Course Competencies 1.

Integrate strategies that support diversity and anti-bias perspectives There are four goals for an anti-bias approach for all children across all different age groups. These can be used for adults and children but the focus is in classrooms today. We want children to develop strategies for challenging bias, and our style is to be direct about certain issues but the culture of the child and their family is to be indirect. We will face the challenges of navigating or negotiating between cultural differences. This will require us to be aware of diverse styles and the creative willingness to explore, develop, and support a variety of strategies. oal one ! "#urture the construction of a $nowledgeable, confident identity as an individual and as a member of multiple cultural groups %such as gender, race, ethnicity, or class&.' This means that creating an educational environment in which all children are able to li$e who they are without feeling that they are better than anyone else. This also enables children who are not of the dominant culture to develop the s$ills to wor$ within both their home and culture, also to discuss and problem solve issues that arise from difference between two children. oal two ! "(romote comfortable, empathic interaction with people from diverse bac$grounds.' This means guiding children)s developing understanding of difference in a way that fosters interest in sympathy with differences, rather that a fear or *udgment of it. This means helping children develop their s$ills to negotiate the day-to-day natural discomfit, tensions, problems, or conflicts. This really gets down to the point that children need to be able to adapt to differences, and getting children to respect and recogni+e the differences that all people share. oal three ! ",oster each child)s ability to recogni+e bias and in*ustice' This means creating conditions for children to develop $nowledge and s$ills to identify stereotypes, comments, and behaviors directed to one)s own or another child)s identity. Children need to $now that bias hurts other people. oal four ! "Cultivate each child)s ability to stand up, individually and others, against bias or in*ustice.' This means helping all children learn and practice different ways to act in bias expressed by other people or children. -ome of the classroom strategies for an anti-bias approach will help bring in many examples for children and their parents to notice and loo$ at. .n this action, it will help both parent and child to try to live an anti-bias life. Children need many different examples in a classroom to see that there are people and things they need to do to be antibias. ,irst, we need to have boo$s and commercially available materials for the children. We need to ma$e sure that these items are unbiased or anti-biased in the message that they give to the children. ive children times to discuss fairness and

models for unfairness, opportunities to analy+e bias and time to adapt or change stories to reflect more diverse or complex models. -econd, photographs can be used to show the different $inds of people, environments, and cultures that people live in. We want to be able to provide new information and different ways to adapt to different developments. Third, curriculum themes and learning experiences designed to counter bias. We need to integrate related bias into relevant to curriculum themes li$e languages and bath time for color baby dolls. #ext, changing character names in stories to gender-neutral names and not allowing the children to see the pictures of the story. We also want to ma$e sure to change stories so that they are not stereotypes. ,ifth, complicate simplistic thin$ing, which helps children to move beyond the rigidity of seeing things as purely good and evil based on certain visible characteristic. We need to use questions to help children to expand their thin$ing and opportunities for the following scenarios. -ixth and seventh, class meetings and family or community stories help the children discuss as a group different concerns and ideas that the children may have. /llow the children to tal$ about the experiences they have at home and in their environment. 0ight, problem-solving stories using role-playing, puppets, persona dolls, or drawings. Children create a persona doll or puppet story that reflects a situation relevant to an area of bias and illustrates a problem that children are able to tal$ about. ,ield trips, guests, word of the wee$ and stereotype or fact need to ma$e sure to expose anti-bias information. /lso, have the children decide between stereotypes and facts while you do some of these things. 1ias in popular media2 comparing stereotypes to reality needs to thin$ of specific forms of media that young children are exposed to complete anti-bias. This helps children to compare between reality and stereotypical images from various forms of media. 3astly, we loo$ at activism this involves ma$ing a list and following up on specific opportunities to act against unfairness in responses.