Anti Biased Activity HD 25

ANTI BIAS ACTIVITY

Activity: I wanted to recreate an activity that I viewed once in my social sciences class I took last term. I have talked about it a lot throughout the term of discussion boards as it made a huge impact on me when I had viewed it once before. The activity is one where you gather children into a circle to talk about skin colors, considering how diverse our society is now there will most likely be a wide variety of ethnicities and skin tones in your classroom. This activity I will be calling “discover your skin tone” as the children may have a misconception or stereotyped view to their skin color “black” “white” “brown”. During this activity the children will discover that even those of them that come from similar ethnic background still have different skin colors, which will show that there isn’t a specific color that your skin is supposed to be. Painting with these colors after the match them to their skin tones will show that there is beauty to each and every skin color through the classroom and community.

Activity Details: The children will need to be gathered together in a circle so that every child can see each other and see the teacher who will be helping the activity along the way. Once the children are sitting in the circle the teacher will begin with some opened ended questions about skin color, asking certain children what color they think their skin is, what other skin colors there are, and if all the skin colors are seen as pretty. Typically because of all the negative and stereotypical messages children pick up on they will share very limited ideas on different skin colors, and have typical colors that they view they skin as “black, brown, and white”. After the children have talked a little about skin color you will explain that today we are painting self-portraits of ourselves, and because of that we need to pick out everyone’s skin colors. You will then display a very wide variety of skin colors in all different skin tone shades, from very light to very dark. Each child will take a turn coming up to the teacher and picking out their skin color, they will ask the class for their opinion on if it matches them or not and then read the name of the color. After each child goes around and has chosen the shade which most closely resembles their skin, than you will give a short explanation on how there are not only a few skin colors there are hundreds and each of them is beautiful (keep it short as their attention span won’t last very long). After this you will trace the children’s bodies on big rolls of paper and the children will paint themselves however they would like. This not only further shows the different shades of color throughout the classroom but it develops their creativity and motor skills.

Materials Needed:

·         Large area for kids to sprawl out while painting

·         Enough brushes for all the children to paint

·         A wide variety of Skin tone colored paints

·         Large rolls of white paper

·         Pencils or marker to trace the children onto the paper rolls

Goals met with activity:

1.       “*Recognize, appreciate, and respect the uniqueness, beauty, value and contribution of each child.” By making the lesson into an art project you can really show the “beauty” of diversity because they are creating art with their skin tones.

2.       “Help children live happily and cooperatively in a diverse world.” Each child is getting their own special moment during this activity where the rest of the class is focusing on their skin color and the beauty of it, for children that may be insecure about their skin tone this is a very large help because it gives them positive reinforcement that their skin tones is just as beautiful as the next

3.       “Promote respect towards others.” Again this activity is all about creating equality through the visual aspect that children see in race and ethnicity which happens to be skin color. These young children are learning that they aren’t just one skin color that has all these negative stereotypes they are individuals that all have beautiful skin tones and deserve respect for that beauty.

How does this meet anti-bias goals?  (Use chapter 7 R & W in addition to the handout)

This activity meets the anti-biased goals not only on the handout which I have explained above but also in chapter seven of roots and wings. This activity goes hand in hand with the curriculum goal 2 “Demonstrate comfortable, empathetic interaction with diversity among people.” The lesson is done in fun, a group circle lesson along with art and a lot of interaction from the students. You aren’t putting any pressure on the activity you’re making it fun and the children are feeling unique and special so they are happy for each other.

                         List at least 2 children's picture books which will go along with your activity.  (You may include an image of the book)

 

  

Answer the following questions:

1.       What is the appropriate age for this activity?  Explain with information from the Roots & Wings text, Ch. 2 (include page numbers)

I think that this lesson would go over best with the threes and fours because they understand differences a lot more, yet they are still at the age where they are interested by most things and speak their minds without a filter. I feel like you would get the best response to the activity from these children although you can do it with older ages as well. “Young children are naturally curious about the world, which is why preschoolers are often referred to as the question asking stage” page 17. Also children at this age begin to notice the difference in skin color and start putting identities on themselves, which is why this lesson is so important at this age, to open their minds before a permanent idea grows in their heads. “Children are very aware of their skin color” page 17.

2.       Explain why this is an appropriate theme.

I feel the theme is very appropriate for the three and four age because we aren’t going into great detail about stereotypes on the skin colors, or what people say about skin color. The main lesson is focused on getting away from the idea that there are only “black white and brown” skin color. Its keep the lesson very topical so that it doesn’t leave them with more questions than answers but also giving them concrete detail that they can remember about themselves being special colors and everyone’s color being beautiful.

3.       Relate your activity to three concepts from the handout Goals for Anti-Bias Curriculum. (handout, supported by Ch. 7) the concepts I wanted to focus on with the lesson was

·         Everyone is worthy.

·         Everyone is lovable.

•         Everyone is equal.

All three of these are very much touched on with the way the lesson is done the teachers attitude is what gives off these concepts to the children. Everyone’s skin color is going to be noticed as unique, special, and beautiful. The names of the shades are positive and can often be related to thing the children can identify “peach” “cinnamon” these are things that the children may be familiar with and have positive imaging. By having each child take their own turn to find their skin color with class input it is making all the children feel equal and also worthy of classmate attention. Each child is having the same experience where they are getting the love and positive attention from their classmates, and then they get excited and return the favor to the next child who goes for their turn.

