“On the first day of school, my teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave each of us an English name and said that from thenceforth that was the name we would answer to in school.” – Nelson Mandela

 

“Your hair looks so pretty…”
“I want beads in my hair so my hair looks pretty too..”
“I like my hair.”

A few years ago, I was privy to a conversation where children discussed each other’s hair. The children with blond and brown hair were fascinated by the hair of an African American child. They caressed her hair gently, and said, “Your hair is different…”

Different isn’t something the world is comfortable with especially in the world of young children. It puts us into disequilibrium. Young children do say the “darndest” things, and before you can stop them, they’ve said, “Your eyes are funny..” or your skin is so dark…” A statement of that kind puts a parent or an educator into a tailspin because in our minds, that is so inappropriate. And so, without hesitation, many parents draw children’s attention to things that are “the SAME” just so the child no longer pays attention to those dreaded differences.

The reality, however is that children notice differences. And they should. According to Louise Derman – Sparks & Julie Olson Edwards, “Anti-bias education is needed because children live in a world that is not yet a place where all of them have equal opportunity to become all they could be.” We know children need to feel safe and secure in all their many identities, feel pride in their families, and feel at home in their early childhood programs. We also know that children need tools to navigate the complex issues of identity, diversity, prejudice, and power in their daily lives so that they may learn, thrive, and succeed.

https://www.naeyc.org/content/vision-anti-bias-education

Around a decade ago, I had a child come up to me, and touch my arm. She looked at me and asked, “Jayanti, why is your skin so black?” I wasn’t affronted in the least bit. The little three year old in front of me was making an observation, and she needed me to respond. So, here’s what I did. I got a palette with four colors of non-toxic paint: red, white, black and yellow.

We sat down at the table, and I asked her what color she thought her skin was, and without hesitation, she said, “white.” She I dabbed my forefinger into the white paint and began to rub the paint into her forearm. She looked surprised and exclaimed, “Oh, I’m not white.” So, through trial and error, we found her skin color, and it was a combination of the four colors in the palette. Then we proceeded to see if I indeed have black skin, and guess what, my skin color too was a combination of the same four colors of paint. My skin wasn’t black either!

  Creating our skin colors using the four colors of white, black, red and yellow paint

In the article, “Young Children’s Curiosity About Physical Differences Associated with Race: Shared Reading to Encourage Conversation,” authors, Kristen M. Kemple et al state, “Physical differences often associated with race and geographical origin include skin color, hair color and texture, aspects of facial structure, and eye color. These qualities of self and other are among those differences and similarities likely to be noticed earliest by children.” Babies as young as six months actually notice these differences, and at these young ages, remarking on these differences is merely developmental.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10643-014-0683-0

A young child looks through a book on the different hairstyles that people have

You can observe young infants who are fascinated by nostrils; they even try and poke their fingers in your eye! Authors, Kristen M. Kemple et al elaborate that “Young children notice and are curious about differences in skin color, hair texture, and facial features. Because these differences are salient, are accessible, and are of interest to young children they can serve as an effective starting point.” As we do with anything that children are curious about, we need to provide children with a healthy environment in which to grow and stay curious, and to make sure that there is a safe place for them to ask questions.

 

Young children attempt to understand how wheelchairs work, and how children can walk with crutches.

Children’s curiosity doesn’t only extend to skin color, hair and eyes. As they make sense of the world around them, children continue to ask questions, and through their play, explore different ideas. Many of these ideas often cause alarm bells to ring in our heads: “Why is he/she asking me THAT?’ It’s important to explore topics that children bring up, only to help them think through the ideas.

Exploring the idea of being a paper-bag princess: a child in a paper-bag dress

In today’s world, nothing comes up more often in a preschool classroom than the ideas of “killing bad guys.” I don’t have a problem with the “bad guys” concept- it’s with the “killing” that I do. Here’s how a conversation unfolded with a little boy about killing bad guys:

Two children were playing with play dough and plastic straws. Sure enough, the straws soon became guns and the two boys were shooting at each other. When they saw me observing them, one of them said, “Jayanti, these are guns to shoot the bad guys.” Rather than focusing on the “bad guys”, I asked them what guns do. “They kill.” What does kill mean?- “It means you die.” And what does that mean: Die means ” you can’t move and you close your eyes and you stay like that for a very long time. Then you go to heaven.” I asked, “Is that what you want to do to the “bad guys?” The little boy who made the gun glanced at the straw in his hand. He then looked at me and said, “No. I’ll make a cleaning machine to make the bad guy good.”

I made a trap to catch the bad guys!

To help understand the world they live in, young children often engage in some form of socio-dramatic play. The author of the book “Children understand the World Through Play “states that this play also offers young children a way to make sense of, and integrate confusing and overwhelming emotional experiences.” So rather than brush these awkward questions under the carpet, we need to be able to sit with children and have meaningful conversations with them so that they are better able to understand the world that they live in .

Louise Derman-Sparks writes, “Anti-bias curriculum is an approach to early childhood education that sets forth values-based principles and methodology in support of respecting and embracing differences and acting against bias and unfairness. Anti-bias teaching requires critical thinking and problem solving by both children and adults. ”

http://www.teachingforchange.org/teacher-resources/anti-bias-education

“We are pregnant. He’s having a bunny baby and I am going to have a puppy.”

So, now, more than ever, classrooms need to be filled with books that explore the problems and issues in the world. Here are my recent purchases about the refugee problem, the several marches that we are having and about war:

In her article, Kristen Kemple states, “It has been argued persuasively that if young children are not encouraged to be aware, and are denied opportunities to begin constructing and questioning their initial understandings about race, it is likely that they will develop the rudimentary attitudes of racism.”

So, borrow or buy good books on anti-bias topics, make yourself a nice cup of coffee (or tea!), and get ready to have some meaningful conversations with your children.

The time is NOW.