Multiculturalism in the Preschool Classroom

On the way home from kindergarten one day, my daughter turned to me, confused.

“Mommy, I am not supposed to call my friend by her name anymore. She has a new name now.” 

I asked her to tell me more.

“I am supposed to call Mi-Yung by the name Michelle. But why? Is that her name? Is it?”  

I felt flushed and stymied. How could I talk to my five-year-old about a history of language loss and cultural erasure that many ethnic communities experienced during our history in this country and around the world?

The following day, I asked my daughter’s teacher about the name change. She shrugged and said she didn’t know why the parents had asked her to do this, but she wanted to respect their wishes.

My daughter’s school is multiethnic and multilingual demographically yet rarely positions cultural pluralism at the center of its curriculum, pedagogy or relationships with families. I wondered: Could the school be implicitly participating in Americanization that leads to bilingual identity loss?

I wanted to know more about how educators and parents in early childhood could build environments that embrace multiculturalism and multilingualism in more explicit and integrated ways. Shortly thereafter, I got the chance to explore these questions while collaborating with a teacher at the preschool affiliated with the university where I work.

Throughout the Spring 2013 semester, we integrated the theme “Growing Up Bilingual” throughout the preschool classroom and home-learning activities. We started with a flyer home to the parents that read:

We embrace the rich linguistic and cultural diversity in our room, and all of your ongoing efforts as families to share your lives with us in many languages. We strongly believe that language is a part of culture and that growing up with a strong sense of self and belonging includes embracing our own languages and cultures, as well as learning about those of others.

Our goal was to infuse the daily curriculum with a celebration of personal and family cultures and languages as a way to value the diverse funds of knowledge alive in the classroom.

To do this, we began by analyzing the classroom environment, curriculum and pedagogy, as well as home-based activities, to identify easy ways to address our goal.

We posted boards in the welcoming area that asked families about ways to say “love” and “friend” in many languages.

We asked families to write down the story of their preschooler’s name in one or more languages to share in class.

During circle time, we read books—including Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes, Family Pictures/Cuadros de Familia by Carmen Lomas Garza and I Love Saturdays y Domingos by Alma Flor Ada—about families, languages, cultures and personal names. After reading, we told the stories of our names, shared our favorite family activities and listed the languages we speak or hear in our everyday lives.

We asked children to locate their skin tones from a series of paint swatches. Then they painted self-portraits, mixing their skin tone colors and looking in the mirror to see their faces as they painted.

We invited families and preschool teachers to a Bilingual Family Night, hosted by the university. This event featured a ballet folklórico performance, a bilingual family oral history film and speakers from different educational settings who support bilingual families. We ended with a roundtable discussion of how schools can be more welcoming to bilingual families.

From this semester of collaborative teacher reflection, I learned that to really demonstrate a commitment to multiculturalism, that commitment must be long-term. I also learned the importance of having an open, flexible disposition when actively working to appreciate differences. And I learned that teachers must be dedicated to the role of learner as we listen and respond to our children and their families.

I still wonder if the school played any role in Michelle’s family’s decision to change her name. More important, I wonder if a school-wide commitment to pluralism in everyday interactions with families and children would have led to a different decision. My hope is that multiple exposures to diverse languages and cultures can help my daughter and all children grow up to understand the complexity of cultural pluralism and to value its role in shaping who they are—everywhere they go.

To read more about the partnership described in this blog post, visit this article in Community Works Journal.

Chappell is an assistant professor of elementary and bilingual education at California State University.