Hope for the Future in Early Childhood Education


                Well it has been an eight week journey in to diversity.  We have reflected upon our own diversity and bias.  We have thought long and hard about how we will combat that in our lives and in our classrooms.  We have thought how to support the children and families in all of the varying ways the express the uniqueness of who they are and where they come from.  It has been a good time to travel.

               What will all this mean for me and the children I may work with in early childhood education?  For me it means I will have a deeper understanding of the personal relationship between identity and culture.  It will mean that as I see each child as an individual. I will also see him or her as a multi layered art piece and know that even though the top layer may be smooth and calm underneath is the possibility of a great storm and when I breaks I need to be ready to honor that instead of trying to put the tempest in the framework of what is the norm of the dominate culture.  I can frame what the expression of the child is in that moment in the light of seeing the multiple layers with the light of that person showing through.  Understanding that none of us had a static context for who we are and what we want in life I as the adult can help remove the lines we are not supposed to color out side of and let those colors blend and mix and swirl.  It has been said that children are resilient.  I think for the most part that is true however I also have seen who our bias can dampen the budding identity of a child and mute the expression of those colors, when enough people do that things get muddy colored and it looks like a mess.   Louise Derman -Sparks and Julie Edwards Olsen along with Maria Montessori have really brought home the importance of the spiritual preparation of the teacher. Unless this component is addressed in teaching programs children can not be well served.  I especially am concerned with children with a hidden disability such as autism, Asperger's, ADD and ADHD who have a hard time with social - emotional context will be left in the dust not only academically but on the level of functioning and being successful in the social world of work and play.   Having a challenging child in the class can be very frustrating for a teacher especially for the pre school teacher who may not have a great deal of training or experience.  One of the aims I would like to implement in the area where I live is some behavior management classes showing techniques on how to understand behavior and how to help the child with the challenging moments to work through them and successfully deal with what has gotten him or her off track.   The one thing I hope to use the philosophy of anti-bias for is to teach others when they are working with these children their bias can cloud the work they are doing and it is important for address that early on in their career.
Below I have included two articles that have come through my news feed on Face book that I thought were interesting in regards to anti-bias education and classroom management.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/16/us-usa-race-schooldiscipline http://www.technology.org/2015/04/21/study-shows-early-environment-has-a-lasting-impact-on-stress-response-systems/      

I want to thanks my cohort for dropping by and it has been a pleasure working with you all.  May you have a successful and enjoyable career.  See you in the Capstone class.

Peace and all good.

                                What children experience in Bosnia/Herzegovina

This week we are asked to look at other places in the world using the UNICEF site and choose a country to explore.  While I was paroozing the BiH pages two articles caught my attention.  The first is children who are in the criminal justice system there and the second about children going to school and having their language and culture being respected.

I chose this area of the world because in the West we don't hear about what is going on in other parts of the world unless it is some kind of crisis.  I remember when this part of the world was at war and wanted to see how things had progressed since the 1980's.  So here is a synopsis of the articles and links to them to read them for yourself.

Justice for Children: High-Level Visit to Zenica (2013)  

In 2010 a programme named Protection of children at risk and children in contact with the justice system in BiH.  Ambassadors from Sweden, Switzerland, BiH and UNICEF came together with their teams to see how children involved with the justice system were being treated and if any of those children were helped by the efforts.  The aim was to identify families and children at risk and look into prevention rather than punishment. „The reform of the juvenile justice system is but one of the requirements to ensure a proper implementation of the UN Convention on the rights of the child, a set of globally accepted rules which include the equal treatment of children without discrimination, the right to live and develop in a healthy manner, the right to be heard in all matters affecting him or her - in short – to always secure the best interests of the child..” – stated H.E. Fredrik Schiller, Ambassador of Sweden in BiH.  The delegations also visited various sites one a child friendly room at a police station.  The central theme was on focusing on prevention and reintegration.  Putting children in jail is not an optimal way to increase success but working on a strategy for prevention and reintegration back into society is something that has been shown to work.  

Justice for Children: High-Level Visit to Zenica (n.a.)(2013) Retrieved April 18, 2015 from http://www.unicef.org/bih/media_25305.html

The next article was just as interesting especially since we have been discussing  a child's right to have their culture and language honored. 

UNICEF: Children should go to school and their cultural and languages specificities should be respected

Keeping in the spirit with the Rights of the Child UNICEF has created a panel to look into the concerns or families who are questioning why their child should only learn in a language not familiar to them.  UNICEF representative  "Mrs Bauer also highlights that in parallel it is key to find a solution to the broad issues of discrimination, segregation and politicization in education. ”All schools should respect the language and cultural specificities of every child by teaching the three recognized languages and two scripts, providing common core curriculum “neutral” subjects with agreed same contents in any language and script, providing the national group of subjects in respective languages and scripts and making education materials available in languages and scripts chosen by the pupils.” 

