Creating a Learning Community through Educational Leadership

We have been quite stifled at the preschool/kindergarten level in terms of pandemic related restrictions and concerns.  However, the most shocking thing was experiencing the complete lack of cross-cultural understanding and the ability to cooperate in spite of differences within the staff.  It seems that some parents also lacked understanding in certain cultural differences that an American school curriculum would offer their child(ren).

At one point in the year, our students were almost subject to a lesson on how to help others by a third party training center. In general, this is a very common thing to be taught at the preschool level.  The difference here is that the students were to watch a video about children in a different country of the lowest socioeconomic status, and then consider ways that they could be helped.  This was a bit uncomfortable for me and some of my colleagues.  We weren't sure why we needed to show the poorest people of a different ethnic background and nation in order to get the point across.  That's when we decided it would be good to have a day where all students were introduced to some type of multicultural understanding as a “Fun Friday” event.

What we are trying to establish is a day where all students share a presentation about a certain country that they have learned about to the rest of the school.  The presentation can be in the form of reciting a speech accompanied by posters, a skit that shows off a particular cultural activity such as a tea ceremony, or a display of items they handcraft that the country is well known for and explain how the items are seen globally.

 Much like D. Hill's school we want our students to have an opportunity to interact with others that are within above and below their own grade level.  It could be really good to try and get our students to work together despite being between three and six years old.  This would help our students understand what it's like to work with those that are older and younger than themselves.

Since we are a homogeneous school, it would not be very beneficial to have families join in as the culture sharing group because they share much of the same culture.  Instead we would have teachers choose various countries, since our staff does have a diverse multicultural, multi-ethnic background that they could present to students as lessons during class periods.  Because most of the staff members come from an environment where there are multiple ethnicities and cultures, we feel confident in the fact that they can present a different country than their own to students without relying on mere stereotypes.

As the students learn about these various cultures from different ethnic groups, they can engage in some SEL training in addition to trying new methods of taking core subjects.  The preschool kindergarten age group is still of the belief that they are the center of the world.  Multicultural day activities are a good way to help them understand that other people have different ideas and beliefs from their own, some that are neither wrong nor right.

I would love for our school to take it a step further and have parent participation in something that helps them understand the nature of the immersive language learning environment.  If there were a day where parents could come and do a short lesson on one of their hobbies or do a story time in their own language to elicit a certain level of understanding from the foreign teachers, that could help raise the level of empathy for the work that teachers put in for their children to learn the English language as well as the various subjects that are being taught in the language. 

I personally enjoy hosting parent child activities at the school that will be similar to what is experienced on a regular school day just so that parents are well aware of how my classes are taught and the experiences that their children will have as we continue our year together.  So far, parents have really enjoyed being able to attend my classes, which are held completely in English so that they have an authentic experience.  Children have also enjoyed seeing their parents go through some of the same experiences they do coming from little to no English backgrounds.

Hopefully, as the restrictions ease up and schools are allowed to host events as they used to, we will be able to have more events that tackle other issues and help bring together understanding for gender biases, social economic differences, and other issues that do affect our children even at the youngest age groups.