Question
How can you ask families to come into your center and help share about their culture?
Answer
A lot of teachers do kind of shy away from that. I think as early childhood professionals, we've really got to view parents as partners and one way we can view parents as partners and really involve them and draw them into the classroom is by asking them to come in. I've had an Eastern Indian family come in and do traditional Eastern Indian dance for my classroom. I've had a Hispanic family come in and cook a traditional Mexican meal for us. I've had the little boy whose dad came in and cut his hair. It doesn't have to be something that's traditionally multicultural. It could be just a mom who works at a vet and brings a puppy dog in. Sometimes Caucasian families feel like they don’t really have any culture to share. Every single family and every single parent has something that they can share and bring to the partnership and I think it's important that we encourage them to do that.
The way to ask about that is to simply pull that parent aside and say, you know what, I know you're really, really good at X, Y, and Z. I would love for you to come into the classroom and talk to the children about it. I think they would absolutely love to hear about it. Don't be surprised if the parent meets your request with disbelief like I'm pretty sure the kids don't really care about what I do. Just reassure them and let them know that, yes, in fact, the kids are actually highly interested in everything that their parents do and that we would really just love to have them come in. Then the first time one parent does it then you advertise that to the other parents and say what a hit it was and, before you know it, you've got other parents wanting to do it.
This Ask the Expert is an edited excerpt from the course, Diversity and Cultural Awareness, by Natasha Crosby Kile, MS.