UNICEF:Children should go to school and their cultural and languages specificities should be respected. (n.a.) (2013) Retrieved April 18,2015 from http://www.unicef.org/bih/media_24974.html 

While there are many places in the world that need attention I am always interested in what has happened in a country since the crisis.  So now I know at least some of it. 

Peace and all good 

Thanks for dropping by 

             So this week we talk about the sexualization of young girls/boys in our American society.  This has been a big concern for many teachers and parents for most of the last twenty years.  I think for me it was the Jean Bennett Ramsey case where the little girl was a rising baby beauty star who was murdered.  Now her status as a baby beauty star had nothing to do with her being murdered but when I saw the pictures and video of her performance and she was dressed up like an adult at three years old I was pretty shocked by it.  I have two daughters, they are both drop dead gorgeous.  But my rule was that kids will be kids and I didn't encourage any of the seemingly “normal” stuff other mom’s let their children do at an early age.  You could safely say I was that controlling mother who watched what my kids were exposed to.  We didn't watch much TV and it was PBS when we did, we read the classics and we did a lot of stuff out side.  My oldest daughter wanted to wear dresses all the time but they were dresses that were modest. We didn't go to see the latest Disney movie nor emulate the latest Disney Princess.  I made sure my sons had the proper sense of how to treat a girl or women. Respect them along with everyone else.   

       Time has passed.  My children are now adults and watch and wear what they want.  While I am not always thrilled with their choices I can’t complain much.  And as I watch TV and read magazines I am over whelmed by the blatant adds directed at tweens to adult women that make them think having long silky hair, a curvaceous figure and long eye lashes makes them a more desirable date.   In my teaching I have run into this in the early childhood classroom.  The main problem seems to be cloths.  One year the little girls had pants on so tight they couldn't sit down in them without being very uncomfortable.  I asked one of the other teachers if they had noticed all the little girls dressing this way and she said yes.  She told me it was the style and no one carried anything else in the girls department.  One child was so uncomfortable I asked her mother to start sending her in sweat pants so she would be able to sit still.  She tried it but soon went back to the “style” because the child had a fit to dress like everyone else.   

         Parents play their part in all this too.  They get sucked into the hype that is sold to their kids.  One of the couples I used to baby sit for dressed to look like Barbie and Ken dolls.  Their 3 year old daughter wanted to dress like mamma so she was dressed in rather revealing short shorts and middy tops. She also swung her hips side to side when she walked.   I think many young parents today try to make themselves feel good by buying the children the latest thing.   It is not a strategy that works well. 

         What it all comes down to is how we help our children find their true identity and it isn’t to be found in the perception others give us about ourselves.  “Identity is shaped from the outside but constructed on the inside.” (Derman Sparks & Olson Edwards 2009)  The messages we give to young children about their worth is very important.  I have met mothers who live vicariously through their daughters by dressing them in grown up out fits.  I have met mothers who think their daughters should be modest, in the homeschooling world this may mean denim skirt, white blouse and white tennis shoes. Modest and practical.   What children truly need is a relationship with their parents that is trusting and honest.  Like the young boy in the reading So Sexy So Soon (Levin & Kilbourne 2012) who was able to talk freely to his mother about the love notes he was getting in fourth grade.

          Parents who are willing to take the time to build a trusting relationship with their child can help them navigate the tough stuff they will encounter in the media soaked culture we live in.  As a parent of both sons and daughters I know it is a fine line we walk.  Not to let them be too precocious and not to be too strict.  The issue is not about sex or sexuality but sexualizing or objectifying a person.  “Both boys and girls are routinely exposed to images of sexual behavior devoid of emotions, attachment, or consequences. They learn that sex is often linked to violence. And they learn to associate physical appearance and buying the right products not only with being sexy but also with being successful as a person.”  Levin & Kilbourne (2009).  When the foundations are laid in this manner children run a much greater risk of engaged in risky behavior. 

         Focusing in this issue in the early learning years can help families build strong relationships and more confident children therefore stronger and more confident tweens, teens and young adults. 

Derman – Sparks, L & Olsen Edwards, J. Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves.  

              Washington, D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children. (NAEYC)

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

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                                             Promoting Anti-Bias in Early Learning . 


