Photo Credit (Pixabay)
Understanding Is Promoted by Diverse Cultural Experiences
Youngsters who watch multicultural programs get an appreciation for and understanding of cultural diversity—both distinct and overlapping.
The Justification for Its Significance
Every child has a place since they are all unique. Workers have a responsibility and an opportunity to celebrate children’s multiple and overlapping identities while also helping them feel like they belong.
Young children get meaning from their early interactions with classmates and adults and learn about their culture in relation to others.
Children have a sense of identification and belonging as they discover how they are similar to and different from other people.
A child’s sense of belonging in a group depends on an emotional connection or feeling of togetherness. Frequent nice interactions develop this relationship.
Honest, fact-based discussions about differences are one way to reduce racism and prejudice. Taking a “color-blind” stance or acting as if differences don’t exist is unproductive.
Staff and families should talk about how to respond to questions from kids, like how to explain that a child with a handicap could learn and play differently. If adults do not help children process their findings, they will draw their own conclusions about the significance of these differences.
Connections to the HSPPS
In this part, you’ll discover sample indicators for this Multicultural Principle and how the Head Start Program Performance Standards (HSPPS) back them. Think about the curriculum and the learning environment. Next, consider how you already employ these tactics and how you may align them more closely to improve your work.Examples of Indicators and Practical Methods
Little ones dressed for cold and grinning broadly.Analyze workable strategies that can be implemented to help an initiative represent and preserve the cultural norms of the children and families it serves. These strategies can be drawn from research and Head Start programs.
Select the practice that you will focus on for a month after downloading the Try It! worksheet. Using the suggestions, carefully consider how you will use the activity. After practicing for a month, the worksheet provides instructions for reflection.
Workers create games and dialogues that allow children to express their uniqueness.
While wishing children and families a happy holiday, take into consideration their preferences.
Give children the chance to share information about their towns, family, cultures, and self. For example, kids could draw, tell stories from their own experiences, sing, dance, or play a song they picked up at home or at a party.
Make use of the children’s observations to draw attention to the ways in which individuals differ and are similar, as well as to their feelings and passions. Give an example of how to constructively address differences, such as “Yeah, your hair is .” Andre’s hair color is . I have _ hair as well.
Staff workers notice specific differences in children and guide the talk accordingly.
When infants and early toddlers focus on adults and peers who look or speak differently from them, take note and offer a commentary. Say, “I see that you’re looking at Daniel’s legs.” Daniel has two legs and one foot. He finds the toys he likes to play with when he crawls, but his movements vary. or “Have you heard any new sounds? You perceive that certain parents in our socialization group are speaking a language other than English. The adult occupants of your home speak Somali, and during our large party, you will hear Tagalog, Vietnamese, and English spoken simultaneously. Hearing unfamiliar sounds is nice.
Accept children’s questions and their interest about the differences they see. It’s not necessary to understand every answer. The most important thing is to be willing to engage in conversation.
Children should be taught that although routines and activities are a part of everyone’s life, certain children will occasionally require special adjustments.
Point out the things that children have in common, like their like for particular activities, toys, or foods.
Rotate the groups during small group activities to encourage cooperation amongst kids who don’t get along.
Coworkers learn about different cultures by reading books together.
Read books about characters who are navigating several identities. Children with disabilities, bilingual or multiracial children, children who identify as gender expansive, or children whose parents or caregivers identify as LGBTQIA2S+ can all be examples of these characters.
Choose novels that relate to the children’s identities, cultures, and languages to help them establish a feeling of self and belonging. As illustrations, think about:
Young children will enjoy board books with characters and situations drawn from real-world experiences.
Children’s books featuring bilingual characters doing a range of daily tasks (including cooking and celebrating).
children’s books that share glimpses into the life of the authors and illustrators.
Kids’ critical thinking is fostered by staff members’ inquiries.
A cluster of children gathered around their teacher.When children are reading aloud from a storybook, staff members might ask them questions to get them to reflect on both their own and other people’s experiences. Adults can ask infants and young toddlers open-ended questions. They may answer these questions for the child, but the child also hears the responses, and when the child gets older and begins to speak, they can answer for themselves. Through inquiries like these, kids are taught to draw connections between their experiences and those of others.
Who is the story’s subject?
To what extent are you familiar with this person?
Does this person look familiar to you?
Does anyone in your family have a similar story?
Speaking from the Head Start Community
In this section, Head Start teachers talk about how they have engaged with children to teach them about different cultures.
The representation of civilizations matters.
During her years of teaching, a Head Start teacher disclosed that she had never given any regard to her family’s culture or ancestry. One day she was telling the children a story about an Italian grandmother who loved to prepare dinner for her family. It was a moment of connection for her. In the story, she felt “at home”. Suddenly, she felt proud of her family and her Italian background. She asserted that she was ignorant of the benefits of multicultural programming for young viewers before that time.
A week later, she chose a book about an American Indian child since she had a student in her class who was of Kiowa origin. At the time, the curriculum did not adequately reflect the child’s culture. She reported that the kid immediately got up after reading the story. They revisited the passages that caught the child’s attention and looked closely at the book’s illustrations. Her instructor sent the book home with her and asked her to share it with her family. This modest gesture strengthened the bond between the Head Start center and the family. The following month, her mother volunteered in the classroom, and the two parents went to the parent-teacher conference together.
Be receptive to diverse family configurations.
Workers at a Head Start program saw that in several of the homes under their supervision, grandparents were raising their grandchildren. An instructor for the program disclosed:
educating kids about the fact that everyone is composed of several pieces and that everyone has relationships with other individuals. Depending on the circumstances, our families are not the same all the time. Our town is home to a large number of families consisting of grandparents raising their grandchildren, according to recent enrollment data. Yes, we have also had the opportunity to have those grandparents come to our sessions. And the kids love it so much that they ask questions like, “When is Grandpa coming again?” as one child’s grandparents take on the role of all 17 children’s grandparents. While having those options is wonderful, it’s also critical that parents and families realize that this is a place where you can feel at ease.
Explain to us how we can grow from our mistakes.
The personnel of the Head Start program talked about how to meet the needs of families from different linguistic or cultural backgrounds. Even with the staff’s commitment to impartial and nondiscriminatory practices, mistakes might nevertheless unintentionally occur. They talk about this with the children. They call it a “oops” moment and clarify that it’s an essential part of the learning process. Though “oops” moments are inadvertent, children and adults alike ought to absorb lessons from them and figure out how to keep from repeating their blunders.
Recall earlier
Early childhood programs can utilize the following questions as a starting point to look at the challenges they face and possible solutions to enhance fair and culturally sustainable practices throughout service delivery sites. The purpose of the following questions is to promote self-reflection and critical assessment of one’s own work. They can also be utilized to strike up discussions amongst community partners, workers, and families. Session leaders who are skilled facilitators—either from within the program or from outside—may help programs go deeper into particular subjects in a group setting.
How do you relate to family members whose cultural views on caring and teaching are different from your own? Provide examples from your own experience along with the coping techniques you used.
If your program serves young children: How is information about family caregiving practices gathered by your program? What is the right manner for a family, for example, to hold, feed, and put their infant to sleep?
What cultural representations do the learning environments you provide for your pupils make? How can regular educational experiences teach kids about and help them respect other cultures?
What opportunities do families have to form bonds with other families and get new insights about the people who belong to various ethnic groups in the community?