During my experience as a Head Start teacher for over 10 years, I have seen very little change in regards types of books, toys and stores available in the classrooms in regards to diversity and family structure. We still have our children bombarded with the typical stereotypes of what a Family looks like, and children are starting to create their own image of what is the norm. We still see posters of firefighters and police officers being men, books that reflect covers of typical family structure of mom, dad and kids, and our classrooms and centers have very little or no representation of other cultures, but the dominant as the norm. We need to actually focus on the message we are giving the children, in order to encourage in them a sense of respect and value towards diversity in all aspects of human life.
In response to those people that think that early childhood centers should avoid exposing children to books that display gay and lesbian or same sex partners, is not considered as best practice. We need to expose all children and diversity in all aspects of life, weather in culture, believes, foods, race and even sexual tendencies. What a better place then school to learn these things, school should be a place where children should feel safe to learn, explore and ask questions. Questions that will be answered in a way that children can understand that differences do exist and we must be able to embrace and respect them, because they are part of society and not some kind of taboo that adults like to hide and not talk about.
If I would have the experience of having a parent that would approach me with his/her concern in regards to not having a homosexual or transgender caring for his child, I think that first of all I would listen and validate his feelings or believes in this matter, then I would share with him our school’s philosophy in regards to not excluding or discriminating any staff due to their religion, race or sexual tendency. That we pride on the staff we hire, because he pays close attention on their qualifications and experiences working with young children. That we understand his concern, but that we can assure them that his child is well cared for by all the staff working in our center.
I had an experience a couple of years back with a little boy that enjoyed playing in the dramatic play are, he always wanted to be the mom and would dress up with girls cloths. He would also change his tone of voice and way of gestures to imitate his mothers. One day another little boy during lunch time said that Carlos looked gay, because he always would dress up like a girl and talk funny. Then another boy also repeated the same thing until the teacher interfered. She told the children that just because Carlos enjoyed playing in the Housekeeping area and uses the dresses from the area, it didn’t mean that he was “Gay”. That it was a very strong word for children to be using, that we they could talk more about during circle time, and that was the end of it. With this example I believe that it is important to address these comments in the moment and be able to explain to the children what the word means in a way that is developmentally appropriate. Also let the children know that this word could be offensive so we should try to avoid teasing or making fun of under children by using words like this.
I can see how this issue can be hard to discuss, since it could touch our own biases in regards to homosexuals, but it is essential that we are able to set aside our believes and values and actually educate our children as well as many of our parents that struggle with issues such as these.