This is a topic that is hard for me to envision.  I have done an extensive 'ism" search of my own life and don't find any.  I do make some faux pas in my language however.  Because I am of a certain age I will use the term Oriental instead of Asian, my daughter has corrected me on that one and I strive to re-frame my nomenclature for ethnic constructs.  Just as some people grew up using the word retarded for people with developmental disabilities. Since I was aware how damaging this was I chose early on in my life never to use that term in any way to refer to anyone. But terms like Oriental and Negro came to a halt later as awareness in the 1960's and 1970's grew.  I find it interesting how we as a nation make a differentiation between people who are famous and just regular folks.  We didn't refer to Jimmy Hendrix as Jimmy Hendrix the Black left handed guitar player.   We refer to him as the most famous left handed guitar player who changed the course of music in rock and roll. We don't refer George Taki as the gay Japanese American man who played Mr. Sulu on Star Trek. We refer to him as the actor who played Mr Sulu on Star Trek.  We don't refer to Mya Angelou to the Black Female Poet Laureate of the United States.  We refer to her as May Angelou; Poet Laureate.  There are plenty of people who play a wicked good guitar riff, many people who are fine actors and actresses and many many wonderful poets in their own right.  Why does it take a person to become famous to be seen in a more generic way in the public square?  

Of course those seen in a not so good light in the 1960's were not referred to so benignly.  Angela Davis and Eldridge Clever were termed "black" for their affiliations with the Students For A Democratic Society and the Black Panther movement. 

Respecting ethnic and cultural differences and yet unifying us through our sameness is a fine balance.  To a the Africa American community Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. may be seen not as Black but as a hero to be looked up to.  But to the white community he is noted as a Black Civil Rights advocate.  How do we synthesize the two worlds?  

One way to do this is to begin early on in the educational setting of a young child.  One way I would like to do this is to help the child discover all the things that are same with him or her in the culture of the classroom. Children who have many of the same qualities.  We have hair, legs, arms, skin, teeth, eyes and hands.  We all have a voice and a back bone.  But then the differences show up.  The skin tones vary, the eye shape or color is different.  Hair is of a different color or texture. Some back bones are very strait some are bent and curve.  I want to help a child look beyond the out side differences and sameness.   

We can then move on to differing abilities. Some children can walk on two legs, some children must use a walker or a wheel chair to help them.  Some children can talk and some have little ability to put words and sentences together but can talk using an assisted device. Some children use a picture exchange system to get their needs and desires understood.  
Other children can run, others can not. Some  can climb, others can not. Some  play the piano by ear others can not.  There is a wide variety in abilities.  How we support those abilities and strengths is also very important in the early learning classroom.   

Then there is the cultural aspect of the child's identity. Some children are left to their own devices at home, some work right along side mom or dad or grandma while at home.   Some sit on the floor to eat some eat at a table.  Some use spicy things in their cooking others like a bland diet.  When I grew up the American meal was typically meat and potatoes.  Some children sleep in a hammock, some on the floor others use a bed on four legs.  Some have a family bed or sleep with several siblings.  Some children come from a multilingual house hold. Some only speak one language at home and that language may not be the predominate language of the dominate culture.  A child's home may be multi - generational, bi-racial or multi faith. 

What a lot of social constructs for a teacher to address on a daily basis!!!

One of the ways I have contemplated addressing these and promoting anti-bias education among early learners is to use the Persona Dolls.  I would have two sets.  A small set to use in the shelf in work on cultural studies.  Perhaps they would represent the kinds of cultures we have in the classroom from year to year.  And then a larger set to use during community time and in the making up of plays and stories about things pertaining to bias that arise in the course of the year.  

Why is anti-bias education important to the early learner?  As a Montessori teacher I have seen the default of being in a niche market in the early learning years.  Most Montessori schools are private and cater to more affluent families.  Children of Anglo, Indian and Asian decent are seen most in the population of a Montessori school.  (This is my own observation and I don't have any statistics to give on this) I do know there are several Head Start Montessori schools and inner city Montessori schools who serve a quite different population. I feel the use of the persona dolls is quite benign and won't give anyone the idea that there has to be an "us and them" social construct.  I feel the dolls can help children develop empathy and build identity in the course of their growing up years.   The dolls can be used to solve social problems in the classroom and to help them understand that in the long run we are more alike than different. It will also help a young child to understand that being different is OK.  Accepting differences among their peers can help a child be more confident in making friends. When adults are on board with this the likelihood of bias developing in the classroom decreases.  My aim as an early childhood educator is to help young children to build a social identity that includes all kinds of people.  This is one way we can promote peacefulness among people who have social identities that differ from one another.  Dr. Montessori saw the child as the hope for the future.  Through anti-bias education perhaps we can help see her vision become reality.