kevin, which made me really sad.

I was walking past the gym, and the P.E. teacher was taking Kevin’s class back to the classroom. Obviously, Kevin was not behaving well in P.E. class, so the teacher was telling Kevin that if he did not behave in P.E. class, he will talk to his mom. Kevin looked at him, talking back to the teacher straight aways: “ No, you cannot, because my mom died!”. I could tell the P.E. teacher was shocked, and did not know what to say to Kevin. He saw me, and whispered to me to confirm if it is true that Kevin’s mom died. I nodded. From that conversation I knew that the P.E. teacher was not informed of the death of Kevin’s mom, and Kevin has realized the truth of his mom’s death. When he told the teacher that, I did not see any special facial expressions from Kevin. He seemed to be really calm and quite. He seemed to state a truth that has nothing to do with himself. I felt really sad and sorry for Kevin. I went up to Kevin, stroking his hair, and smiled to him. Kevin saw me, and he started to smile and gave me a hug. I did not what to say to him, and I just wanted to ensure that he could feel there is still someone there to help and support him.

I believed that situation could be totally avoided. Teachers are supposed to keep each other informed of the children’s situations. The classroom teacher has the responsibility to communicate to the other teachers who work with the child to let them know what happened. In that case, the teachers will know what they can say, and what they should try to avoid. I think collaboration is also about keeping everyone on the same page to make the communication with children more effectively. Meanwhile, I remember he liked to chat with me a lot, and I kind of know why now. Kevin does feel that he is invisible to others. His mom did whatever she considered to be good for Kevin without spending time communicating with Kevin. Dad never has time to talk to Kevin. Kevin is taken care of by mom, maids and drivers at home. As it was stated in the media segment, children need to feel respected and accepted for who they are, and heard (Laureate Education, Inc.2010). He wants people to know his existence. He made that statement probably because he did not want people to still think he is invisible. He made a strong statement to prove his existence and to draw people’s attention. I do not know why Kevin’s dad tried to hide the fact of the death from Kevin as long as he could, and he wanted the school to keep it as a secret. I think the best way for Kevin is to help him face the truth and give him more attention and therapy to support him to walk out of the sadness. I do believe Kevin’s dad needs to be more collaborative with school to build the trustful relationship with teachers and the school to serve Kevin better. With the collaboration among teachers, and the trustful relationship between the school and the family, the communication with Kevin will be more effective than it was, and Kevin can have more support from teachers and the family. Meanwhile, both teachers and the family need to acknowledge the existence of Kevin to make his voice heard.

The communication interactions that I observed will definitely affect the child’s feelings. Kevin would feel hurt because people did not acknowledge the death of his mom. He would feel not respected and valued in school. Meanwhile, he would feel no one cares about him, because no one knows what is going on in his life. He would feel being neglected by both his family and the teachers. He will be in hope of love and care from people to make him feel he is still loved.

What I have learned in this week is plentiful. The observation that I had this week reminds me of the moments that I was dominating the conversations without listening to children. I realize that adults are easily dominating the conversations, and we are supposed to step back to listen to children’s voices and ideas. We need to put our agenda aside (Stephenson, 2010). Children will surprise us with their creative ideas and responses. I should say I used to do it a lot to dominate the conversations to lead the children to the paths that I designed for them. I should be more open to their ideas and creativities. Meanwhile, I also learned that we should encourage children to speak up to share their thinking, and use their own ideas to solve problems in the classroom ( Pierson & Johnson, 2010). The last but not the least is about the communication among the adults who work and live with children. Colleagues at school and parent at home are meant to work together to build up a positive partnership to serve children better. We need to keep everyone on the same page, as we all want the best for children.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010). “Communicating with Young Children” (Video webcast). Retrieved at https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_2652530_1%26url%3D

Stephenson, A. (2009). Conversations with a 2-year-old. YC: Young Children, 64(2), 90-95. Retrieved from the Walden Library using the Education Research Complete database. http://ezp.waldenulibrary.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=37131016&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Pierce, J., & Johnson, C. (2010). Problem solving with young children using persona dolls. YC: Young Children, 65(6), 106-108.

