Creating Affirming Environments

What a child sees in their learning environment holds just as much importance as what we teach with our words and actions.  Children are extremely visual, and take in a good deal of information through visual stimuli.  If I were to open my own Family Child Care Home, I would put a lot into what the children see when they come to school every day.

I feel a strong sense of who I am through the American flag.  I frequently see other flags as I go throughout my day.  People hang their flags from their rear-view mirror in their car, stick them to their bumpers, and wear them on their t-shirts.  Flags are a sense of pride for many people.  This is the reasoning behind having flags in my center.  Each family would have a flag that represented them.  These would be displayed in the lobby, welcoming each person who entered with a colorful representation of who we are. 

In the classroom, there would be a wide range of anti-bias materials.  There would be music that represented the cultures of children in the classroom.  There would also be a variety of clothes and props for the children (both genders) to use in dramatic play that represent many cultures.  In the block area, there would be diversity in figurines, including age, race, and differing abilities.  Also, some blocks would have pictures of people on them, representing a wide range of diversity.  Puzzles would exhibit pictures of those who might be different from us. 

A very important part of the classroom would be pictures of each family.  Each child would have a family collage, made by their parents, which displayed their family and their culture.  Through these pictures, each child would have a piece of home in the classroom.  Children as young as 9 or 10 months are beginning to recognize pictures of their loved ones.  These are vital to each child.

Last, but not least, there would be books.  Having both words and pictures, books are a teacher’s best teaching tool.  These books not only instill a love of reading into the children in our care, but expose them to things that might not come up in every-day conversations.  They can teach children about human differences with a sense of compassion.

The most important thing is not merely diversity for diversity’s sake, but meaningful diversity.  This means the culture of each family in the room, and learning to accept all human differences with joy.