Overcoming Bias
Unexpected or unintentional biases can often occur in the classroom, during curriculum activities, as well as in cases when teachers do not have enough knowledge about students’ cultures. Educators must be anti-bias advocates and promote an inclusive environment where students feel valued and accepted regardless of their culture, background, gender, or race. The first step in overcoming prejudice is recognizing one’s own biases, on which this section of the paper will focus.
In the beginning, I would like to describe my cultural identity and life experiences that shaped my worldview and influenced possible biases. I have been working in the sphere of early childhood education for twenty-five years, which means that I possess enough knowledge about the basic principles of education as well as the very details of the profession. Being a Navy wife of thirty years, I have experienced a lot of highs and lows in my relationship; some parts of my marriage may not be understandable to civilian wives who did not have to live without their husbands for months. I am a proud mother of three grown children, one of which was adopted. All three of them attended the childcare centers where I worked before high school. However, our family situation made us move a lot and switch schools, so I know what it is like for children to adapt to new unfamiliar environments.
About my background, I am from the South, which immediately makes people think that I have a lot of prejudices against others; however, it is not true in reality. I was the only person in my family to go to college, and when people heard my accent, they seemed to always conclude me being a “redneck.” I was raised by my mother and grandmother, who was a Jehovah’s Witness. Despite this, I converted to Catholicism because of personal reasons. Moreover, I did not go to school until I was eleven years old because my family traveled with a carnival. Even though we read a lot and made decent money from entertainment, other people assumed that we were poor and uneducated.
When it comes to overcoming the biases I might have, the first strategy is interacting with people who have opinions and beliefs different from those that I have. For example, volunteering in an organization that helps homeless people can give me a better perspective on what it is like to be homeless. The second strategy is exposing myself to non-traditional media that oppose discrimination. Young people are becoming more open and accepting of the unique traits of each other, so it will be useful for me as an educator to find out more about the different views the new generation has concerning prejudice and discrimination. The third strategy for overcoming bias is analyzing personal behaviors and negative attitudes I had towards certain individuals. Trying to put oneself in the shoes of other people may help determine those attitudes that were initiated by biases rather than constructive criticism.
The mentioned three strategies for overcoming bias were chosen because they are beneficial for analyzing individual behaviors as well as encouraging interactions with other people and engaging with media. As an educator, I must ensure equal treatment for all students and their families, so the mentioned strategies will help me approach people with an open mind and focus on promoting improvements in the sphere of education. Exploring how one may eliminate biases within an educational setting is a crucial step towards becoming a positive role model for children and their parents. Because different backgrounds and upbringings of students may cause them to have various opinions about each other, an educator needs to be prepared for possible biases and prejudices and teach students about the importance of inclusivity regardless of background, culture, race, or gender.
Addressing Bias and Promoting Equity in Early Childhood Classrooms
Strategies for Addressing Bias
There is a general misconception that young children do not understand cultural or racial differences nor do they discriminate against others. However, children do notice differences (Wolpert, n.d.), especially when their parents go out of their ways to point at the “peculiarities” other people may have, which occurred in the case of Madison Place Preschool. Because children are quick learners and are prone to mimicking even those behaviors that are discriminatory, they need some help in starting to challenge biases and discrimination instead of internalizing them. When developing strategies targeted at overcoming biases and promoting equity among children, it is important to differentiate them into strategies associated with ethnicity, physical abilities, family characteristics (e.g. orientation), and gender-related strategies.
About ethnicity and race strategies for overcoming bias, a teacher should start with developing awareness of other cultures and teaching children how to respect language diversity. For example, a teacher may ask a bilingual student to teach other children how to sing an easy song in a language that is foreign to the majority. Such a strategy will encourage interactions between students that speak different languages and may eliminate ethnic barriers. Another example is discouraging negative perceptions of other cultures. For instance, if a student says in a negative tone something like “He’s Mexican,” a teacher should come up with an answer that will engage students in a conversation and discourage the negative tone: “Yes, he is Mexican. He comes from Mexico. Did you know that this country was once home to the great civilization of Maya?” Providing students with new information about other cultures will be an effective strategy for sparking interest and encouraging engagement, especially in a multi-cultural classroom.
When addressing bias against physical or developmental issues in children, the key strategy is showing that every person possesses unique skills regardless of his or her level of mental development or physical ability. In the case with Madison Place Preschool, some children were considered lower on the development scale compared to other students. However, if someone was to point this out, the teacher should challenge the stereotype and encourage students to conduct simple research. One of the topics of the research can be searching for information about inventors, artists, composers, musicians, political figures that used to be considered “not like everybody else” but still succeeded due to their unique skills. With regards to peculiar family characteristics, like, for example, the tardiness of some parents, it is important to engage parents in a conversation, so they find out more about each other. It is highly likely that the tardiness has an explanation, and if it is serious enough, other parents will understand the problem and avoid confrontations on this matter. The last strategy is cooperative problem solving that could be applied to any situation where there is a risk of bias on the part of children or their parents. Assigning small team projects, designing games, and encouraging conversations about the “differences” will provide children with broader knowledge and facilitate the challenging of stereotypes (Wolpert, n.d.).
The strategies described above will help teachers eliminate biases and promote equity because they are connected to honoring students’ experiences with regards to their identity and diversity (Teaching Tolerance, 2017). By understanding and valuing the experiences some children went through, a teacher would effectively identify which procedures and classroom activities can encourage participation and facilitate meaningful conversations. Furthermore, by assigning group projects, during which children will equally contribute with their knowledge of cultures, a teacher could achieve a high level of intergroup awareness where students appreciate cultural characteristics and learn how to accept them.
Integrating anti-bias strategies into teaching will be effective in challenging the popular misconceptions children may have acquired from their parents or friends. The most important aspect of these strategies is not “sweeping the problem under the rug” and being honest with children because they learn best when they are presented with information as it is. It is crucial not to be confrontational or punish students for the biased thoughts they might have; rather, a teacher should calmly explain why biases should be challenged. Anti-bias procedures should be smoothly integrated with usual classroom activities so that students do not feel pressured.
How to Implement Anti-Bias Strategies and Cooperate With Parents
To implement effective strategies of advocating for positive social change on behalf of students, a teacher should first determine the key issues that exist in the classroom. For instance, in the case of Madison Place Preschool, the key issues included the lack of acceptance of dual-language learners, biases towards children that are behind their peers developmentally, and the lack of diverse teaching materials. To address the lack of acceptance of the diverse dual-language students in the classroom, a teacher should show children that such diversity could benefit them all. This may be especially effective in the context of language learning because children can teach each other new foreign words, which facilitates collaboration and active classroom interactions. In turn, such interactions will lead to positive social change because some barriers that existed between students before the implementation of the strategy will decrease.
Because parents are big influences on their children, collaborating with them is an important step towards enhancing the advocacy efforts and promoting positive social changes. As already stated, a teacher should encourage parents to engage in a conversation about the issues that arise in the classroom. In such a scenario, a teacher will not only collaborate with parents to resolve the problems of bias and discrimination but also become a facilitator of a dialogue among parents. Moreover, because a teacher only spends time with students at school, it is important to encourage parents to teach their children about inclusivity outside the classroom. Lastly, organizing inclusivity events in cooperation with parents can significantly benefit pro-inclusivity advocacy efforts and promote social changes in the community.
Access, Equity, and Promoting Change in Early Childhood Organizations
Advocating for an Anti-Bias Curriculum
Advocating for an anti-bias curriculum in an early childhood educational setting is associated with challenging any prejudice such as ableism, racism, sexism, and other negative attitudes (“Anti-bias curriculum in a multicultural society,” 2011). Therefore, this approach is based on a constructive methodology composed of procedures that help early learners become accepting of personal and group identities as well as be sensitive to the problems that appear from cultural differences.
A teacher can advocate for an anti-bias curriculum for early childhood learners through guiding students into the direction of acceptance and understanding the cultural and other differences. The first step is analyzing students’ awareness by facilitating a discussion to understand the prejudices and biases that they may have. The second step in evaluating children’s environment that may reinforce various biases. The third step is incorporating anti-bias activities (for example, teaching students how to mix various paints to find their skin colors) (“Anti-bias curriculum in a multicultural society,” 2011). The last step is assessing the progress of the anti-bias curriculum and making changes in those areas that need to improve.
An anti-bias curriculum should be implemented in an early childhood learning setting because it will provide a basis for inclusive attitudes among students and support their development in further learning. As mentioned by Lee (2010) in the article “Reflect on your history,” multicultural and anti-bias curriculum bridges the narrow concepts of minorities and allows students to look beyond each other’s skin color or spoken languages. In early childhood, children are starting to shape their perceptions of the environment that surrounds them, so teachers can play a fundamental role in guiding their students to be accepting of each other and respect the cultural or other differences that may seem unusual or confusing.
Why Access and Equity Are Important
When applied to an early childhood setting, access refers to the absence of barriers for all children for attending high-quality educational programs (NAEYC, 2017). In the same context, equity is the opportunity for all children regardless of their differences to attend the programs (with a focus on helping families that possess fewer resources compared to others). Drawing from these definitions, it can be asserted that access and equity are key contributors to developing an early childhood program that promotes growth and acceptance within the community. On an organizational level, establishing equity and access is especially important because it will ensure equal learning conditions for all children regardless of their backgrounds. If there is a discrepancy in resources to which children have access, the process of teaching and learning can be undermined because some children can feel left out or underappreciated.
Example of a Real Organization
UNICEF is an organization that presents an excellent example of how to promote social change, access, and equity in early childhood settings. The organization specifically targets its efforts at reducing the gaps in school participation and improving the quality and quantity of early childhood education services. UNICEF recognizes the importance of access and equity because children that remain out of school or are excluded from participation usually lack monetary resources and come from marginalized communities, towards which the dominant population exhibits bias. Every child must have access to education, so the organization is working hard to eliminate the principle of “education for some more than others” and establish universal primary school enrollment (UNICEF, 2010).
The Positive Impacts of Promoting Access, Equity, and Change
According to the research conducted by O’Connell, Fox, Hinz, and Cole (2016), more than one-fifth of children start school with vulnerabilities that make it very complicated for them to have access to opportunities schools provide, which can have a long-term impact on their future. Therefore, access and equity can have a long-term positive effect on children and their families if schools cater to the needs of all students regardless of their backgrounds or personal characteristics. Advocating for access, equity, and change is highly beneficial for children’s healthy development and learning because they ensure a secure and inclusive environment that facilitates positive experiences. To be more specific, access, equity, and positive change in an early childhood setting have the following impact on children’s development:
- Lead to high levels of students’ engagement in the process of learning;
- Facilitate cooperation and interactions between children from different cultural or economic backgrounds;
- Promote a stronger sense of community where each member is valued and respected;
- Discourage any judgments based on others’ skin color, native language, or economic status;
- Teach students how to accept and learn from each other;
- Encourage parents to participate in the discussion about equity and access;
- Facilitate positive social change in areas where bias and non-inclusivity are still prevalent.
These benefits of access, equity, and positive social change significantly enhance the environment in which children start experiencing their first learning achievements. Organizations that ensure equal access to education for all students can often show high-performance indicators of learning and achievement because there are fewer restrictions that limit students from exhibiting their full potential.
If to provide an example of how advocating for access and equity in early childhood programs, it is worth to mention the Early Years Learning Framework developed by Australian childhood educators. The Framework encourages teachers to involve children in making decisions that affect them directly, thus facilitating equal participation of all students regardless of their family backgrounds, cultures, languages, and other identities (Thomas, 2013). This program is an excellent example of advocating for access and equity because it includes cultural and social backgrounds of all children in the process of planning and designing an inclusive learning environment.
Based on this example, it can be hypothesized that advocating for access and equity in early childhood classrooms can be achieved by taking into consideration the interests and needs of children and their parents. Such cooperation between an early education facility, children, and their parents creates a solid base for implementing positive social change and making sure that all parties are satisfied with the outcomes of teaching and learning. Overall, advocating for access and equity does not have negative implications for children; on the other hand, it provides them with valuable knowledge about respecting cultural differences and using them as advantages for acquiring new skills. While early childhood educators feel pressure to be advocates for access and equity, all efforts that go towards facilitating positive social change will be worthwhile in the end. Strategies targeted at promoting inclusivity have been proven to have a long-term impact on children’s learning and development, so the sphere of early childhood education should not disregard the importance of equity or access and work with children and their parents to encourage positive social change in the community as a whole.
References
The anti-bias curriculum in a multicultural society. (2011). Web.
Lee, S. (2010). Reflect on your history: An early childhood education teacher examines her bias. Multicultural Education, 17(4), 25-30.
NAEYC. (2017). A call for excellence in early childhood education. Web.
O’Connell, M., Fox, S., Hinz, B., & Cole, H. (2016). Quality early education for all. Web.
teaching tolerance. (2017). Classroom culture. Web.
Thomas, K. (2013). Equity in early childhood education. Web.
UNICEF. (2010). Access and equity. Web.
Wolpert, E. (n.d.). Redefining the norm: Early childhood anti-bias strategies. Web.