Chandra Farmer
EDUC 6358-Strategies for Working with Diverse Children
September 6th, 2022
Week 1/Post 1: Formulating Goals
1.
The two professional goals you developed related to anti-bias education and your work in an early childhood setting.
· Goal 1: Developing relationships to form inclusive communities in the classroom
· Goa1 2: Develop an awareness of how unconscious bias can impact the classroom.
2.
The ways in which the readings and media segment from this week have influenced the formulation of your goals. Be sure to support your comments with specific references to and/or examples from the Required Resources.
According to Walden University (2011) “The world today is a world in which children are going to grow up side-by-side with people who are very, very different from them. The notion of growing up in a community of people very much like you is gone” (pg. 1). I also came across a website “
Teaching Tolerance,” where it discussed critical practices for anti-bias education and teacher leadership. This article was about the importance of valuing and embracing multiple perspectives to reach the best and most comprehensive approach to leadership. The author suggests teacher leaders reflect on what they still don’t know and need to learn about something to seek out professional development for growth in those areas; the author really promotes the idea of having self-awareness to diminish bias and become culturally aware in teacher leader practices (Learning for Justice, 2022). Both the “Walden and Teaching Tolerance” sources are about the road and progression to becoming an anti-bias educator.
3.
The ways in which the implementation of these goals will help you to work more effectively with young children and families.
I aspire to be an anti-biased channel in which students will experience culture in a vast and more comprehensive way. Children’s experiences in education should teach the four goals of anti-bias education (i.e., identity, diversity, justice, and activism) and promote the ultimate goal of equality and social equity for all (NAEYC, n.d.). I am, the compilation of everything experienced in my life. With this, we are constantly growing, changing, adapting new view and discarding others. Each experience builds on the last to continue to reinforce the structure you are each day. As future educators, it is our job to be the future of knowledge. What we say, do, actions we take directly reflect what our students see. Choose your curriculum wisely, but choose your words even more carefully. Take the wealth of knowledge you and only your life has accumulated and share it with each class you have the chance to influence. Be the spark of change and the advocate to every child that walks through your door.
4.
Challenges you might encounter on your journey to become an early childhood professional who understands and practices anti-bias education.
Cult.
Chandra FarmerEDUC 6358-Strategies for Working with Diverse Ch.docx
1. Chandra Farmer
EDUC 6358-Strategies for Working with Diverse Children
September 6th, 2022
Week 1/Post 1: Formulating Goals
1.
The two professional goals you developed related to
anti-bias education and your work in an early childhood setting.
· Goal 1: Developing relationships to form inclusive
communities in the classroom
· Goa1 2: Develop an awareness of how unconscious bias can
impact the classroom.
2.
The ways in which the readings and media segment
from this week have influenced the formulation of your goals.
Be sure to support your comments with specific references to
and/or examples from the Required Resources.
According to Walden University (2011) “The world today
is a world in which children are going to grow up side-by-side
with people who are very, very different from them. The notion
of growing up in a community of people very much like you is
gone” (pg. 1). I also came across a website “
Teaching Tolerance,” where it discussed critical
practices for anti-bias education and teacher leadership. This
article was about the importance of valuing and embracing
multiple perspectives to reach the best and most comprehensive
approach to leadership. The author suggests teacher leaders
reflect on what they still don’t know and need to learn about
something to seek out professional development for growth in
those areas; the author really promotes the idea of having self-
2. awareness to diminish bias and become culturally aware in
teacher leader practices (Learning for Justice, 2022). Both the
“Walden and Teaching Tolerance” sources are about the road
and progression to becoming an anti-bias educator.
3.
The ways in which the implementation of these goals
will help you to work more effectively with young children and
families.
I aspire to be an anti-biased channel in which students will
experience culture in a vast and more comprehensive way.
Children’s experiences in education should teach the four goals
of anti-bias education (i.e., identity, diversity, justice, and
activism) and promote the ultimate goal of equality and social
equity for all (NAEYC, n.d.). I am, the compilation of
everything experienced in my life. With this, we are constantly
growing, changing, adapting new view and discarding others.
Each experience builds on the last to continue to reinforce the
structure you are each day. As future educators, it is our job to
be the future of knowledge. What we say, do, actions we take
directly reflect what our students see. Choose your curriculum
wisely, but choose your words even more carefully. Take the
wealth of knowledge you and only your life has accumulated
and share it with each class you have the chance to influence.
Be the spark of change and the advocate to every child that
walks through your door.
4.
Challenges you might encounter on your journey to
become an early childhood professional who understands and
practices anti-bias education.
Culture and family have substantial implications regarding
how it behaves and is viewed in society; culture and family
3. impacts how individuals relate to others that are different from
their culture; culture and family also affect how members of the
family deal with conflict from others to including listening
skills; culture and family are essential in the eyes of society
since culture is established from our society (Walden
University, 2011). When you factor in culture, we have to
consider the levels of it to includes sets of behaviors or how
each family lives coupled with right or wrong; when you think
about this, there is where the term “cultural issues” comes from;
those same issues come from groups of individuals who believe
that another group is deemed wrong based on their behavior;
you must then consider occupations, gender, religious views,
and language (NAEYC, n.d.). My goals created will and can
improve upon cultural issues. My goals will also permit my
students to be accommodating where there is a difference,
appreciate cultural difference, be open to try new things, and
learning about another student’s background (Derman-Sparks &
Olsen Edwards, 2010). When you have a solid understanding of
different social and cultural groups, the community, students
and families are able to valuable connections to their lives and
others (Derman-Sparks & Olsen Edwards, 2010). Empathizing
and teaching diversity enhances cultural competence and allows
more students to be more compassionate to the experiences of
their peers; having access to effective anti-bias resources can
represent cultural groups in an unbiased manner (Derman-
Sparks & Olsen Edwards, 2010).
