Thank you

One hope from the families and children I work with is that they know I respect them, their home culture, and what they all bring to the classroom.  I hope they know I value their experiences and am always willing to learn and grow myself. 

One goal I have for the early childhood field is to find equity for all families to be able to find high quality preschool and daycare at a reasonable expense.  

I do want to take the time to say Thank you to all of you! Your personal stories and examples helped me to understand the material better and also to get to know you! Best wishes in your final courses and I hope to get to work with you again!

Thanks,

Danielle

seeing Diversity; a poem

This class has really challenged me to evaluate myself and my personal biases. It has also allowed me to open my mind and look at all things from a different perspective.  I have always loved this poem and I think it really applies for this class. 

The Hundred Languages of Childhood

The child

is made of one hundred.

The child has

A hundred languages

A hundred hands

A hundred thoughts

A hundred ways of thinking

Of playing, of speaking.

A hundred always a hundred

Ways of listening of marveling of loving

A hundred joys

For singing and understanding

A hundred worlds

To discover

A hundred worlds

To invent

A hundred worlds

To dream

The child has

A hundred languages

(and a hundred hundred hundred more)

But they steal ninety-nine.

The school and the culture

Separate the head from the body.

They tell the child;

To think without hands

To do without head

To listen and not to speak

To understand without joy

To love and to marvel

Only at Easter and Christmas

They tell the child:

To discover the world already there

And of the hundred

They steal ninety-nine.

They tell the child:

That work and play

Reality and fantasy

Science and imagination

Sky and earth

Reason and dream

Are things

That do not belong together

And thus they tell the child

That the hundred is not there

The child says: NO WAY the hundred is there--

-Loris Malaguzzi

Founder of the Reggio Approach

http://www.reggiokids.com/the_hundred_languages_of_children.html 

In reflecting on this poem, I would love to say that I have given every child their hundred, but I have not.  I have learned that children are innocent and learn what they are told and shown, so show them patience, kindness, right and wrong, love, and how the world should operate.  Create your classroom (and personal life) to reflect a place of openness – full of diversity of cultures, abilities, ages, classes, genders, religions etc.  Answer their questions factually and not with what you believe. Give children the opportunity to think and speak for themselves but guide them when they veer toward a way that is hurtful or closed. 

Thank you for all of your support and guidance!

Danielle

The things Children say...

Hello all! We are in the middle of a blizzard here in Northern Michigan! I hope you are all staying warm - it is too dangerous for us to venture outside so I spent this Valentine's Day with my three loves - my husband, my son, and my daughter! We made cookies and homemade pizza :)

 

Just a few weeks ago, one of the students in my class asked why another students “eye was so weird.” The student has a birth defect in which one eye is almost never open.  I forget the actual diagnosis but it looks like a lazy eye but only worse…  At the time I responded with “N, How did that make you feel?” N replied that it hurt his feelings and made him sad.  I turned to the child who questioned and asked her how she would feel is someone asked her why her hair/nose/ears were weird and how she would feel.  She said bad and kind of dropped it. Because it made “N” uncomfortable I let it be at the time.  Later in the day, when the questioning child and I were alone, I told her that everyone looks different.  We talked about how I have freckles and she doesn’t and how she has green eyes and mine are blue.  I told her that each person is special because we are all different and unique.  She hasn’t brought it up since then.  

I hope the message communicated was that everyone looks different and that is what makes us each special… 

An anti-bias educator might have used the moment to do the entire lesson/teachable moment for the entire class.  He/she could have done a small group on what makes each of us unique. How are we similar, how are we different? Is it ok to be different? How does it make us feel when others talk about us? 

I guess I wasn’t fully prepared to deal with the situation.  “N” and “A” have been in the classroom together all year and no one has said anything.  I would have expected it at the beginning of the year and not now.