Anti-Bias Education
My students and I are talking a lot about what it takes to work with families in our Dynamics of the Family class. It has been enlivening to watch as the students begin to put their base knowledge of Early Childhood Education to test while considering the child’s larger and most important world: their family and culture. Not a week goes by that doesn’t send me scurrying for my pen to write down an important thought or shared concern we all have so that I may do further research and thinking about this ever personal and deeply challenging topic that underlies the conversation: Bias
What is Bias? A dictionary will tell you many meanings, the two I am focusing on are: (I used an online Webster search.)
1) Influence in an unfair way; "you are biasing my choice by telling me yours"
2) A partiality that prevents objective consideration of an issue or situation
Consider these for a moment in the context of Early Childhood Education. How do children learn best? Modeling. Who do they watch first and foremost as their models? Teachers and family members
Hmmmm.
The above definitions almost read like an order of events, when you consider it this way, don’t they? IF a child is influenced (in an unfair way may be debatable but bear with me for the sake of simplicity) by what YOU think and feel, won’t they then be partial to YOUR way of thinking and won’t that then prevent their objective consideration of events?
Simply put: If you always scrunch up your nose when you see or smell pork, will your child want to avoid pork? Of course! When they learn more language will they be likely to think of pork as “bad” or “wrong”? Most certainly! So go from there to a parent or care giver who is uncomfortable around issues we all struggle with like sexual preference or racial differences or religious beliefs and one can quickly see that for young children, the world is a maze of ideas and opinions – biases, if you will – that are not their own. BUT, to a young child who is merely absorbing parent and caregiver ideas these biases feel as if they are truths, not biases. Can you see the danger here?
In considering excellence in education we always have to consider the individual needs of the children if we hope to be effective. We must leave our own, personal, biases at the doors of our classrooms in many, many instances. And, on the surface, that seems logical and reasonable to almost everyone in our field and our context. BUT, start to try and believe that when it comes to something you have a bias for and it gets really hard, really fast. A great example I know has to do with my own son. During a recent presidential campaign he heard a political ad supporting the candidate that I, myself, did not support. Now, I had never directly discussed politics or presidents with my then young son, but he heard me talking about my opinions to others. This political ad was, admittedly, rather intriguing and when it was over he piped up from the backseat: “Mama? Did you like that ad?” I remarked that I thought it was clever, yes. Then, after a pause he asked, “ Mama? I can’t remember. WHO do we wish will become President again? Was it the guy in THAT ad? Because, can we like that ad if it’s not our team?” WOW.
Who do WE want to become President? OUR team???? I was flabbergasted that he knew so much about it all and then just dumbstruck that this child of an Early Childhood Professional would be so biased! He cared about NO OTHER criteria than what his parents thought was right. NO OTHER CRITERIA. I felt the weight of a thousand pounds descend on my shoulders as I contemplated the reality here and wondered how in the world I would ever raise an open-minded and non-biased citizen of the Earth with a start like this!
It is profoundly important to remember that young children will be biased according to the thoughts and feelings of their family and culture, period. There is no escape from enculturation, and that is, really, a good thing. It presents a challenge only when we forget it and try to behave as if this wonderful melting pot of a country we live in ISN’T a beautiful mix of difference AND sameness.
So, you can see why we get so excited in my class each week. We begin to discuss matters of the lives of children and the ideals and best practices of a pre-school context and before we know it we are debating religion and discipline and skin color and all of the many, many different ways our clients will challenge us to be unbiased and welcoming in our classrooms and offices, no matter what shape their family holds and no matter what biases they have learned.
Unbiased and Welcoming? To every child? What a beautiful world that will be……