HOPES, GOALS, AND THANK YOU

HOPE:  My hope is that my work with anti-bias education creates a future citizens that will respect, celebrate, and fight for the equity of others.

GOAL:  My goal for the field would and for myself would be to help further the anti-bias pedagogy into the elementary early childhood years grades K-3.  This work is so vital when children truly start making friendships and either including or excluding other children based on similarities and differences.

THANK YOU to all my friends, family, and colleagues for supporting my personal and professional growth in the area of anti-bias education.  Thank you for listening to my thoughts, ideas, insights, and questions while I am working out my path along this journey of self-awareness and discovery!

START SEEING DIVERSITY

"The heart of anti-bias work is a vision of a world in which all children are able to blossom, and each child's particular abilities and gifts are able to flourish."

-Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2012

Giving children the words to express their feelings about the world they see around them and investigate the injustices of bias and prejudice helps to accomplish the following core goals of anti-bias education:

ABE Goal 1

Each child will demonstrate self-awareness, confidence, family pride, and positive social identities.

ABE Goal 2

Each child will express comfort and joy with human diversity; accurate language for human differences; and deep, caring human connections.

ABE Goal 3

Each child will increasingly recognize unfairness, have language to describe unfairness, and understand that unfairness hurts.

ABE Goal 4

Each child will demonstrate empowerment and the skills to act, with others or alone, against prejudice and/or discriminatory actions.

Reference

Derman-Sparks, L., & Olsen Edwards, J. (2012). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves. Washington, DC: NAEYC.

WE DON"T SAY THOSE WORDS!

I was waiting in line at the grocery store when a small child asked their mother why another customer was fat.  The mother, probably embarrassed, silenced and scolded the child by whispering "shhh we don't call people fat."  Although it was not wrong to correct the child on their language (using "fat") the scolding sent the message to the child that there was something wrong with the size of that other person because it is something forbidden to talk about.  If the mother would have continued to explain in a calm and normal voice that people come in all shapes and sizes then the child would have learned the language to correctly talk about people of different weights.

When our children point out differences in others they are not necessarily putting a judgment on what they see, they are merely trying to make sense of the world and the people in it (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2012).  However, because of our own schema and bias we often see those differences as something that people are ashamed of and would not want to have people talk about.  So when our children say something about those differences aloud it is embarrassing and we quickly try to silence them or avoid real answers.  This misleads children into thinking that there is something wrong with those differences.  Derman-Sparks and Edwards (2012) explain that "to understand the differences they see around them, children need language and accurate information" (p. 33).

As anti bias educators we must be ready to respond to children's curiosity in a way that is factual and developmentally appropriate.  To do this we must willing to:

• Listen without judgement.
• Figure out exactly what the child wants to know so that we do not give too much information or over explain.
• Distinguish between curiosity and discomfort or fear.
• Answer matter-of-factly.
• Always respond, even if you have to tell them you need time to think about what to say.
• Finally, follow up with individual children or group (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2012, p.33).

Reference

Derman-Sparks, L., & Olsen Edwards, J. (2012). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves. Washington, DC: NAEYC.