What I have Learned Week 8

• One hope that you have when you think about working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds 

The major hope I have is simply said, yet as we have learned it is a lot harder to do. I simply hope that I remain accepting of others and their difference as well as respectful at all times. I hope I do not let any biases I may have formed to stand in the way of providing the best educational opportunity possible for any child. 

• One goal you would like to set for the early childhood field related to issues of diversity, equity, and social justice (any format and any length)

One goal I would like to set for the field would be more awareness that inequalities do exist within our society and even schools. We hear it exists, but having knowledge of what we can do to provide a school and classroom environment that is accepting, respectful, and the diveristy in the classroom is a begin stage to building social justice beyond the classroom and into the community. Personally, having more opportunities to become knowledgable of anti bias work in education would be beneficial for all. Hopefully, I can be a resource to others within my school for this topic.


I want to say thank you to all my colleagues for taking the time and responding to my posts throughout this course. You all have been a wondeful support system during this class. Best of luck in the next course! Can you see it? It's the light at the end of the tunnel. We are almost there! 

Week 7 Creating Art:Start Seeing Diversity

Before reading, please remember I am a Math and Science teacher. Writing like this is not an area I usually feel comfortable with or much less can do. As I wrote this, I simply thought about the eye opening moments I had during this course that made me realize that the relationships in my classroom were far from great like I thought. I had many biases I brought in every day, and I did not realize that this set up a "wall" between us. It doesn't matter how many activities I did, or what the papers told me about a child; without that building relationship with the child, I was not doing the best I could for them. Now that weeks have past I can honestly say I walk into the building everyday with a completely different mindset beyond grades and tests. In these few weeks, I am starting to see how this has changed my class, and definitely changed my overall attitude as a teacher.

The Wall between their Heart and mine 

Close minded I walk into school

With children different from everything I knew.

A wall between their heart and mine,

I continue to think “all is fine.”

A moment of reflection was all it took

To see that teaching was more than from a book.

It took more than songs, games and a smile

Or even reading words in a student file.

To break the wall between their heart and mine

Is something I will work on for the rest of time.

For the world around us makes it so hard

To see people for who they really are.

So here’s to the rest of time

Looking at differences with an open mind

Away is the closed mind as

Well as the wall between their heart and mine. 

 

Start Seeing Diversity

• A time when you witnessed an adult (or yourself) reprimand or silence a child after he or she pointed out someone they saw as different 

The particular time most recent in my mind was when I "hushed" a child during a performance on a field trip. We were sitting in the auditorium, and periodically during the performance another person in the audience would make loud outburst of noise.  After a few times of this happening, one of my students yelled across to me, "why does he keep making all that noise? It is so rude!" Of course, during the performance I told him to try to ignore it and watch the show.   Talking about this with the child during the show was not appropriate, but I could have taken the moment to discuss it later. Sadly, I did not.

• What messages might have been communicated to this child by the adult's response

Not talking about it during the performance or bringing it up at all sends the message to the child that we should ignore the differences, and recognizing and talking about them is not okay. I feel it may have sent the message to the child that they were wrong for even asking or being curious. However, curious is something my student's know I think is important, and I always stress the importance of them asking questions about things on their mind. My comment back to this child sent a very different message, and by not taking the time to address it later only made that message more clear.

• An example of how an anti-bias educator might have responded to support the child's (or classroom's ) understanding

An anti-bias educator would have taken the time to discuss the situation after the field trip was over. I can picture an anti-bias educator gathering students in a class meeting and discussing differences some people have. It can also be discussed how despite the differences, this person in the audience was also able to sit back and enjoy the show just like we did. They took field trips just like we did, and went to school just like we do. 



    With all this in mind I decided to read closely the story of "Holding Nyla." It is in this story we are able to see what a true anti-bias teacher does in order to help her fact her fears, provide an anit-bias education for all the children, and allows Nyla to feel just as important in the classroom. Truly a story that will warm your heart!