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| This article appears in George Morrison, Early Childhood Education Today, Tenth Edition, 2007 |
| Integrating Multicultural and Anti-Bias Education into Early Childhood Programs |
While on a field trip, four year old Ruth observes a man wearing a turban. She points and says, “Why is that man wearing a funny hat?”
While playing with blocks, Joshua says to five-year-old Lior, “Why do you talk so funny?” Lior doesn’t respond and says little for the rest of the day.
Children look to adults to model appropriate behavior. If adults do not interrupt acts of unfairness or if such acts are only interrupted occasionally, children have no sense of urgency to counter injustice, nor do they have models of effective methods to begin doing so themselves. Children need the adults in their lives to take responsibility to prevent and counter the damage caused by sexism, heterosexism, racism, ableism, ageism, anti-Semitism and classism by providing fair and accurate message about people from all cultural groups and by actively challenging the negative messages they witness.
In each of the scenarios cited here, a teacher could have intervened to model appropriate behavior. For example, a teacher could have told Ruth that the funny hat was called a turban and could have explained why the man was wearing it. Similarly, Joshua’s teachers could have explained that Lior is from a different country and is just learning English. Further, the teacher could emphasize that calling attention to difficulties in a negative way is apt to hurt Lior’s feelings.
A Model Program
Educators who attend anti-bias workshops provided by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) come away with the skills and tools to address scenarios such as the ones here as well as others relating to gender issues, diversity of family composition, physical/mental abilities and economic status. The workshops help participants explore their own biases and the ways they may affect the children in their care. Through interactive, facilitator-led activities, participants come to recognize that they may unintentionally harbor stereotypes about the aptitudes or behavior of children. Although unsettling, that recognition helps them understand that they need to unlearn their own prejudices in order to teach inclusively and fairly.
Intertwining multicultural and anti-bias lessons into the existing curriculum, instead of teaching isolated multicultural units, makes an anti-bias approach part of everyday thinking. To assist educators in this integration and to help them ensure that their program environment reflects the diversity of the world and acts as a mirror in which children see themselves reflected, ADL provides all workshop participants with print resources created in collaboration with Sesame Workshop.
Because ADL recognizes that family members play a crucial role in shaping young children’s thinking about the world around them, ADL also offers family workshops and provides participants with materials that include Bias-Free Foundations: Early Childhood Activities for Families. This book contains simple activities to use with children to reinforce the concepts of fairness and acceptance of differences.
Five Daily Practices
The workshops and materials encourage adults to create bias-free environments by incorporating the following practices into their daily lives:
- Self-exploration. Make self-assessment a natural activity, examining your own cultural biases and assumptions. For example, a teacher who observes that a student will not make eye contact might realize that the child’s cultural background encourages that behavior and thus avoids pressuring the child to make eye contact.
- Integration. Integrate culturally diverse information and perspectives throughout the day, instead of relegating equity issues to special or multicultural time. During story time, for example, select books that serve both as a mirror in which children can see themselves reflected and also as a window through which children can explore the world around them.
- Patience. Understand that developing anti-bias behavior is like planting seeds that can one day produce a more just society. Allow time for the process to work.
- Intervention. Respond to acts of bias even if they are unintentional, sending the message that discriminatory behavior is hurtful and should not be tolerated or ignored. Silence in the face of injustice conveys the impression that adults condone the behavior or consider it unworthy of attention. Appropriate and timely intervention establishes an environment in which all children feel valued and respected. For instance, a teacher who notices a group of children excluding Susan from their game might say, “I heard you say that Susan couldn’t play with you because she is white.” The teacher should ask the children for an explanation and should then help them see that their behavior is not acceptable because it hurts Susan’s feelings.
- Creating Connections. Involve parents, other family members, and other members of the community in the learning process; they provide the context in which children learn. Connect the home and community with each other and with the larger world. Encourage cultural sharing by offering opportunities for family members to share information about their cultures, such as teaching their child a song or game they enjoyed when they were young.
Programmatic Success
Positive evaluation findings indicate an increase in these behaviors among workshop participants:
- Talking with children about bias and discrimination
- Encouraging children to reflect on their own biases and discriminatory behavior
- Modeling techniques for children to use when they experience bias or discrimination
- Intervening when teasing, name calling and bias-related incidents occur in the classroom, among family members and among colleagues
For more information, please visit www.adl.org/education/miller
Source: Contributed by Linda A. Santora, MA, Director, Early Childhood Education Programs, Anti-Defamation League. |
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