Seeing the diversity in the environment

To respect and support diversity in the program, the environment should provide the opportunities for children to see themselves and the materials that honor diversity both within and beyond their own identity groups ( Derman-Sparks & Olsen Edward, 2010). If I am going to open my own Family Child Care Home, I think I would like my setting to be child and family friendly, and to represent the children and their families that I currently serve as my first concern.

In the media segment, Adriana (2010) stated that she believes it is important to greet everyone in the morning, and I believe so too. I will post the good morning sign with various home languages that my children speak on the door, and I will try to learn them as well. In that case, I can greet to the families in the morning in their home languages to make children proud of their home language and feel respected and valued. Meanwhile, the photos, posters, dolls and dresses should be of great variety to demonstrate the diversity in and beyond the classroom. I will have a drama corner, so we can discuss the differences and conflicts in the class with the usage of the dolls. Meanwhile, I will create my own playlist of the music that includes the music from children’s own home cultures (Derman-Sparks & Olsen Edward, 2010). Besides that, in the reading corner, the books should be the tools that children can read and learn how to express themselves, to communicate with others, and to discuss their emotions. Teachers have the responsibility to choose the books that can introduce children to the love of reading as well as to human differences and similarities, or help children become critical thinkers (Derman-Sparks & Olsen Edward, 2010). I really liked the family corner in the media segment. Each family brings something about their home culture to share with the rest of the class. I will have one corner like that as well in the class. It can be the photos, decorations, toys, or dresses. Anything that families decide to bring to represent their own cultures. Doing that can help children learn about their own home cultures and learn about other cultures in the world. I would like to invite the parents and the children together to give a small speech or presentation of what they bring to school. I want children to be proud of who they are. One of the major parts of the early years setting is the toys. Dramatic play props, puzzles, drawing material and blocks and legos are the toys that children love to play with. As teachers, we are supposed to ensure the pieces of the toys can reflect the diversity of the cultures, especially the home cultures of the children that we currently serve. Above all is the primary elements that I would like to include in my setting, as I really want children to develop views of the bigger world (Derman-Sparks & Olsen Edward, 2010).

References

Derman-Sparks, L., & Olsen Edwards, J. (2010). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves. Washington, D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).

The Final Post of This Course

The hope that I have is to have more channels for the families from various cultural backgrounds to be understood and expressed in the school community.

The goal that I have is to implement diversity into the curriculum to eliminate the stereotypes and biases in children’s lives.

I have learned a lot from the colleagues help and support. I enjoyed the posts of their personal stories and experiences. Thank you everyone for reading and responding to my stories and posts too. I had a great and supportive eight weeks. I hope we can work together again soon. Thank you all.

An Acrostic Poem

When I was thinking of what kind of art I am going to use, one of the simple poem style came to my mind. Acrostic poem is one of my favorites, and I often liked to use it with first graders.

Anti-bias is the goal and the core of being an early years teacher for me,

Not treating people by their skin colors or their beliefs, but to get to know people personally to get rid of my learned biases.

Teachers are the examples and models to demonstrate how to treat each other equally and to encourage diversity to be implemented into the curriculum.

International minded and environment are essential for children’s development to become respectful, polite, and open-minded adults in the future,

But the positive and supportive developsment of a child needs the collaboration between the school and the families, which means that the school and the families should work as a team to address the importance of being anti-bias both at school and at home.

Implementing anti-bias curriculum into the existing one can encourage inclusiveness at school and support diversity in the community.

Anti-bias teachers should know their own learned biases, and it is nothing wrong to admit our own biases. It actually can help us to unlearned those biases to become real anti-bias teachers.

