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One of the things we are very good at in our profession is paying attention to individual
children. We design our classrooms so that children's different needs are met and different
learning styles are addressed. We care about the individual, and we consider this in the
curriculum planning. Little kids are more than just their personalities and their preferences.
They are members of families.
They are members of communities, and they are developing a strong sense of identity
as members of families and as members of their community. Those social identities, groups
that they are a part of, are essential to developing a child's identity. The child's
sense of identity is as important for the teacher to know as this child likes to sing
and that child likes to dance.
It is something we have not had a lot of practice discussing. To little kids, the way we feel
about their families is how we feel about them, even though they do
not have words to say that. They can't describe it, but the way we think about, react to,
and make their family visible, this makes all the difference in the world. If we ask
children to behave in ways which are not acceptable, in their families, we create a wedge, and
we're telling children that there's something wrong with whom they are.
If their families are not, integrated in any way, in our program and are not visible, then
we erase their identity. We make them "less than" who they are. We teach them shame. Our
blindness to that, our inability to think about it, is bigger than ourselves. As a society,
we tend to not think about this topic, this way. We certainly never learn to think about
ourselves that way.
Part of the task is figuring out both; who our children are, and how we make them visible,
really visible, in our actions, and in the language we use. It is important to engage
families and their culture, for example, in the way we touch and don't touch them, and
how close we engage the family in the program.
How do we make them visible on our walls, in pictures, and the books we read? How do
we recognize the family structure, the family racial identity, the family culture, the family
language? How do we understand all of this and bring it into our classrooms?
The other piece is how do we know ourselves? How do we know the people we work with? How
do we learn from each other?
Take some time to reflect on your own personal and social identities. What distinguishes
you from others? Reflect on how you think these identities developed in you. How does
your curriculum and environment support the social identities of the children in your
program? How could you move beyond the walls of the program to engage with families and
the larger community?