hd390 Reflection

The document discusses a student's experience in an anti-bias education course and how it changed her perspective. Through reflections on her own life experiences and readings on anti-bias education, she gained a better understanding of how factors like gender, socioeconomic status, and family dynamics had impacted her. As a preschool teacher, she worked to make her classroom more inclusive by incorporating photos of the children and implementing projects to challenge gender stereotypes in toy and area preferences. The course helped her recognize and address her own biases to create a welcoming environment for self-discovery and mixed play.

Uploaded by

api-322626111

We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.

Available Formats

Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

0% found this document useful (0 votes)

100 views

hd390 Reflection

Uploaded by

api-322626111

We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.

Available Formats

Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

You are on page 1/ 6

HD390-Developing Anti-Bias Curriculum

HD 390- Developing Anti-Bias Curriculum

Cherilyn Helguera
June 22, 2016

HD390-Developing Anti-Bias Curriculum

When I read the course description for anti-bias education, I was still unsure of
how I could relate to it. When I think of biases, I immediately relate it to racial
prejudices. Yet, it is larger then I believe it to be. As I reread the assignment description, I
asked myself, how can you reflect and relate to biases in your life journey? Reading the
book, Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves, I began to understand how
our complicated and even simple events in life could actually be impacting. I had to
really reflect on how; gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic class, able-ness, family
configuration and sexual orientation impacted my life.
Growing up I never thought of my economic deficit as a horrible situation, it was
just life. I did envy others for the stuff they had, but I always managed to remain
positive. During my journey through Pacific Oaks, it enabled me to reflect on my life and
place pieces together. It has allowed me to reflect on those difficult moments and bring
some understanding as to how they affected me. By doing this, it eventually allowed for
forgiveness to take place.
I wrote a reflective paper based on identity. This paper was a continuation of my
life reflection, but due to the topics, I had to dig deeper. I remembered moments of my
adolescence more than childhood because I see how; gender, race/ethnicity,
socioeconomic class, able-ness, family configuration and sexual orientation are greatly
impacted during these years. Being a part of the lower socioeconomic class, I was unable
to participate in the large scale of activities my school offered. I remember being
depressed at my stepmothers negative responses to my questions of joining cheerleading,
dance, yearbook, and sports. I realize now that it was solely the lack of money, but it
impacted me more than I think she realized.

HD390-Developing Anti-Bias Curriculum

I was an A student my entire life, until my sophomore year in high school. I

was always proud of my accomplishments, but no one was there to encourage or
congratulate me. Upon my freshman year of high school, I was surrounded by such
negativity in my home, that I gave up and chose a different path of life. My grades fell, I
was cutting classes, and I would be gone every night. I look back to think, why was there
not one teacher to pull me aside and encourage me? I always had a smile on my face and
humor to cover the pain, so I assume they could not see past this. Did I cover the pain so
well? Going through these topics made me realize how much an educator can intervene
and change a childs direction and perspective view on life. I needed a mentor then and
through this course, I can see how I need to be one for others as well.
Since I am a preschool educator, I was still unsure how to make my classroom
environment inclusive to the course topics. I did an assignment, Checklist for Assessing
the Visual Material Environment. By doing this checklist it allowed me to see what I have
not yet acquired, what I am still working on, and what I am already doing. One area was
diversity. I had pictures up of cultural children that you purchase from Lakeshore, but
during this course I realized that children could not identify with these photos.
During our class discussion regarding this topic, Professor Pinkham suggested
photos of the children within the classroom. The diversity exists; it just needed to be
represented. I took all the photos down and placed photos of every child in our
classroom. They were so excited to see themselves. I also took down my daily schedule
and replaced the photos of the children in the classroom. I am going to do this every year,
so the children can feel included in the classroom and take ownership of it.

HD390-Developing Anti-Bias Curriculum

My final project was to create a Social Action Project. I noticed that the majority
of my class played with gender identifiable toys. Girls played in the house area and boys
with the blocks and Legos. If a girl would ask to play with the boys, they would say no. If
a boy asked to play in the house area with the girls, they would let him, but he had to be a
dog or a cat. I never thought too much about how this was biased, girls playing with
girl toys and boys playing with boy toys. I realized my biases during this course, so I
based my project on gender identity play and named it, The Color Code.
The project consisted of a three-day experiment. The first day, we discussed
colors and who or what the colors meant. I drew two tables on a board, one pink and one
blue, and asked each child what table they would like to sit at tomorrow. I wrote their
names next to those tables and asked why they wanted to sit there. Each boy chose blue
and each girl pink, but one girl chose blue. It was a very typical answer from each child,
boys are blue and girls are pink. When I asked the one girl why she wanted to sit at the
blue table she said, Blues my favorite color.
The second day of the experiment we sat in a group and went over which table
each child chose. They all remembered and were excited to sit at their chosen table. They
were dismissed and shocked when they got to the tables. The blue table had traditional
girl toys and the pink table had traditional boy toys. The boys did not want to participate
and were sitting folding their arms. The one girl that chose blue was quite excited and
was having a wonderful time playing. The pink table took a minute, but they began to
play with the boy-orientated toys and had so much fun doing it. Eventually the boys
played because they heard the girls having fun.

HD390-Developing Anti-Bias Curriculum

On the third day we reflected on what we did at those tables. The boys remarks
were, I want the pink table not the blue table, it had boy toys on it. The girls were in the
middle because they enjoyed playing with all the toys.
I realized as parents we place our children on a stereotypical path. I am guilty of
that myself because when my daughters were young, I only bought them dolls. My
husband encouraged me to let our youngest explore because she loved my husband's
action figures. She wanted super hero action figures such as, The Incredible Hulk. She
enjoyed collecting and playing with them. She still has her action figures and dolls today
and loves to clean them and pose them in her cabinets.
Children need to discover their own way and by already gender coloring them,
we enforce the differences between boys and girls without seeing the individual child.
This project created a new concept within my classroom that accepts children to venture
off. I did a backwards day where boys could only play in the house area and girls in the
block area. At first the children were not too excited, but eventually they played. During
lunch we talked to the children about what they did while playing in these new areas.
They were filled with excitement and sharing plans of what they will do the next day.
My classroom is inclusive now because you will find boys and girls mixed in the
areas. I know because of this course I have been able to bring and implement anti-bias
curriculum in the classroom. This has brought inclusiveness and awareness to parents and
families regarding this topic. Hopefully it is a start to parents being more acceptance of
what is nontraditional in the world. Removing prejudice starts at the bottom with our
children, and then works its way up.

HD390-Developing Anti-Bias Curriculum

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