Reeve's Five Suggestions For Teaching Children About Prejudice

Discrimination and prejudice interfere with people’s rights to have access to equality of opportunity and hinder the promotion of diversity, and they should have no place in a children’s setting.

In the 19th century, Europe’s materials were beginning to run low. They first noticed the the opportunities for free labor in the form of slaves (until the slave trade was abolished in 1807), and then the huge number of resources that Africa had. After those discoveries, Europeans wanted to try and colonize, or takeover Africa. For a long time, Europeans were kept out of Africa due to their strong armies, unknown rivers, and different diseases. However, at a certain point Europeans were able to finally break down the barriers when they had taken enough able-bodied men from Africa, invented new technologies such as a steamboat, and found cures to different diseases that had heavily hurt Europeans in the past.

- is to encourage children we are all equal and the same. This is reading and learning about the different cultures in the world, including listening to different music where you can act, sing and dance along, reading different books in different languages, drawing pictures, playing different games and playing dress up with wearing different costumes from different cultures.

“The unemployment rate among blacks is about double among whites, as it has been for more than six decades” (Desilver). Some say that prejudice can still be seen in the modern world today. Prejudice is when a negative assumption is made about a person because they have a different opinion, race, or religion than others. In the modern world many people still have negative viewpoints towards people with no reasoning. Prejudice are not only seen today but also seen in 1933 in Maycomb, Alabama.

Imagine living in barracks, starved, then gassed because of your religion. Getting accused of raping someone because of your skin tone, then getting put in prison. Or getting spat upon because you’re a Jew. All of these things occurred at some point in history, and we are shown what this is like through novels, plays and book such as; “To Kill a Mockingbird”, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian”, “The Merchant of Venice”, and real world occurrences such as the Holocaust. Today I will be talking to you about the ways that prejudice is portrayed in all four of the novels, plays and historic time marks.

The setting needs to make children fully aware of the impact that discrimination has on others. In early care and education, the school follows an anti-bias curriculum this ensures that the end result is creating secure, respectful and mutual relationships that value diversity amongst other people. From an early age children and young people begin to build a sense of self, gender and racial identity. Practitioners need to develop children’s identities and self-esteem, help children to feel comfortable if they are different to others, create awareness of bias and stereotypes also provide children with the tools to react appropriately to bias. Anti-bias is an effective approach to the identification and challenging prejudicial and discriminatory practices in relationships between others. The following reasons are why anti-discriminatory are so important in the setting: It sets a good example, it creates and good and comfortable atmosphere, encourages children to see themselves and others as individuals, helps boost a child’s self-esteem, ensures equal opportunities for all children and makes sure that all children are included and nobody is every left

We are not born with prejudice; we learn prejudice from our family, community and society at large. These institutions influence how we view the world. Such prejudice is shown in the true story ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’, written by Harper Lee in 1960. To quote from this book, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb into his skin”. Referencing “To Kill A Mockingbird”, this essay explores prejudice using discourses of race and class.

Prejudice and discrimination can generate social and emotional tension amongst children and by not educating and teaching children the differences between other cultures and beliefs in a positive manner from an early age may lead to resentment and hostility in later life towards other cultures.

Prejudice was everywhere in the 1960s, and it’s still lurking in the shadows now. Although racism and sexism are less pronounced than they were before, they still exist today. People in the United States are not as far against prejudice as they like to think. Humanity has come far from openly discriminating against others and not being reprimanded, but there are still issues with racism, sexism, and other prejudices that make them sensitive topics.

Children and young people can experience prejudice and discrimination from their earliest social encounters with others. Prejudice is an unreasonable or unfair dislike or preconceived negative view of individuals belonging to a particular group. Discrimination is the bigoted behaviour of singling out a particular person or group for different treatment than the others. Both of these unacceptable responses usually arise as a result of ignorance of the benefits of diversity and a primal impulse of ‘group mentality’.

Racism isn’t hating someone because of their race. Prejudice is not a misconception of who a person is. Racism is being prejudiced because a person believes their race is superior; and, prejudice is a preconceived opinion not based on any prior experience. In other words, racism is when a person has a preconceived opinion about another person because they feel their race is superior. Racism and prejudice are probably two of the most talked about and controversial words 60 years ago and still today. When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat and Martin L. King marched on Selma they didn’t think we would still be in such a place today; we are in a place where people are not allowed to be themselves without facing judgment. This is the same prejudice and racism members of society face in schools, by students and educators which limits their ability to progress in a world full of competition and rise above what demographics say they are destined to become. As the great Charles Albert Tindley once said, “We Shall Overcome!”

Anti-bias education is important for young children because children begin to recognize differences early on in life. (Derman-Sparks) My current understanding of anti-bias education for young children is to teach the children how to accept diversity and respect the differences between each other. I believe an anti-bias education provides the children with the opportunity to gain a sense of self along with feeling reassurance with other differences. As a future educator of young children, I need to be mindful that children create their attitudes and identities through interactions related to different experiences, such as their bodies, cognitive developmental stage, and their social environment. (Derman-Sparks) The variety of biases that exist in the children’s world need to be addressed in order to teach the children how to think critically about fairness; therefore, the children can learn how to oppose the bias. (Derman-Sparks) Likewise, my views about anti-bias education have changed because of the innovative information presented to me. I knew an anti-bias curriculum was essential for young children, but I did not know how important it truly was. My views of an anti-bias education mainly focused on holidays because I knew it would not be appropriate to only celebrate the holidays from one culture or religion. My views about anti-bias education grew because I understand that the overall goals of an anti-bias education are to enable the children to think

Another way to provide education is through reading. Barnes & Nobles partnered with the Anti-Defamation League to produce several books including Hate Hurts: How Children Learn and Unlearn Prejudice and 101 Ways to Combat Prejudice that were designed to be educational resources for individuals to learn more about prejudices and diversity. Businesses and schools can include resources like these and diversity training to enhance their employees’ understanding of diversity. These methods can help improve understanding and encourage employees to develop a diversity

In any society, how we see ourselves and how others treat us depends on many factors. Race, ethnicity, and cultural background are identifiers of individuals. Most people have confronted prejudice based on these identifiers, either personally experiencing discrimination or knowing someone who has. Beyond ensuring organizational compliance with a country’s anti-discrimination laws, it is incumbent upon managers to support diversity in the workplace and to be culturally competent.

In today’s world, there are many social issues, like poverty, vandalism and unemployment. However, prejudice has become the most dramatic one. Prejudging people for their appearance is a common practice that humans perform. People are not only ridiculed for their color, but also by their religion, sex or age. Therefore, I consider that racism, ageism and sexism are the three major problems in our society and we need to cease them immediately. Much of our world’s history were based upon racism. In the 1600’s, white men used Africans as slaves and treated them as they were not human. "Colored" people were not even allowed to use the same drinking fountains as white people. Fortunately, in the last three decades, race