What I have learned--EDUC6357

When I think about working with children and families who cares me from diverse backgrounds, I hope that through open communication, biases or prejudices that exist in children and families in a overt or covert way can be unlearned with the supports from anti-bias educators; that children can learn diversities of culture, language, family, perspective, physical characteristics and so on with respect and value them, which help them self identify and develop their pride of who they are; that families which have great impact on children's self identities, learning and development can partner with anti-bias educators and discover their own biases and prejudices so that educators and parents stay on the same page to better support children's development of diverse aspects.

One goal I would like to set for the early childhood field related to issues of diversity, equity, and social justice is that I would keep on with myself reflection journey in which I could unfold my own biases and biases from others so that I can keep myself updated about who I am and who they are, and gradually unlearn biases that harm children's development. As well, through self reflection, the better I know about myself, the better I can serve children and families.

Hereby, I would like to say thank you to my instructor Dr. Klein and my colleagues. l really appreciate the feedbacks that Dr. Klein gave me on my assignments, which help me see a better me in the journey of self reflection. I would like to say thank you to my colleagues for their initial posts on discussion board and blogs and their responses which gave me another perspectives regarding biases, identities, trauma, family influence and classroom influence, etc., and opened my windows of diversities. I am happy that we will still have opportunities to exchange ideas in the following two courses.

Creating Art

https://xiaowanchen.wordpress.com/2015/04/17/starting-seeing-divetsity-blog-creating-art/

Start Seeing Diversity Blog: "We Don't Say Those Words in Class!"

Last night, my friend with her daughter invited me to go shopping with them in a shopping mall where lots of fancy clothes were display. When we came to the Children's zone, we could see there were two or three child models with clothes on shown in the window in each shop. All of sudden, the daughter of my friend, 5-years-old, screamed with a scared tone "Ah.....", which scared my friend and me. My friend worried and asked her what happened. The daughter pointed to one of child model in the window and said, "He is black! When I turned my head and saw the black one, I got scared." Knowing that her daughter did not get hurt, my friend responded, "But you should not scream loud indoors. It is not appropriate." Then without any comment on what the daughter said about the black child model, they walked away from that window show. 

The mom focused on her daughter's behavior of screaming but neglected her scare of the black child model. The hidden message conveyed in this example is that it is ok to be scared of the black. This reminds me of a Chinese saying that my friend would always said about her daughter, "A white complexion is powerful enough to hide seven faults." This is a Chinese traditional and stereotypical concept of beauty, which indicates bias about the color of skin and racism. The daughter did not independently learn this bias; she learned from the people and the environment around her. Because of her white complexion, she often heard compliments, which formed her misconception of beauty and developed her bias toward the black. 

Actually, after shopping with my friend and her daughter, I texted to my friend and told her about the issue that I observed and my thoughts about the bias that was hidden in their communication. Later on, she told me that she did not notice at all her bias she had and never thought that she would have racism and affect her daughter. Our open communication helped her recognize her bias. Then I suggest her to read some books and show some pictures about diverse people and culture so that they could be together to learn the similarities and differences between and among people and unlearn biases. That is I think what an anti-bias educator should do to--help people recognize the existence of bias and diversity (Laureate Education, n.d.).

Reference:

Laureate Education (Producer). (n.d.). Start seeing diversity: Race/ethnicity [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu