Creating Affirming Enviroments
“All childcare environments,
including family child care homes, can provide excellent anti-bias materials” (Laureate
Education, 2011) .
A culturally appropriate environment reflects the families enrolled. An
essential component of anti-bias education is to respectfully acknowledge and
support all of the children’s families to help children develop a positive
sense of self. Providing materials that represent the families and children
such as posters, dramatic play props, books, and other play accessories
depicting varying abilities will be available to the children (Edwards,
2010) .
Exposing children to unbiased information regarding various life experiences of
other cultures, diverse groups, builds their awareness of differences.
Including photos of families and children engaged in
various activities relevant to their daily lives, also photos of other cultures will be included
to expose the children to diverse groups an d their daily lives (Edwards,
2010) .
Creating a space for parent to keep abreast of center activities is another aspect
of a culturally inclusive environment. The family child care home provider, Adriana
Castillo talks about the schedule of activities she displays for families. This
is an excellent communication tool to promote family involvement (Laureate
Education, 2011) .
Family childcare is like a second home to children and fosters community among
families (Edwards, 2010) . Additional method of
communication include, newsletters, social media, face-to face conversations,
and telephone calls (Three, 2012) . A short impromptu
message about the child’s day can help build and/or strengthen the relationship
with families.
A comment form Adriana,
“Keep going, and never do this by themselves. Because always we have good
people around us, and the resources that we can receive” (Laureate Education, 2011) , really inspired me.
We do not have to do this work alone. As Adriana stated, there are many good people
around us, and together we can create a community of caring learners. Working
with others to build relationships between educators, families and children is
a collaboration.
References:
Edwards, L. D.-S. (2010). Anti-bias education for
young children and ourselves. Washington: National Association for the
Education of Young Children (NAEYC).
Laureate Education, I. (2011). Welcome to an
anti-bias learnig community. Retrieved from
http://cdnfiles.laureate.net/2dett4d/managed/WAL/EDUC/6358/02/WAL_EDUC6358_02_A_EN.pdf
Three, Z. t. (2012). Effective communicationwith
parents. Retrieved from ZERO TO THREE:
http://www.zerotothree.org/early-care-education/family-friend-neighbor-care/effective-communication-with-parents.html
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