Creating Affirming Environments

For this week’s blog assignment, I have been given the task to imagine I have my very own Family Child Care Home.  I would first incorporate structure and independence building in a free play curriculum. I believe that although I am allowing the child to develop at his or her own speed that the child will be able to gain the knowledge and skills needed to flourish academically and developmentally.

In creating and opening my very own Family Child Care Home, I would like to service families with children six (6) weeks to four (4) years old. I would like the various age groups to stay together and have a very small class teacher to student ratio. I would first create an in-take process which will allow me to better get to know the families in which I will be servicing and also allow the families to express their views, concerns, and highlight their culture in a more intimate setting. I would love to work with families from all different kinds of cultural, religious, and ethnic backgrounds.  In order to build a lasting partnership I am aware as an early childhood professional, that it is important that I make all the families being serviced visible inside the classroom and the center or home as a whole, and that I should also gain input from the families about their traditions and beliefs. One thing that I found useful inside my current classroom was creating a family tree and having the children bring in photos of their family and have the children and parents and/or guardians create “All about Me” books. It was during this time when the families got more involved into the lesson and became creative with highlighting their family inside the classroom. I also found that the children loved displaying their creations during Friday Show & Tell hour.  Creating an anti-bias environment deals greatly with visual effects and here below are a few things professionals need to take into account when displaying families (2010). They include:

v  Display children and adults from various racial and ethnic identity groups in your community

v  Display families from a range of economic groups performing all types of work (e.g., working class, professionals; work I  home, work outside of home)

v  Incorporate visual images of persons with disabilities of various backgrounds working, playing, spending time with their family

v  Display diverse family structures (single parent, adoptive families, gay/lesbian families, mixed race etc.)

v  Be sure images chosen reflect both similarities and differences within every group as well as between groups

v  Do not show images that depict misinformation or stereotypes about a group

References

Derman-Sparks, L., & Edwards, J. O. (2010). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves.  (pp. 43 & 45). Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).