Overall this activity is a great way to introduce the idea of skin color in your preschool classroom, it not only incorporates anti biased activity goals but it is developmentally age appropriate because of the way its presented. Along with the it covers the physically and emotional idea of the child by having it make the child feel important and special while also incorporating motor skill development with the art project part of the lesson. After the children have finished the activity they have a piece of art that they can show their parents and explain their color to, while also seeing all the other pictures in the class and again visually learning all the different colors within the classroom. 

HD 25 Book analysis "A Beautiful Girl"

Mandy Strobridge

HD 25 Book Analysis

(Powers, 2003)

1. Find an image online or take a photo of the front cover and any relevant pages of your book.  

2. Tell us the title of the book, author, illustrator, year of original publication.

A Beautiful Girl By Nikki Rogers copyright 2003

3. Give a brief description of the book. This childrens book is a short tale of many different shapes and sizes that girls can come in and how they all are beautiful in different way. They describe many differen characteristic that little girls differ in such as hair color, height, skin color, and facial features. “everyone is beautiful, a valuable treasure” is the ending line in the childs story and very much sums up the entire book.

4. Print up the two tools to refer to as you write your analysis: “10 Quick Ways to Analyze Children’s Books for Racism and Sexism” and “Evaluating Children’s Literature.”  Use these handouts to write a thoughtful and thorough evaluation.

For the most part “A Beautiful Girl” is a pretty politically correct children’s book. The characters are all drawn in the same format, the girls with colored skin are all equally drawn with the same proportions and nothing is depicting them to be inferior within the illustrations of the book. However throughout the twelve page book there are ten different girls and only two of the girls have skin colors other than white, those skin colors are referred to as “chocolate” and “dessert sands.” The fact that there are only two young girls that are not white is directing the youth to believe that there are more types of beautiful white girls than other ethnicities. Also there was no Asian, Indians, or black young girls. The two young girls of color that were used as examples were; the young girl who had “dessert sands” colored skins, she was portrayed as a young Mexican girl, and the chocolate colored young girl who was portrayed to be an Indian girl. Both of these ideas of skin color seemed racist to me. The young girl who was more Mexican decent with the sandy color skin was in overalls and kneeling in a sunflower patch. Maybe this was a relation to a farm like atmosphere, and also the term “sandy” is that related to dessert like scenarios in Mexico? The chocolate colored young girl was very blatantly portrayed as an Indian because she was dressed like a tribal Indian girl would be. This seems to be a very common stereotype for the darker brown skin color, and even shows itself in this book. The story line was also pretty stereotypical, although I didn’t think it crossed too many boundaries significantly, it didn’t try to stay away from them earlier. The young girl with freckles and red hair was shy and softly spoken, the blonde girl was said to be loud and bouncy, the Mexican girl worked with her hands, and the Indian girl empowers others to soar like birds. None of these descriptions were negative in any matter and they made each little girl out to be the most beautiful that they could be, but they followed the pathway of norms in our society. The book did do a great job of giving many different types of young girls that they have an equally great description of beauty. I think that many young girls would have a positive outcome when reading this book. However when you deeply disect the imaging and wording of the pages there can be a racist take on the over entity of the story.

• Are characters "outside the mainstream culture" depicted as individuals or as caricatures?

The characters are all depicted as individuals and not caractures.

• Does their representation include significant specific cultural information? Or does it follow stereotypes?

It doesn’t give specific cultural information, its mostly about the diffreences that individuals can have physically and personality wise. However I do think that it is very stereotypical as far as the different illustrations and choice of description goes. The blonde fair colored skin girl was said to be loud and bouncy, while the red headed freckled girl was shy and withheld. They were just very stereotypical and shallow ideals of what each girl should be like. So although they were saying every girl is beautiful no matter what, the descriptions were still the age old pictures we see.

• What do this narrative and these pictures say about race? Class? Culture? Gender? Age? Resistance to the status quo? The images are all drawn up ewually none are illustrated to suggested lower class, or villain like words. Some of the outfits are a bit stereotypical, such as the young Mexican girl who is in overalls and kneeled ina sunflower field. Nothing comes across to crazy and all the images are done with a good heart. They fall victum to the stereotypes of society though, and if you read slightly into the images and desriptions at all that is very obvious.

• Analyze the illustrations for stereotypes.  What are people doing that may create or perpetuate a stereotype?

Young blonde girl with blonde pigtails, a skirt tank top and stocking. This young girl is said to be loud and bouncy, Blondes in our society are suppose to “ have more fun” be sort of crazy like, and very bubbly and giggly girls. (Powers, 2003)

The Mexican girl wearing overalls and kneeling in a sunflower field. She was said to have sandy dessert color skin, to me all of this is relating her to the Mexican culture. Working in fields, with labor like apparel and in dessert conditions is a stereotype of the mecian culture.

The Red Headed girl with freakles and wings on her back is stereotypical. Red headed girls usually are portrayed as shy and quiet girls, and that’s exactly what the book said about her.

The “chocolate” colored indian girl, she was wearing tribal clothes and releasing a bird from her hands. Indians have had the age old image attached to them for many years, wearing the moccasin and apache clothing and using birds as a symbol in their culture.

• Would you recommend this book?  Why or why not? I actually would recommend this book. As much as it can be picked apart and called racist I truly think sometimes little girls don’t always pick up on it completely. The overall idea that all girls are equally beautiful is the best part of the book and I think many little girls need to hear that at young ages. They slowly start picking themselves apart and forget that we are all individual pieces of art work. It’s a good book with a great moral value.