As an early
childhood professional, I have the opportunity to interact with children and
families from diverse backgrounds. This enables me to help children develop
strong personal identities and learn to accept and embrace the diversity of
others. It is also an opportunity to reflect on personal experiences and how
those experiences shape my emotional, cognitive and physical well being, and
how these experiences impact the work I do with young children and families.
As a
professional female, I have noticed that many aspects of my personal life have
affected the way I respond to children and families and the situations we
encounter in and out of the classroom. Personally, I have experienced gender
stereotyping and sexism. For example, I often get surprised or disgusted
responses when people hear that I was able to do something for myself that is a
typical "man's job". People are surprised that as a female, I am able
to chop wood using an ax, use some power tools, build things, and get cars unstuck
from all the snow we have been getting! The last situation was much to the embarrassment
of the men in my family when my sister and I were able to accomplish this task
after the men had tried and failed. These experiences have made me sensitive to
gender stereotyping and sexism in the classroom. I notice I am more likely to
intervene when children make comments that portray gender stereotypical roles. Unfortunately,
it has also made me less likely to notice and intervene when children make
comments that fall outside of this realm. Many learning opportunities are lost
when I fail to hear or respond to comments that are racist or classist, for
example. It has also meant that these situations must be brought to my
attention by other staff members, which is embarrassing for me because I feel
that as the lead teacher in the classroom I should notice more of these
situations and respond to them appropriately. Therefore it is reasonable to
conclude that our personal life can both positively and negatively influence
our professional performance. Our unique experiences can lead us to respond to
situations of prejudice in the classroom in areas we have experience in a more
meaningful way (positive), while it can
lead to us overlooking other instances of bias, which is detrimental to the
identity development of the children and families experiencing this bias.
Dear Celeste, thank you for sharing your personal experience and insights regarding this topic. I want congratulate you on identifying the challenges you are having to identify pre-prejudices in your classroom and also encourage you to keep up the good work. Don't be embarrassed by not noticing every bit of pre-prejudice, microaggression or bias that occurs in your classroom. Remember that doing anti-bias work is a very long journey that builds itself constantly (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011; Derman-Sparks & Olsen Edwards, 2010). You are doing a great job and now that you have identify this challenge, you can work on it!!! ;)
ReplyDeleteReferences
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).
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Thinking deeply about diversity and inequity [DVD]. Strategies for working with diverse children. Baltimore, MD: Author.