Developing Anti-Bias Strategies - a Second Language as a Challenge That Must Be Addressed - Coursework Example

Develop anti-bias strategies Introduction Currently, there are increasing cases of biases in schools. For this reason, various stakeholders are calling for the incorporation of multicultural education at all levels of the school curriculum. There are several varying definitions of multicultural education. There are several varying definitions of multicultural education. Today’s classrooms especially those located in developed countries are culturally diverse. According to MacNaughton & Hughes (2007), cultural diversity is the difference in language, beliefs, values, and customs of people from different cultural backgrounds. A culturally responsive classroom is the one that specifically acknowledges the diversity of other students in a way that pupils can find relevant connections that exist among them and the tasks they are required to perform by the teacher. A teacher can make their classroom as culturally responsive as possible by encouraging a sense of well-being for all pupils. This paper discusses various ways that a teacher can employ to promote cultural relevance in the classroom environment. It presents specific ways in which a teacher can touch his/her students’ social and emotional persona. Different children from different cultural backgrounds may exhibit possible feelings of alienation and struggles with their identity development. Teachers who lack cultural competence experience a lot of problems especially when dealing with behavior issues. Several strategies can be used to cultivate an unbiased classroom environment. This paper regards an unbiased classroom environment as an environment where teachers and children have developed an understanding of and respected diversity of cultures and religions. Maintaining a culturally relevant and anti-bias program in the classroom setting One may assume that children in an early childhood classroom are not aware of their culture. However, research conducted by Van der Merwe (2000) revealed that children become aware of their skin color, color, and language disability at an early age. In support of this, cognitive psychologists have established that the earliest schemas that people invoke when they are categorizing other people are the race, gender, physical appearance, and disability. For this reason, it is important to address bias issues from early stages of education. The creation of anti-bias classrooms respects diversity. The main aim of the anti-bias classroom is to develop the children intellectually, emotionally, socially, physically, and morally. A teacher should ensure that she uses different strategies that ensure that she accords equal attention to all pupils. These strategies help to eliminate personal biases. For example, during a participative lesson, the teacher can write all her students’ names on Popsicle sticks and pull the popsicle sticks when eliciting responses from the pupils. This strategy ensures that all the children are engaged because they will not know who the ‘teacher’s pick’ will fall on. In addition to ensuring equal participation, the children learn the art of paying attention. In addition, the teacher should let her pupils know that, the failure to get involved in one activity does not mean they will not get involved in the next activity. The classroom activities should be appropriate for the children’s age while at the same time stimulating and exciting. The teacher should also ensure that she uses many different culturally and racially relevant names in her examples, or in storytelling. The teacher could try using the names of the children in her classroom. Another strategy that a teacher can use in her classroom setting is to display pictures and photos of different races and cultures in her classroom. In matters discipline, the teacher should lay down a uniform set of consequences for indiscipline cases. This will ensure that children from some races and cultures will not feel that they have been disciplined unfairly. However, punishment in an early childhood classroom should be minimized, and the teacher should be fair with consequences by relating it to the offense. Planning an unbiased early childhood classroom setting There are two important principles that EC teachers must consider. These principles are play opportunities to enable learners to have cognitive, emotional, and social development, and to enhance school readiness. The unbiased classroom environment should not only have pretty pictures and bulletin boards, but it should have a non-judgmental outlook as it accommodates different ethnicities. In organizing such an environment, the physical appearance must show appreciation of racial, cultural, and ethnic differences. The setting and materials used in the classroom strongly influences the learner’s play. The physical appearance should be attractive. Teacher-learner collaboration is also important because it provides the learners with a model of collaboration. There are some examples of activities that the teacher can employ in the classroom such as: Information Gap Activities In such an activity learners are grouped into 3 to 4 learners where each of these learners has some information that the others in the group need in order to complete that specific task. In order to get the missing information, the learner must as each other questions. This activity promotes communication within the group. Jigsaw Listening activities allow the learner to listen to some information in English and convey that information to someone else. Other activities are role plays in order to help the learners to use language frequently and question and answer game. Teachers can be helped with ways of dealing with multicultural issues during pre-service training. According to Brownlee, Boulton-Lewis &Berthelsen (2008), pre-service training can go a long way into equipping the teachers with skills to handle and critique existing bias. In school, the management should facilitate cooperation between teachers, learners, and their parents to ensure that the teacher understands the learner’s culture from the parent. The communication between the school and the family is vital in motivating both the teacher and the child. The classroom space should accommodate such things such as fantasy play area, toys and games area, discovery table, creative art area, and the block area. Fantasy area items include clothes and objects that represent all races in that particular classroom should be there. Multiracial dolls, shoes, mats, hats, belts and scarves should also be on display. The book area should have picture books that display people and items from different cultures. The block area can have the display of posters and buildings and environments that represent multiculturalism. Diversity should also be manifest in games. Children can learn the art of sorting, matching, comparing, and fitting blocks of wood and plastics together. Creative Arts Area Creativity helps children to develop their decision-making skills. Some of the activities in the creative art area include the use color and paste, tearing and cutting