Creating Affirming Environments: My Family Child Care Home Center

Louise Derman-Sparks & Julie Edwards, two early childhood professionals and anti-bias education experts, highlighted the fact that toys, materials, equipments, posters, and furniture all influence how children learn. An environment that is rich is anti-bias materials invites children to explore and discover, and encourages them to ask questions. Therefore, it is very important to celebrate diversity inside of the classroom. "What children do not see in the classroom teaches children as much as what they do see."

If I were to open up my own family child care home center, I would ensure that my center is very warm and welcoming to families. I would do this by having small, child friendly furnishings and warm, home-like touches. Having a family tree wall in the classroom would be a great way that I could incorporate pictures of all of the families in the center, while giving the children a place to see pictures of their families when they need some comfort.

Aside from incorporating photos of existing families, it is important to display pictures of diverse families as well. Posters of photos of different family structures and of families from around the world, including different races and clothing types, would be very beneficial to the children. Displaying different types of homes/houses around the world would be good as well.

I think that it is also important to show pictures of diverse individuals, such as individuals with disabilities, individuals of different races, individuals wearing clothing traditional to their culture, and individuals with physical differences. Children are more likely to ask explore and ask questions when information is given to them in a place where they feel safe.

The materials that I use in my family child care home center are just as important as the environment. Providing books on different topics and highlighting diversity are important because they not only instill a love of reading but also show and discuss human differences and similarities. Music is important as it incorporates the children's home culture while introducing new cultures. Dolls and puppets allow the children to freely explore racial diversity while dramatic play props, such as multicultural food and clothing, allow the children to act out roles and relationships. All of these things are equally important because they are exposing children to differences while allowing them to freely explore and ask questions in a non-judgmental environment.

One other thing that I would do in my family center is to celebrate as many holidays as I could, without diving too deep into religion. Too often children are only exposed to Santa Clause and I think it would be so much fun to research and celebrate Diwali and the Chinese New Year with the children as well.

To sum it all up, my family child care home center would showcase the families and cultures within my center, while highlighting diversity as well. The children would get the opportunity to learn from each other while discovering more about their own culture, as well as other cultures. Diversity would be celebrated in my child care center.

Source:
Derman-Sparks, L., & Olsen Edwards, J. (2010). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves. Washington, DC: NAEYC.

What I Have Learned

Over the course of the last eight weeks, I have dove deeper into the topic of anti-bias education. I have been forced to evaluate myself to expose my own, personal discomforts and biases, and have made a plan to lessen those. I have progressed from Harro's Cycle of Socialization to the beginning stages of the Cycle of Liberation. I have been challenged and have learned from my peers. I have learned quite a bit about not only anti-bias education, but myself as well.

When I think about working with children from diverse backgrounds, which I do every single day, my hope is that anti-bias education will always be incorporated into their lives. I hope that they will always be exposed to differences and taught to accept and embrace others. I hope that they themselves will always feel accepted for their own unique characteristics. I hope that they will never be outcast or bullied, nor will tease others for being different. I hope that this generation of children will truly know what it means to love one another.

A goal that I have for the early childhood education field, especially in rural towns across the South, is to include anti-bias education into the every day curriculum. Having been born and raised in a small town in North Carolina, I have personally experienced education in this area. There is no diversity in these towns, as the population is strictly made up of Caucasian families. As if the lack of diversity isn't bad enough, diversity isn't talked about or taught. I did not go to school with an African American until I moved away from home and attended a university. While I didn't think anything of it, because I'm a very laid back person and don't have an issue with people until I need to have an issue, other people I know did because they were simply ignorant to the concept of diversity. While ECE does push anti-bias education, as I see it everyday in Raleigh, NC where I now live, I do think that more needs to be done in smaller towns where diversity is not such a common concept.

In closing, I would like to thank all of my peers that have assisted me in the completion of my assignments. Thank you for assisting me, challenging me, and offering your kind and encouraging words. Best of luck to all of you on your journey!

Start Seeing Diversity

This week we were asked to create a piece of art to represent what diversity means to us. I chose to create a photo collage that I feel embraces different ethnicities, races, religions, languages, cultures, and sexual orientation.

 

We Don't Say Those Words!

It is a common fact that children are very blunt little people. They don't really have a filter yet because they don't understand what is appropriate and acceptable to talk about and what is not. Children will talk openly about peeing, pooping, vaginas, penis'...really whatever is relevant and being talked about at that stage in their life. It is our jobs, as parents and educators, to teach children the appropriate time and place that things should be talked about. We don't want to scold children into thinking that anything is taboo to talk about because we want children to trust us and talk to us openly and honestly.