Schools should be the places where children feel safe and comfortable, and meanwhile teachers should be sensitive and observant to the children in the class to protect them from and help them out of trauma situations at home.

We do not say those words

The story I am going to share here is from my husband. He grew up in Spokane, and he did not remember to see any diversity when he was a kid. When he was around seven years old, for the first time of his life, he saw an African American child in the park. He was confused, and he stared at that boy. After a while, he asked his mom “ Why is that child so dirty?” His mom was shocked and embarrassed. She paused for a few seconds before she started to respond back to my husband. She smiled to him and said “ That child is not dirty, he just has the different colored skin than ours.” 

Mom talked about the different colors of skins in a soft and gentle voice to make my husband feel it is something normal for people to have different colored skins. She paused before she started to respond, that behaviors made my husband feel his question maybe not appropriate in public. However, after that experience, my husband felt a new world in front of him. He wants to be open and respectful to those people who are different from himself, as he does not want to see any misunderstanding happen again just like what he did in his childhood. He wanted to be the model to show respect to people around him and to help people who are still racist to become anti-biased people. He told me, the experience that conversation with mom in the park was one of the motivations to get him out of the country to work overseas to help more people who are different than him and need help.

As an anti-biased teacher, if it happened to us in the classroom, we could use that as a good entry to introduce diversity to children. That would be a good lesson for children to know there is nothing wrong to be different from others. We could have an activity to share the photos from each family in the class, and talk about the similarities and differences. Teachers also can share the personal experiences with children about skin colors and diversity. It would be helpful to invite children to try to look at things with a different perspective , to learn something new about the human experience and be open-minded to the idea” Do people choose their colors? Is is better to be one color than another?” (Pelo, 2008). It would be a good and real experience for children to talk about it and to see it as a whole picture with other children and the teacher. Children will hopefully gain the idea to feel proud of who they are.

References

A. Pelo (2008). Rethinking Early Childhood Education

Start seeing diversity

The diversity of family forms is the trend in the early childhood field. The traditional families are still the majority in the school community, but many other nontraditional families become more visible in this community too. Those non-traditional families are like same-sex parents, single parent, and many other forms. That is a new trend that we all need to adapt ourselves to it, and help our children and their families to be open-minded to it.

To those who believe that early childhood centers should avoid the inclusion of books depicting gay or lesbian individuals such as same-sex partnered families, I would like to say no to them. Books are considered to be one of the most visual and vivid way for children to get the information and transform what they learn or see from the book to reality. They can make the connection between the content in the books and the reality. In reality, there are children from the families who have two moms or two dads. If children read about it from the books through lovely stories, they will be open to the discussion later on in the class and be more respectful to the families like that. As inclusiveness is the core of many early childhood centers, including the diverse families should be the first step that the centers take. Books, and posters can be the appropriate and direct resources for children to explore and understand diversity in the world.

I believe there are traditional families who do not want their children to be interacted with children or educators from non-traditional families. To those parents, the first thing I would like to address to them is the school that their children are at is encouraging inclusiveness and diversity. That is one of the goals in our school’s curriculum. Besides that I would like to ask why they are against the interaction between their children and children from non-traditional families, as it stated in the video (that one of the most helpful ways to respond to biased comments is to ask why they think that (Laureate Education, Inc.,2010). Only if we find out the problem, we can solve it collaboratively. 

Anti-bias curriculum and practices at school is a long term process, children at the young age are easily influenced by the stereotypes and biases that they sense and are told from the society or from the families. That is an influence that children will bring back to school when they are interacting with their friends and teachers. In that case, anti-bias curriculum should be implemented with diversity and the inclusion of families participation as well. Only the school and the families have the agreement to encourage diversity, equity, and inclusiveness, children will have a clear picture and model to follow. They will know what the expectations are.

References

Course Media: "Start Seeing Diversity: Gender"

Course Media: "Start Seeing Diversity: Sexual Orientation"