Activity 2.2 | Anti-bias practice (identity, diversity, justice, action)
| Site: | RRU Open Educational Resources |
| Course: | Self-Leadership in Early Childcare and Education |
| Book: | Activity 2.2 | Anti-bias practice (identity, diversity, justice, action) |
| Printed by: | Guest user |
| Date: | Friday, 6 June 2025, 6:32 PM |
Anti-bias pedagogies
As child care managers and leaders, you may wonder what these practices look like in the centres. How might some of these concepts and pedagogical commitments be lived in practice?
In this second part of module two, you will watch a video illuminating how early childhood educators plan, implement, and respond to children in practice. Implementing structures that support early childhood educators as professionals is critical to implementing these practices.
As you watch the video, notice the relationships between educators and their collective practice of reflection.
- How do you imagine they got here?
- What sorts of structures, supports, and schedules support early childhood educators to enact anti-bias pedagogies?
Watch the Video "Reflecting on Anti-Bias Education in Action: The Early Years"(Efe McKinney, 2021; 48 minutes run time)
Reference
Efe McKinney, F. (2021). Reflecting on Anti-Bias Education in Action: The Early Years. [Film]. Brave Sprout Productions. https://www.antibiasleadersece.com/the-film-reflecting-on-anti-bias-education-in-action/
Taking Action
The film is accompanied by a facilitator guide book (LeeKeenan, D., & Nimmo, J., 2021). It includes reflective questions to support you in reflecting and processing aspects of the film and considering how you can move toward action.
Spend time responding to these questions:
- What values and images of the child do you see at play in the film? How do these align with your own and of those of your community?
- What are the strategies teachers in the film use to support anti-bias education?
- What enabled these teachers to take on this type of curriculum? What might the teachers need to have done before they started?
- How would you involve families in anti-bias work? How would you approach their questions, concerns, and support?
- What would you do differently in your classroom and program? What challenges might you face?
- How might your intersecting social identities (e.g., race, gender, language) influence this work?
- How is anti-bias education integrated into the daily routines, environment and curriculum in the film?
- What resonates with you in each vignette? What causes discomfort? What do these feelings say about you as an educator?
Reference
LeeKeenan, D., & Nimmo, J. (2021). Facilitator and viewer guidebook: Reflecting on anti-bias education in action: The early years (Version 3). Anti-Bias Leaders in Early Childhood Education. https://www.antibiasleadersece.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/EX_ABE_Guidebook_v3.pdf
Reflecting on identity, diversity, and justice
Read the article "History in the Making: Embedding Historical Learning in the Early Years"(Cho & Gill, 2024), and revisit your notes from Challenging Racist "British Columbia": 150 Years and Counting (2021). Reviewing your notes, consider how they relate to Jamie Cho and Ninderjit Gill’s History in the Making: Embedding Historical Learning in the Early Years (2024).After engaging in the reading and looking back on your notes, reflect on a place in your practice where you can intentionally engage with ideas of identity, diversity, and justice and take action.
In the article "History in the Making: Embedding Historical Learning in the Early Years"(Cho & Gill, 2024), the educators reflect on a conversation that emerged while a child drew. This was not a planned lesson; instead, it was a way of responding to a moment pedagogically, from an anti-bias pedagogy. The educator used the opportunity to discuss race and to bring marginalized histories into the conversation.
In her book, WAYI WAH! Indigenous Pedagogies: An Act for Reconciliation and Anti-Racist Education (2022), educator, philosopher, and Two-Spirited member of the Kitsumkalum First Nation, Jo Chrona, offers reflective questions that might help you consider this more deeply.
In her chapter called “Yes, You Have a Role,” Jo Chrona (2022) asks:
- What are the stories you are telling about how this country came to be?
- What are the stories you tell about your place in this country?
- What are the transformational stories you will tell about your role in Reconciliation through education? (p. 51)
Select one of the above questions and articulate how you will take action. This might involve: selected children’s literature and an intentional action (having children’s books on the shelf written by Indigenous authors does not demonstrate anti-bias, you need to actively engage and mediate the intended learning); a conversation into a living inquiry about something you learned from Challenging Racist "British Columbia": 150 Years and Counting (2021); inviting in a guest speaker or planning a field trip; or a professional development opportunity for your team. (If you intend to use children’s literature, you must evaluate the resource for its authenticity in representing First Nations, Inuit, or Métis Peoples).
The Authentic First Peoples Resources for Use in K-9 Classrooms (2021) offers an evaluation tool on page 179.
Remember that as a child care manager and leader, you are a role model. Prentis Hemphill cautions that “Perfectionism is a commitment to habitual self-doubt” (brown, 2021, p.18). The goal is not perfection, but rather, to commit yourself to a process.
It might be valuable to reflect on how it would feel to share your process, wade in your questions, and invite yourself to be seen in a muck of uncertainty. And how would it feel to do it anyway?
References
Cho, J. & Gill, N. (2024). History in the making: Embedding historical learning in the early years. Exchange Magazine, (Issue 276). https://hub.exchangepress.com/articles-on-demand/44876/
Chrona, J. (2022). WAYI WAH! Indigenous Pedagogies: An Act for Reconciliation and Anti-Racist Education.
First Nations Education Steering Committee. (2022). Authentic First Peoples resources: For use in K–9 classrooms (Updated August 16, 2022). https://www.fnesc.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/PUBLICATION-K-9-FN-Authentic-Resources-updated-2022-08-16-2023-WEB.pdf
Framework for Anti-Bias Teaching
Read Moving Beyond Anti-Bias Activities: Supporting the Development of Anti-Bias Practices(Kuh et al., 2016)
Use the “Framework for Anti-Bias Teaching” (Kuh et al, 2016) to work through an entry point that feels emotionally charged for you. This emotional charge might be connected to something in the news that you don’t know how to approach with children, or perhaps it is something about your identity that you are cautiously curious to explore.
Spend time completing the table from the framework.
As a child care manager and leader, this is a tool that you can introduce to early childhood educators. Ensuring that you work through this tool a few times before introducing it is essential.
Recall the video Can you heal intergenerational trauma? (Resmaa Menakem, Sounds True, 2023), and the need to exercise some of these skills before setting a course on the marathon ahead.
Remember to stay in your body, use your tools to return to the body and the breath, and let go of the desire for perfection.
Reference
Kuh, L., LeeKeenan, D., Given, H., & Beneke, M. R. (2016, March). Moving Beyond Anti-Bias Activities: Supporting the Development of Anti-Bias Practices. National Association for the Education of Young Children. https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/yc/mar2016/moving-beyond-anti-bias-activities