Thursday, July 24, 2014
Promoting Cultural Classrooms
Use the handout posted on Bb on Promoting Cultural Classrooms and share an area that you feel you do well in and an area for growth. Talk about what you plan to do to address your area of growth. If you are not currently in a classroom, speak from prior experiences in a classroom.
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My strengths are the materials and books I have in my classroom. We do a nice job of making sure that we represent a lot of cultures with dolls, art work, books, music, and materials. What I need to work on is getting more families involved and sharing in the classroom. At every initial home visit we tell parents that they are encouraged to come in and volunteer and that we would love for them to share from their families traditions and culture. They almost always decline. I think that part of this is due to the fact that I work for Head Start and my program chooses not to celebrate holidays. I think that families would be more comfortable coming in to do holiday traditions. Years ago I had a child in my classroom who's mother belonged to a Native American woman's drumming circle. She came in often and did a lot with the kids. But I think that this was due to the fact that she was used to performing and was passionate about her culture and her heritage. In the fall I will be moving into another position where I will be doing more home visits and I think that this will give me more opportunities to get parents more involved and into the classroom.
ReplyDeleteFrom my past experience the preschool I worked at did an amazing job at making sure that we had several different cultures shown around the classroom. We had multicultural books, dolls, paint, posters and much more in the classroom at all times. One are that I feel needed help was having the families more involved. There were certain holidays that we would talk and learn about and around Christmas time we would have some families come in and share their traditions. I think this was a hard area for families to participate in because in this day and age almost all the parents we had would be a two working family. That makes it hard for families to be involved when they need to work in order to provide preschool for their child. That being said the families that we did have come in would teach the children a lot about their families traditions and it was nice for the children to learn about how their friends celebrate.
ReplyDeleteFor me the places that i need to work on would be to learn more about different cultures so I can then understand and be as supportive as i can to all families. We mostly have children and families that fit in the same cultural background, but we have had children in the past whom didn’t and for me supporting them so they feel just as happy, safe, and respected in the classroom is so important. I did lots of research with my team so that we could support them as best as we could. Sometimes thought I felt as if I just didn’t understand. I want every parents and child to feel like they are herd but it is so hard with a language barrier or a cultural barrier that you don't know anything about. That is why I think for me working on building a better understanding of different cultures and language would be so beneficial in my work so that I can support every family that comes thru the doors for me classroom.
ReplyDeleteBeing from another culture myself, I'm able to understand other traditions and cultures. By all mean, I think I would be okay when it coms for displaying culturally appropriate materials in the classroom as well as selecting basic culture appropriate books. I feel that, this would be an area of strength for me once I start to work in a classroom. One area that I strongly need to work on is parents communication/involvement. When completing the promoting Cultural Classroom Worksheet I learned that parents communication and involvement was an area that I need some intense work on. So as I begin working in a classroom I would work my hardest to overcome this problem.
ReplyDeleteIn the classroom I work in we do a good job with representing different cultures and exposing the children through multi-cultural books, dolls, dramatic play foods and dress-up clothes along with different types of posters hung in the classroom. Around the holidays we have the children make a college and share their family traditions. Where I work there is no variation of culture, just some different family traditions to talk about. I feel an area of growth we need to work on as a class would be to have guess speakers come in and talk about their culture that is different whether it be about their food or musical instruments, I feel this experience and exposure would be very beneficial for the children and open their minds to different concepts and possibilities.
ReplyDeleteThis was difficult for me to do because the self-assessment is really directed toward people who are regularly in a classroom or center with children and I am not yet doing that. Thinking about my personality and skills helped me to decide where I may have strengths or weaknesses in the future. I think one of my weaknesses would be trying to make sure that I read culturally diverse books and make sure the other materials in my classroom are culturally diverse. I did not grow up in a diverse area so it is something I have very little experience with and I often do not even think about it kind of like the saying "out of sight out of mind". I am going to try to start collecting books and posters for my future classroom that are culturally diverse because that will help me make sure I include it even though I forget sometimes because the area I live is not very diverse. I think a strength I have is in the area of values and attitudes. I grew up in a very accepting family and I never really paid attention to differences in race or anything because people are just people. I think this will help me instill good values in my students and make differences a positive thing instead of negative.
ReplyDeleteI think that my classroom does a great job of including multiple cultures within our classroom environment. We always have culturally diverse dolls, community people, dramatic play clothing and food, and books. However, we have not encountered families since I started working there about 2 years ago, who speak other languages and practice significantly unique cultural ways. I know that myself and the other teachers in our room would be completely welcoming to these families and would try our best to accommodate to their cultural differences, whether it be language or beliefs.
