Saturday, October 15, 2011
Sharing Web Resources
I continue to enjoy the National Association for the Education of Young Children (naeyc.org) site. On the front page of the site was a link to an excerpt of the book Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves, by Louise Derman-Sparks and Julie Olsen Edwards. The article addressed the topic of Halloween and how to celebrate in a way that does not offend the beliefs of any family. The article gave an example of a director at a child care center in a university who had the children make funny hats and have a funny hat parade around the campus in place of Halloween costumes and candy. There is also a link to a position paper about Quality, Compensation, and Affordability in early childhood education and another link to a position paper aimed at policymakers on behalf of children and families addressing quality and affordable child care for all children. Every time I am on this site I find something new and interesting I can use.
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Leigh:
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing...
Is interesting you brought this article to the plate, because three days ago I was watching the news? The news was that a Director of an Elementary School said: "Halloween and Thanksgiving won’t be celebrating in this school” Everyone (children, teachers and parents) was alarmed.
Situations like this are when we see the issue of Cultural Diversity in manifest.
How come we can manipulate any one because a title? Where is the respect she had for her students and community? If is a catholic school, I can understand because "Halloween" is against the religion.
What about Thanksgiving?
This is when I ask to myself, was her in a classroom before becoming a Director?
I won’t make any assumptions.
Please if, you get a chance send me the article via Walden email I will appreciate it!
Hi Leigh,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing that article. I’ll have to check that out. I had never thought of the celebration of Halloween offending anyone although I know that it is against some people’s religious beliefs. In most schools around here, children can’t bring their costumes, but we can do activities and decorate the classrooms with pumpkins, ghosts and other Halloween things. Last year, the children dressed up in clothes from the dress up area and walked down to the receptionists office to get a piece of candy. At other preschools, they have a fright night the week before Halloween with scavenger hunts, food and other things for the kids. In the public schools, we cannot celebrate Christmas at all especially no decorating and no exchanging gifts. I think it’s good that we are being more sensitive to other cultures, but I think some of the fun gets lost too. Especially when the celebrations are meant to be fun for the kids and not necessarily religious.
Great idea of how to celebrate Halloween. I have read that position statement. Great points and references....now if there will be action that would be great! Thanks for sharing!
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