We live in an incredibly diverse and interconnected society. Individual children are influenced by multiple cultures and environments. In the early childhood environment, childcare providers should place a priority on helping young children to develop a strong sense of self, including self-confidence and self-respect. Early care providers also need to help children develop respect for people from different backgrounds so they can cooperate and learn from one another. These goals can be achieved by creating diversity in the classroom and focusing on a multicultural learning environment. It's crucial for children to embrace the differences within a given classroom, and understand that people should be treated as individuals and not judged based on physical appearance or cultural background.
A diverse classroom helps children to recognize differences and similarities among all people. Allowing children to explore varying cultures creates opportunities for them to see that even when people have different customs and traditions, they often share some common traits, too. Children learn that people can be different and unique, yet still have much in common. These realizations help young children learn to accept differences and help to eliminate prejudice and racism. Such realizations help children with accepting and respecting people from all cultures and backgrounds.
As our nation becomes more linguistically and culturally diverse and as the issue of bilingual education becomes more politically charged, early childhood educators have a responsibility to understand how best to meet children's needs and how to provide effective early childhood education for all children. NAEYC's position statement, Responding to Linguistic and Cultural Diversity -- offers principles of good early childhood practice which hold true regardless of the language spoken by children or their families.
Christmas all over the world is celebrated on Christmas Day, the 25th of December. Some countries however have different Christmas traditions and Christmas traditions and celebrations take place over a longer period of time. Below you will find some interesting Christmas facts for various countries. If you want to learn more about other interesting Christmas traditions in those countries simply click on the link.
This Month's Trial Course: Creating a Multicultural Environment
CCEI offers CCEI640: Creating a Multicultural Environment as an online no-cost trial child care training course to new CCEI users during the month of December.
This course explains multiculturalism and anti-bias education. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to define the goals of multiculturalism, develop an anti-bias classroom, incorporate multiculturalism into learning centers and other classroom activities, and promote cooperative social skills in diverse classrooms.