References
Derman-Sparks, L., & Olsen Edwards, J. (2010). Anti-bias
education for young children and ourselves. Washington, D.C.:
National Association for the Education of Young Children
(NAEYC
).
4. Learning for Justice. (2022).
Critical practices guide for anti-bias education.
https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/publications/critical-
practices-for-antibias-education/teacher-leadership
NAEYC. (n.d.).
Understanding anti-bias education: Bringing the four
core goals to every facet of your curriculum.
https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/yc/nov2019/understandin
g-anti-bias
Walden University, LLC. (2011).
Strategies for working with diverse children: Thinking
deeply about diversity and inequity. Baltimore, MD: Author.
5. EDUC6358: Strategies for Working with Diverse Children
“Your Commitment to Anti-Bias Work”
Program Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING]
NARRATOR: Julie Olsen Edwards offers parting words of
clarity, inspiration, and challenge to
you as an anti-bias early childhood educator and an emergent
leader in this field.
JULIE OLSEN EDWARDS: Life is filled with key decisions.
Decisions that change who we are
and what we do. You made a decision to get an MS in Early
Childhood Studies. And furthermore,
you made a decision to focus in on diversity-- on diversity
equity issues at the heart of what you
are studying. It was an important decision.
Somewhere in your life you experienced, you learned about, you
observed, you saw the ways
that people are injured by inequitable treatment, the ways that
6. children become less than what
they could be, and you made a decision to become someone who
addresses those issues. And
now you are joining with teachers all over the world, not just
here in our country, but all over the
world to address and see what we can do to raise children proud
in who they are, connected to
their families, connected to their communities, open to, eager to
embrace people who are
different. This is an important journey. It's a journey that will
entice you, frustrate you, compel you.
It's filled with new things to learn and it goes on for a lifetime.
No matter how much you know,
there's always more to learn.
It's not that we are different that causes problems. It is that we
are treated badly based on those
differences. The issues of our economic class, our gender, our
racial identities, our culture, our
language, our ability, instead of those being strengths we build
on, children get taught we are less
because of those things. These internalized messages, unless
key adults step in, these
internalized messages keep our children from being fully who
they can be. It requires adults who
step in and contradict the misinformation that children are
surrounded with. It requires adults who
speak up and make a part of every day in the classroom, in the
school, in the community, a
statement building on the strengths of children and giving them
that sense of dignity about who
and what they are. This work requires adults who are ready to
be allies to children and families.
To help children develop the skills, the strengths, the capacities
to thrive in this world of ours,
which is so torn apart and polarized right now. Everything
7. you've been doing in this course has
been focused on helping you deepen your understanding of how
diversity and equity issues
shape what happens to children.
People often say doing something new is scary. It can be. But
doing something you believe in,
making something that hasn't felt right to you right, taking a
step in the direction of what matters
to you is also exciting, challenging, yes, but challenging in that
sense of I'm moving. Addressing
something that hurts children is a proud and fulfilling moment.
You can't wait till you know
enough. We never know enough. In this arena there's always
more to learn. Like all other
learning, you take two steps forward and you'll take one back,
and you have to re-figure it out.
And step-by-step you begin to build your own skill level, your
own ability to figure out what's going
on here and what do I need to do. It's never a straight line.
Those goals for children? They're the
goals for us too. For us, inside ourself, we need to also keep
working on who am I and how can I
be proud and clear about who I am? Who is different from me
out there, and how can I see them
fully as complete human beings, and embrace our differences?
How can I come to truly identify
what's unfair here, what's wrong here, what should be instead of
just what is? And then what do I
need to do to try to make things better? This work requires
support. You can't do it alone. We
need allies too.
Page 1
8. You've been involved for the last eight weeks, emailing people,
talking to people online. These
are some natural allies for you. As you move forward in your
professional life in this work, you
need groups of people you can talk to about, this is what
happened, how do I figure it out? I tried
this it didn't work. What else could I try? What resources will
address this issue? What do I do
when it blows up, when I tried it and some of the parents didn't
like it? You've got to have a circle
of people you can go to.
And just as important, you need a circle of people who you can
call up, or email, or write, or blog
and say, it worked. I did it. I had the courage. I tried it. I talked
to those kids about skin color, and
it worked, and the families were excited. Celebrating our
successes is what feeds us and keeps
us going. This is a lifetime of work. You need people around.
You need to build a community both
of around you at home and online, so that you have people to
keep you growing as an anti-bias
educator.
You made a decision to become a Diversity/Equity Educator.
9. There's a whole community of
people out here who support you and walk with you. It's
important. It matters. Welcome. The
children are waiting for you.
Page 2