One hope that I have when thinking about working with children and families is to expose them to all of the wonderful diversity that is in our world. I would hope to help the children and their families develop a deeper understanding of differences and to have an acceptance for all people.
One goal I would like to set for the early childhood field related to diversity, equity, and social justice would be to provide early childhood educators with opportunities to continue their education about these topics. I have realized that through this course, I still have a great deal to learn about myself as well as how to address issues related to diversity, equity and social justice. Continuing conversations as well as the learning of early childhood educators would be extremely beneficial to the field.
I would like to thank all of my colleagues and Dr. Klein for their support and guidance through this course. I appreciate all of the personal stories that were told, they truly helped deepen my understanding of the topics we studied. Best of luck in your future courses and work in the early childhood field.
A few years ago, when my daughter was around 2 years old, we were shopping together in the local Wal-Mart. While we were walking down one of the aisles, we passed a woman who was bald. My daughter said, "Mommy, that lady doesn't have any hair!" I felt immediate embarrassment and quietly shushed my daughter so the woman wouldn't hear my daughter's comments. I quickly pushed the cart to another aisle and my daughter continued to ask questions like, "is she a boy?" I told her that we aren't supposed to say things like that out loud.
By shushing my daughter and telling her that we don't talk about things like that, I was sending a message that the questions she was asking were wrong. I was teaching her that the differences in people were something to be ashamed of or hidden. I was also stifling her natural curiosity to ask questions about differences as well as providing her with an opportunity to learn about human differences.
An anti-bias educator may have responded by saying, "Many people have different hair styles. They can have long hair, short hair, no hair, hair of many different colors, etc." A conversation could also take place about reasons people may have no hair, such as disease. After the initial discussion, we could look at different hair styles that we see on television, in books, in our family as well as in magazines and photographs. An anti-bias educator would support and develop a child's understanding instead of silencing the child.
