Art Gallery-What I Have Learned

One hope that I have when I think about working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds is that I am able to learn from their differences and able to use what I learn to teach and help other families understand and embrace others. One goal that I would choose for the early childhood field related to the issues of diversity, equity, and social justice would be for each educator and administrators include a lesson on accepting and appreciating diversity as a part of the    school day lesson because if we starting teaching children young the more they will be open to things that are different from them. 

I would like to thank all of my fellow colleagues; this class was a great experience I have learned a lot from the different post and insights which has helped me in my journey to be a more liberated individual when it comes to particular diverse topics. Good luck in your journey hope to have you in future courses. 

Creating Art

Diversity 

We come from such a diverse world, as educator, parents, and role models we need to demonstrate the importance of accepting differences.  I was great to get to know myself better and become open to the various changes in our ever changing world.   With the new things learned I will be more  open and better able to serve the children of my community.              

                                                  

"We Don't Say Those Words in Class"

We have to tell about a time when we witnessed an adult reprimand or silence a child after he pointed out someone they saw different.  I actually witnessed an instance this week while at work; a female parent was in our registration office registering her children for school.  While filling out the paperwork a plus size woman walked in the office and the little boy said wow mom look at that fat lady.  The mother and the registrar both said to the young man that is not nice you shouldn’t say things like that.  He just put his head down and started playing with a piece of paper. 

The messages communicated to the child was that it was not nice to say, that was not the approriate time or place to say things like this, and you should not talk about people.  With the look on his face it looked like he was going to get in trouble when he got home. 

An anti-bias educator may have took the time out and explain to him why saying things like that   can hurt someone’s feelings instead of jumping on him all at once.  Also explain to him why it is not nice to say those things about someone.  I believe apologizing as well will be a good way to show the child that when you make a mistake or say something that it is not nice it would be appropriate to apologize to the person’s feelings they hurt.