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Multiculturalism Within A Preschool
New Zealand is an ever growing melting pot of cultures with more immigrant and refugee children being enrolled into ECE services each year. It is important for staff members of these services to be welcoming of new religions, languages and customs ensuring a smooth transition into the centre. Whether or not teachers agree with the beliefs inherent in different cultures, they need to work with the children and families. Therefore it is vital that to better understand a child their family and culture is to be understood as well. This can be achieved by building meaningful relationships with the caregivers of children, where teachers can gain greater insight to the lives of the children they teach. There are many other ways in which a preschool can incorporate families cultures within the learning environment such as: Making a family tree with photos from every family in the centre Creating a world map or a globe with the children, and marking where all the families come from with names or photos Playing music and singing songs from the children's countries Making flags with the children Encouraging parents to come and cook different ethnic food with centre At least once every term, hold a cultural day. Ask the children to dress in their country's traditional clothes on that day Learn a greeting in a different language every week Celebrate the significant holidays of different cultures, not only Easter and Christmas Provide various ethnic clothes in the dress up area Provide books from countries around the world many will have the English text as well as the foreign text. Put up posters and pictures of children in different countries Create a time when the children's family members can come and share something special Hold family evenings so that all the families in the community can meet each other Provide useful and helpful information on the parent board to new families to the area These are only a few of the many wonderful ways early childhood education services can meet the needs of new families enrolling into centres. People can only live fully by helping others to live. When you give life to friends you truly live. Cultures can only realize their further richness by honoring other traditions. And only by respecting natural life can humanity continue to exist. -Diasaku Ikeda. Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com For more preschool information and the effect of good childcare on a child's development check out my section on child care centres at our website. |
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