A few months ago, when visiting my family that lives out of town, I took my niece, Jayda, who is four years old, to the store to pick out a birthday present for her mom. As we were walking around Target Jayda noticed a significantly overweight woman and said, very loudly, "Look Cassie, that lady is not a pretty princess like you. She is just too fat!" Out of pure humiliation and panic I immediately snapped at Jayda and said "no ma'am, we do NOT say things like that! That is just ugly to say and not okay, do you understand me?" I mean, it was a pure reaming right there in the middle of Target. Looking back at the incident and reflecting on what I am learning about anti-bias education, I can see that I did not handle the situation as effectively as I should have. I think that it is important to teach anti-bias education to children so that they are familiar and comfortable with different kinds of people, thus eliminating the need to point out differences so bluntly.

Gender, Gender Identity, & Sexual Orientation

Gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation seem to be a touchy subject when it comes to the preschool classroom. Recently my school went through the environmental rating scales known as ITERS and ECERS. In preparation for this I printed out a variety of pictures for the classrooms such as female construction workers, male nurses, and gay and lesbian families. Some teachers came to me expressing concern with putting the pictures of gay and lesbian families on their walls. One teacher said "Cassie, most of our families are rich, white families and you know they are going to have something to say about these pictures." In response I told her that it was okay and if anyone had issues then they could come talk to me. In reality, no one complained at all and the children were really excited to see differences on their walls.

I think that homophobia and heterosexism definitely permeates the world of young children. If you walk into a toy store, such as ToysRUs, you will notice that everything is categorized with a hidden tone of gender roles. They place "girly" dress up clothes in the section with dolls and pretend cleaning toys. While they place "boyish" dress up clothes in the section with tonka trucks and nerf guns.

With regards to language, such as "sissy", "tom boy", etc., I can recall a tour that I did for a woman that came in a couple of years ago. She said that she has two girls that love to get dirty and are real tomboys and she would rather them be like other little girls who wear dresses and are seen rather than heard. I was so appalled to hear this come out of her mouth about her own children! I responded by saying that our school promoted individuality and embraced each other's differences; if she wanted a boarding school type of preschool then we were not the right fit for her.

Team Building & Collaboration

This week we're learning about team development and the importance of team work. We learned that the five stages of team development are: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning.

Looking back to my own, personal experiences with team work, especially reflecting on the adjourning stage, I recall a time that I worked with a group of classmates on an elementary education music project. This group was the hardest to walk away from because we became a very close group of ladies. There were four of us total and we found that along the way we became more than just classmates but very good friends. We celebrated our hard work when the project came to an end by going out for dinner and drinks. We ensured that we stayed in touch via social media and still, to this day, chat with one another.

I think that when working with a team, if the team has worked effectively, then the adjourning stage is bittersweet. I found that people all working together to brainstorm and eventually reach a common goal really become friends along the way. I think that the adjourning stage is important and taking efforts to stay in touch with your peers allows you to keep professional contacts that could be beneficial in the future.

Managing Conflict in Relationships

When working in an industry such as early childhood education, it is important to have some conflict management strategies in your back pocket. As a director of a preschool I have often times been faced with very upset parents who on an anger scale of 1-10, were a 10. It's important that I know how to handle these situations so that they do not further escalate and simply because it is part of the customer service aspect of my job.

One strategy that I have used in the past with teachers who were not getting along is to have them take a 20-30 minute break to cool down before our meeting to discuss the problem. This is an example of an escapist strategy because at that moment we are avoiding the conflict. Sometimes I feel like this is the best thing to do to allow people to calm down and really think about things. Emotions are sometimes too high to try to resolve the conflict right away.

Another strategy that I use with both teachers and families is a cooperative strategy. Cooperative strategies focus on problem solving and trying to meet the needs of everyone involved. Let's say, for example, that the Smith family does not want Harper to transition into the one year old room next week because they feel she is still too little. Even though she is a year old and I need her spot to open up in three weeks for a new child starting, I compromise with the family and explain to them that I can allow her to stay in the infant classroom for another week but after that she will have to transition. The family walks away feeling satisfied because they feel like they were heard while I am satisfied because I still have the space available for the new child. This is a win-win situation.

Another example of compromise within my workplace involves teachers arguing over whose turn it is to complete the portfolios. One teacher is claiming that she always does the portfolios and that she is sick of doing all of the work. The other teacher is adamant that she completes portfolios just as often and now that she is accusing her she just won't do any. I handled this very simply by dividing the portfolios in half. One teacher was assigned one half while the other teacher was assigned the other half. I kept record of which teacher had which children's portfolios so that I could keep track if someone wasn't pulling their weight. The teachers felt like this was a fair solution to the problem and everyone walked away satisfied.