Over the last few weeks, as I have read the course materials and heard the stories of my fellow learners, my awareness and understanding of the personal side of bias, prejudice, and oppression.  I now have more resources to help raise awareness in others in my sphere of influence.  

Hopes

I hope for a world in which children can experience life surrounded by care-givers and peers who work to enact the Children's Covenant of Honor and head the "Nine Principles of Child Honoring" (The Covenant, 2019):

 

Raffi's Covenant for Honouring Children

We find these joys to be self-evident: That all children are created whole, endowed with innate intelligence, with dignity and wonder, worthy of respect. The embodiment of life, liberty and happiness, children are original blessings, here to learn their own song. Every girl and boy is entitled to love, to dream and belong to a loving “village.” And to pursue a life of purpose.

We affirm our duty to nourish and nurture the young, to honour their caring ideals as the heart of being human. To recognize the early years as the foundation of life, and to cherish the contribution of young children to human evolution.

We commit ourselves to peaceful ways and vow to keep from harm or neglect these, our most vulnerable citizens. As guardians of their prosperity we honour the bountiful Earth whose diversity sustains us. Thus we pledge our love for generations to come (The Covenant, 2019).

Goals

My goals going forward are to-

1.     Lead staff and children in my school through diversity appreciation and bias awareness exercises;

2.      Set up weekly assemblies in which children learn about individuals who have taken affirmative action to improve the lives of others facing oppression, bias and inequity; and,

3.     Encourage and support students to take action to do what they can themselves to relieve the oppression and inequity in the world.

Thanks

Many thanks to my professor and fellow learners who have been so transparent in sharing their stories, their experience, their questions, and their wisdom. They have all encouraged me to reflect more deeply on my own thoughts and understandings and helped me grow so much.

 

References

The Covenant. (2019, February 06). Retrieved August 17, 2020, from https://raffifoundation.org/child/the-covenant/

Welcoming Families from Around the World

 

I frequently find myself in the scenario of having the privilege of welcoming a child from a country and culture of which I know almost nothing.  In the past, I have inadvertently bulldozed over students' and families' cultural sensitivities until I was forcibly awakened to the fact that different cultures actually have different perspectives. When we began admitting many Korean families into our international school and conflict over handling of several discipline and interpersonal incidents began to increase, the school board sent me and another administrator to Korea to participate in a special Korean cultural exchange program.  The experience was phenomenal. Gently and gracefully, we were introduced to Korean values, age posturing, history, and culture.  It revolutionized the way I interacted with members of the Korean community and gave me a strong empathy for their perspectives.

In their book, Anti-bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves (Derman-Sparks, Edwards, & Goins, 2020), the authors advise,

                When you honor all children’s cultural identities and incorporate them into the

daily life of your program, children come to understand that they are safe and welcome—just

 the way they are. When you value cultural differences while

appreciating the similarities everyone shares as human beings, you create a

foundation for children to thrive in a culturally complex world. To effectively

support children’s and families’ cultural identities, teachers need to strengthen

their understanding of the characteristics of culture (p.116).

With this in mind, if a new student was coming into my kindergarten from a country I was not familiar with, such as Kurdistan, I would immediately do a search online to find any information about the type of government, current political situation, some history, and religion.  I would reach out to members of the community who have traveled to Kurdistan to ask them their understanding of cultural practices, taboos, appropriate greetings for every age posture, and inappropriate body language. I would prepare the staff with the information as well.  The school would already display the flags of every different nationality represented in the school, so we would gather the students to officially add another one and teach them how to say hello to the student in Kurdish so they could greet him when he arrived. Most importantly, before the child came to the school, I would sit with the family and try to explain how we greet people, what the expectations are for the parents regarding meetings, visiting, sending food, etc.  I would encourage the teacher to meet the family, greeting them with a hello in Kurdish. 

I would hope that this would open the soil of the hearts of the current students and the incoming student for a healthy friendship to bloom. I would hope the children and teachers would embrace the child as interesting and accept him instead of seeing him as different and reject him.  I hope it would help the new student to relax and feel comfortable in the learning space.

Derman-Sparks, L., Edwards, J. O., & Goins, C. (2020). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves. (2^nd ed.)  Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

As I was making my walk-through rounds in my role of principal, I stepped into a class of first graders sitting at the feet of their Arabic language teacher. She was telling them a story and engaging in class Q&A, calling on students who were raising their hands. Each time she posed a question,  most of the eager first graders would enthusiastically wave their hands in the air to answer. Among them was a sweet little boy from and African country.  As I watched, almost every child on the rug was given one or two chances to answer, all except him-even though he repeatedly raised his hand. It was almost as if he were invisible.  I was so upset for this young boy. 

I knew the teacher was kind and would never say that she had any prejudice, but in my years of living in the Middle East, I know that there exists a deep-seated, inherited bias against dark-skinned people. This is described by Chavez (2005) as internalized oppression. Individuals have so deeply and unconsciously absorbed prejudicial attitudes that they are unconscious of their actions. Historically, Arab peoples have held deep oppressive prejudices against people of African descent. In fact, the word for a black-skinned person is "slave". Discrimination is not seen as a social taboo, so conscious and unconscious prejudicial acts are committed with impunity (Al-Khamri, 2018).

The incident I described was a great inequity for the lovely little boy who wanted to participate in the learning and improve his language skills. The inequitable learning situation in which not all children have a chance to participate in the class is one I watch out for diligently. It is demotivating for the student and gives a subtle message to the other students that plants in the back of their heads; Johnny is not worthy of attention because of his ability or skin color. It enrages me for the child's sake. 

As a person in authority in school, I utilize the power I have to strongly address these inequities and make a change. In this case, I was able to kindly draw attention to the teacher's overlooking of the student and provide her with one or two strategies that would guarantee she would not fall into the same patterns through subconscious bias. I asked her not to call on anyone who had his hand raised, but rather use name sticks or tokens that the students had to use to talk to ensure that each student had an equal chance to participate in every lesson.   Thankfully, she was grateful for the insight and enthusiastically embraced the new equity strategy. It is not always that easy.

Keeping ahead of prejudice and oppression takes energy and vigilance to act when we see it. It takes courage and tact to open the eyes of those who are engaging in oppressive behaviors and gently show them the way forward.