What I Have Learned

This class has made me take a close look at myself and how this may affect my interaction with students, families, coworkers, and stockholders. The goal in my life is to help young children enter into school prepared academically and, more importantly, social emotionally. To give a good base will help children develop into positive citizens of the world. I have also learned that reading everything I can about bias and diversity is a good thing but I must also speak with others to learn their experiences and worldviews to be more bias aware and to set up an anti-bias classroom.

My goal for the future is to develop an anti-bias, trauma free classroom that is an example to those within my Head Start program and then spread it to other Early Childhood classroom within my area (for starters). Our area is a popular location for immigrant families and those escaping refugee camps form war-torn countries. These children and families need a program like I hope to create. I might even study more about creating a blog to reach others about the importance of anti-bias, trauma free classrooms. 

Thank You so much for all the help you have given me in this time together. I have learned from our discussions that I am not alone on the journey to learn about my bias and discomforts. I have learned ways to face those discomforts and to learn from them with the goal of being a more compassionate and tolerant human being. Good luck in the future and I hope to see  you in our next class. Happy holidays and happy New Year.

Creating Art

From week 1 to week 7 we have learned ways to address bias in ourselves, students, and their families with respect and acceptance. This collage is an attempt to represent that respect and acceptance. Just to explain:

Self-concept picture- looking to ourselves for hidden bias.

Anti-bias Classroom- teaching anti-bias.

Types of families- families come in all shapes and sizes, what creates a family is a shared sense of responsibility toward the children and each other.

Cinderella-movies can create partiality as those who create story plots from their own bias.

Mom and Dad on cell phone/ monkeys- bias and tolerance both begin with how families teach their children both openly and unknowingly.

Learning styles-not all of us learn the same way and we should not expect that our students will either.

Rabbit’s Wedding- like movies, authors write based on their own bias and these stories can affect those who read them.

Adult and child sketch- trauma not only affects a child’s self-worth, it actually affects their brain development setting up a generational cycle of trauma. We are an option to teach resilience.

"We don't say that in school!"

This example is taken from my mother about me when I was around three. We were grocery shopping in an all white neighborhood that I grew up in. There was an African American man who worked at this particular grocery store who my mother said I noticed. I then said, out loud, "Why is that man wearing a mask?" My mother said she was mortified and told me to hush and hurried past. No words of explanation were given or words spoken when we got home. I was raised during a time where we did not "see" color so it was not talked about because it was considered rude. 

     The message that was planted at this young age was it was embarrassing to be different than myself and it was not to be talked about. I was to not discuss a major feature of a person of color. We can speak of the color of a person's hair or eyes yet not their skin.

     An anti-biased response (whether an educator or my mother) would be to speak of my mistake right away. It could have been explained that the man was not wearing a mask and this was the color of his skin. His mommy and daddy had brown skin just like my mommy and daddy have white skin. There were no real anti-biased books back in those early days but books about animals and their babies would also work. A mommy horse would have a baby horse, a mommy cat a kitten and so-on.

    

We could have also made a trip to the library to look at pictures of African Americans in a positive environment, although at the time those would have been difficult to find as well. Any action would have been better than none at all.