ReplyDeleteIn the past when I had my own preschool classroom I believe my strengths were in displaying multiple cultures in the environment. My classroom included books, diverse dolls, and we always tried new foods from various cultures from the various families. We also discussed multiple holidays that various cultures celebrated. I also thing I did a great job making sure to send home notices in each families language. We had a few Spanish speaking families that needed the memos translated. I think something I struggled with was learning key words for the children in my classroom whom spoke different languages. I think a little more effort could have been made in that area. I'm not currently in a classroom now but I have had many experiences in classrooms representing multiple cultures.
ReplyDeleteAs an ELL teacher, I have always respected different cultures and I made families feel welcomed in our classroom. Last year, I added books from different cultures to the classroom, I labeled children's names in their native languages, I made welcome signs in different languages, and I asked families to donate their native language's alphabet book to the classroom. What I found challenging was to involve families of other cultures in our classroom. For instance, to make sure all the ELL families knew there was an event in the classroom, I would call them with an interpreter to explain the details and ask them to join us in the classroom. Six out of eight ELL parents would confirm they would come to the event but we would end up with two ELL parents in the classroom. At my follow up phone calls, they always complained about transportations and appointments. This year, I am planning to add music of different cultures in our classroom to see if it helps us connect and I would love to reach out families for their holidays if my program gives me the permission.
ReplyDeleteLast year was my first experience working in a classroom with ELL children and I think I did a great job assimilating and becoming knowledgable about the different cultures and languages present in my classroom. I was the teacher using the iPad to translate to children during tough transitions, translating fliers, talking to parents using the language line and making picture schedules for those children who I thought would benefit from, and I found myself doing research about the different countries. Using gestures and making visual aids became my specialty throughout the school year. As the assistant teacher I also switched out much of the material in the math/manipulative, puzzle, writing and art area. Working at a large organization, I became resourceful of the people around me and always stayed positive with a smile. At the end of a “tough” day my co-workers and I could just laugh, learn from it and move on.I could not express how much the families and children taught me. I am so lucky to have had this experience, and I can not wait for this year to start. I look forward to implementing effective strategies I have learned through doing my research paper, and it is my personal goal to spruce up, and pay more attention to the cultural aspect of our classroom environment.
ReplyDeleteSome of the areas that I am stronger in would include; playing a variety of music and introducing musical from many cultures; ensuring that table top toys and other play accessories are representative of the various cultural and ethnic groups both within my community and the society in general; ensuring that book/literacy area has pictures and stories that reflect different cultures of children and families. I am fortunate enough to be at a program that does not have a tight budget so we have an extensive supply of materials and culturally diverse materials, and if there is anything that I request, I can usually have it within a week.
ReplyDeleteSome of the areas that I could work on would be; providing opportunities for children and their families to create their own books and include them among the resources and materials in the program, encourage and provide families an opportunity to share experiences through storytelling, puppets, or other props to support “oral tradition” common among many cultures. Some of the areas that I have no control over would be organizing any type of field trips outside of the center or introducing any media into the classroom. At the moment both are strictly forbidden.
In order to ensure that my classroom resembles a culturally diverse environment, I plan to have parents and families first assist in making a book for the classroom, and from there, communicating with them and hoping to gain more information about their backgrounds and hoping to have them share any stories they feel comfortable with. I talked with our cook about introducing foods that are unique to the cultural and ethnic backgrounds of the children served within the program, along with providing opportunities for children to cook or sample a variety of foods that are typically served by different cultural and ethnic groups other than their own. She was more than happy to sit down with me to research some of the meals that are common in India and Czech and some other places around the world.
As I looked through the checklist, an area that I felt I needed to accrue more experience in was in providing opportunities for children and their families to create their own books and include them among the resources and materials in my early childhood program or setting. Although I do use books that reflect the children’s diverse heritages and which celebrate the range of humanity, I have never asked a family to create a book that illustrates their particular heritage.
ReplyDeleteI am good at not imposing values that may conflict or be inconsistent with those of cultures or ethnic groups other than my own. Perhaps this is because as an international student and a person who is in another country, I am especially sensitive to the importance of being respectful and inclusive of other cultures.
On the walls in my classroom we have pictures up of different cultures and people from all over the world. We also have books on our book shelf that are multi-cultural. In the fall I am moving into a preschool classroom so I am excited to get different cultures into our classroom and incorporate different cultures in activities. I would like to get families involved and have them share their culture with the classroom.
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