Multiculturalism In Early Childhood Education

It is crucial for educators to value, understand and incorporate every child’s cultural diversity in the classroom (The Early Years Learning Framework Professional Learning Program, 2011). This means educators needs to deal with any bias beliefs they might/may hold. For example, some children might not participate in the classroom because

It is important and beneficial to value and promote cultural diversity in your work with children because people come from all walks of life, we are now a multicultural society and even though we are a catholic school we have children who are not catholic in our classes. we have celebrated Chinese new year and the children in reception tried Chinese food, and we have just celebrated Judaism week where the children in year4/5 were taught about and made a

Equality does not mean treating all learners the same (Turner, Whiting, 2014). Both the teacher and the learners must appreciate that every learner is different but has the same rights and this should be in the classroom ground rules decided at the beginning of the course or discussed at the beginning of the course. Valuing diversity is all about valuing the differences between learners (Turner, Whiting, 2014) whether it be religion, culture, age, experience or something else. There are several ways to value diversity in my field. Almost every lesson i put up a map on the board of country where the animal the student is learning about from and have a discussion with the class about the country and the part of the world and whether anyone is from there or has visited there allowing learners to value the diversity between them.

Reading through the few definitions of cultural competence in the attachment really spoke to me in regards to how to practically keep an environment that is accepting of diversity. What I really took from it is that we must have the capacity to do a cultural self-assessment. Sometimes it is easy to think we are loving and accepting of differences, but really thinking about how we treat people with differences will show the truth. We will have children in our classes that just act a little differently from the average. Frustration is an easy response, but remembering that this could just be a culture difference is so important. Once recognized, we can find out what the child needs. It might be a different need from the majority of the

Cultural tendencies have a huge impact on the way children tend to participate in educational activities. The ethnicity of a child may change the way that teacher view a child. Suppose you had an Asian child in previous years who was quiet and reserved. You get a new child, you expect this one to be the same way, but he is not. We as teachers have to learn that each child is their own individual self, and they do not act the same way, no matter what race, gender, or social status they are.

You always want children to feel accepted and loved no matter who they are and where they came from. Children may come from all different ethnic backgrounds, but their all equal. As teachers we need to make sure the environment for the children is safe, positive, and they feel comfortable. Also, making the environment comfortable for families to show them that we respect diversity and that it’s taught thorough the classrooms.

Teachers must learn about their student’s cultures if they want to educate them to the best of their ability. Many of the students in culturally diverse classrooms will want to learn in different ways. Some will want to learn in pairs, groups, as a class, or just alone. If the teacher is educated in their culture then lessons can be adjusted to appeal to every student as much as possible instead of forcing some to forget about their culture and learn like others. Students from

An increased awareness of the implications of quality experiences in the early years has resulted in a growing interest in early childhood education. Subsequently, this has generated an interest in differing examples of early childhood curriculums. The following essay will critique the international approach, Te Whãriki and compare the New Zealand educational system to the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum of the United Kingdom. The essay will include reflection upon the similarities and differences of these approaches upon my settings practice.

And, although preschool administrators have a desire to begin increasing the amount of multicultural materials in the center as well as train the staff on ways to incorporate a child’s culture into the learning environment, it has been found that teaching practices are notoriously slow to change (Hooven & et al., 2018). By conducting literature research, examining the current practices at Kiddie Academy, and meeting with the center’s staff, it is hoped that new and innovative ways to celebrate diversity will be found and agreed upon by staff members. Since collaboration is crucial to the implementation of anti-bias curriculum in order for students to learn about their own culture and those of people who are different from them, communicating the results of the study will increase the chances of finding additional ways to up productivity, provides access to new sources of information, present opportunities to learn and go beyond traditional ways of thinking, problem solving, and forming partnerships as teachers and administrators begin to see positive results from the trainings, acknowledgement and celebration of diversity, and anti-bias curriculum being put into action. It is critical for early childhood teachers to promote culturally inclusive classrooms and experiences and provide learning materials and other resources that help children develop a greater appreciation of

Overcoming stereotyping is a challenge educators can encounter when it comes to ensuring that teaching strategies are appropriate for culturally diverse children. Some educators may compare one child to another child that comes from the same cultural background and use the same teaching strategy. One way to overcome this is to make sure that educators know each of the students individually instead of comparing one to another or relying on stereotyping. “To truly engage students, we must reach out to them in ways that are culturally and linguistically responsive and appropriate, and we must examine the cultural assumptions and stereotypes we bring into the classroom that may hinder interconnectedness.” (Teaching Tolerance, 1991) Once they know more about each of the students then they can avoid stereotyping and adjust their teaching strategy to meet the individual needs of the students in the classroom.

With the influx of multicultural migration, the need for a teaching component is essential. A multicultural classroom gives every student the opportunities to reach his or her potential. It allows students to understand and appreciate their own culture, while recognizing its resemblances and to other cultures.

I have attached my resume for you to be working in your classroom. I am attending Bowling Green State University, and I am in the Inclusive Early Childhood Education program. I would like to develop my teaching skills while assisting you in creating a challenging and fun learning environment for the students as well as ourselves. Being in the IEC program I am looking to be able to teach pre- k to 3rd grade. First to third grade is particularly appealing to me because students are starting to learn more of the basics and understandings of school.

An inclusive practice is an important aspect to early childhood centers but can often be hard to achieve due to factors such as funding and limited resources. As well determining how inclusive a center is and how to best support challenges center face in becoming more inclusive can be difficult. Through the use of tools like the SpeciaLink Early Childhood: Inclusion Quality Scale early childhood educators can systematically and careful rate their inclusion levels and build plans to address concerns or areas for improvement.

While completing coursework at CSUMB for the Liberal Studies program, the researcher was inspired by its classes to be a Diversity and Multicultural Scholar and a Social Justice Collaborator. By evaluating their own and others’ experiences as influenced by social identities, socialization practices, and societal institutions from both historical and contemporary perspectives it helped the researcher open their eyes in how they want to be in their classroom as an educator. In the researchers LS 380: Teaching for Social Change, LS 394: Multicultural literature , and LS 398: Social Foundations of Multicultural Education classes, the researcher critically examined the value of diversity and multiculturalism which interested her in the teaching

When the educators were asked to provide any additional comment on this topic, three of the educators did not provide any comment and other two educators provided some comments. These comments included emphasising the importance of cultural inclusion in Australian early childhood education setting (Appendix 9) and how the communication difficulty with CALD parents are linked to children's school readiness and transition to school challenges (Appendix 8).