papers to produce different shapes of items and people. Through artworks, children reflect different ideas concerning their cultural backgrounds. The items in this area include collage materials from different races, marker, craft papers, feathers, red clay, and gourds among many others. The list of items is endless. The Discovery Table The range of objects on the discovery table should be unlimited because they stimulate children of all races. Different items from different races help learners to find out about their cultures and those of others in the same classroom. An emphasis can particularly be placed on music and movement. In the discovery area, songs from different races encourage and promote cooperation. Principles and strategies ESL students Teachers in an early childhood classroom should have a comprehensive plan that takes into consideration the issue of second language so that the learners can interpret the message as intended. English language has become a common tool for teaching. A challenge arises where the teacher has to create an unbiased classroom in a class where learners have different mother tongues. Language is the vehicle that takes learners to their culture, their world, and themselves. In the light of this argument, an ESL teacher may encounter a challenge in creating an unbiased classroom environment. The starting point for English learning may be the use of nonlinguistic materials such as toys and pictures. Second language is both a challenge as well as a reality that must addressed. According to Goduka (1998), English is perceived as a language of power worldwide, and most people view it as an asset. Students who communicate through other languages in school are often viewed as having a problem that needs to be addressed. For this reason, English language is used in both the social dimension as well as the academic dimension. Controlling the classroom environment to enhance culturally relevant learning According to Kernan (2010), there have been increasing calls for early childhood teachers to provide spaces that are respectful, inclusive, and inspiring to their pupils. The teachers can initiate cooperation in the classroom in order to enable the learners to help one another. Cooperative learning can involve paring of students in groups for completion of tasks such as arranging blocks, paring of similar objects or numbers, and singing. Cooperative settings ensure that the learners are helping each other because the outcome of an individual learner depends on group’s cooperativeness. In addition, learners who often participate in cooperative groups tend to perceive each other as equal. References Brownlee, J., Boulton-Lewis, G. &Berthelsen, D. (2008). Epistemological Beliefs in Child Care: Implications for Vocational Education. British Journal of Educational Psychology. Vol. 78 (3), pp 457-471. Goduka, J. (1998). Linguistic and Cultural Diversity: Implications for Learning Education and Curricula Transformation. South African Journal of Higher Education. Vol. 12 (1), pp. 33-43. Kernan, M. (2010).Space and Place as Source of Belonging and Participation in Urban Environments: Considering the Role of Early Childhood Education and Care Settings. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal. Vol. 18 (2), pp. 199-213. MacNaughton, G. & Hughes, P. (2007). Teaching Respect for Cultural Diversity in Australian Early Childhood Programs: A challenge for Professional Learning. Journal of Early Childhood Research. Vol. 5 (2), pp. 189-204. Van der Merwe, D. (2000). Multicultural Education: Panacea to Racism in the 21st Century? Education Practice. Vol. 4, pp. 28-34. Annotated Bibliography: Picture Books Brown, T. (2010). Around our Way on Neighbors’ Day. New York: Harry N. Abrams. Brown introduces the readers to joyful neighbors who gather on a hot summer day for a block party. The book portrays children playing double Dutch, men in barber shops, mothers cooking, as jazz music is played on the streets. Cooper, F. (2013). Max and the Tag-Along Moon. London: Puffin Books. Through the use of the moon as their special sign of connection and love, grandfather and grandson express their connection. The grandson is always assured of his grandfather’s love through observing the moon. The artworks in this book are realistic and beautiful. Cooper uses this 32 pages book to assure children that there is presence of love around them at all times. Hudson, C. (2010). My Friend Maya Loves to Dance. New York: Abrams Books for Young Readers. Hudson displays pictures and photos in vibrant colors and motion. This is a rhythmic picture book that can indulge all children in the classroom in a dancing activity. Heelan, J. (2000). Rolling Along: The Story of Taylor and His Wheelchair. Chicago: The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago Learning Book Series. In this amazing picture book, Heelan introduces the readers to Taylor, who has cerebral palsy and Tyler who does not have any disability. Taylor openly talks about his determination to live just like any other person without a disability. The book comprises of a combination of beautiful drawings and photos. Meshon, A. (2013). Take me out to the Yakyu. New York: Simon and Schuster. This is a picture illustration about a little boy who loves ball games from two opposite sides of the world. Baseball is a pastime in America, but in Japan it has a cultural attachment. The children will find the pictures large and enjoyable. Nelson, M. (2009).Beautiful Ballerina. New York: Scholastic Press. Through pictures and photographs, Nelson highlights the resilience of African American ballet dancers of different ages. This book shows the children that arts is not exclusive to one race and culture. Pak. S. (2001). Dear Juno. Iowa: Perfection Learning. Pak introduces us to Juno, a Korean-American boy who cannot read a letter from his grandmother but can understand the message from the photographs and dried flowers enclosed in the envelop. He replies the letter through the use of photographs and pictures. Strom, M. (2002).Rainbow Joe and Me. New York: Turtleback Books. Strom introduces the readers to a young artist named Eloise, who her love is mixing colors. She tells Rainbow Joe, who is blind how she mixes red and blue to make monkeys among other mixing of colors. Rainbow Joe is blind, but he tells Eloise that he can imagine colors. Torres, L. (1998). Liliana’s Grandmother. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux. Liliana has two grandmothers from two different backgrounds. One of her grandmothers lives in an urban area while the other one lives in the rural area. Her two grandmothers do things differently, but Liliana adores both of them. Whitman, A. (1986). Our Teachers in a Wheelchair. Michigan. University of Michigan Press. In this 32 pages book, Whitman uses texts and photos to depict the life of Brian Hanson, who was injured in a sports game. The injuries caused paralysis and Hanson ends up in a wheelchair. Despite being in a wheel chair Hanson is able to teach all types of skills to his nursery school learners. The photo essay is captivating because it is a display of people in their real life situations. Read More