Care

"The ethical standard of Care includes compassion, acceptance, interest and insight for developing students' potential. Members express their commitment to students' well-being and learning through positive influence, professional judgment and empathy in practice" (Ontario College of Teachers, 2018).

The video above models how educators can exhibit care for students, by fostering cultural inclusion in the classroom. The educators in this video model care as they take the time to get to know their students, their families, and their cultural identities, while welcoming them and incorporating them within their classrooms. For example, they represent foods, cooking utensils and clothing from diverse cultures in their classroom house centre, and encourage the students to share their home language through the "good morning song." Rather than ignoring their cultural identities, these educators are valuing the differences in students' home cultures and making an effort to reflect these in their classrooms.

I have also seen my associate teacher use many of the techniques described in the video, such as incorporating clothing, dolls, and props representative of diverse cultures and ethnicities in the dramatic play centre in her Kindergarten classroom. 

By recognizing and including diverse representations and languages within their classrooms, these educators may help students, who were previously in the naive stage of Hardiman and Jackson's Social Identity Development model, move into a stage of redefinition, and perhaps internalization (Samuels, 2014).

It is my goal as an educator to help students move through the stages in this model as well, in order to redefine and internalize their identities in relation to the positive, diverse, and inclusive experiences I hope to provide.

Sources:

BrookesPublishing. (2011). Supporting cultural and linguistic diversity in early childhood. [Online video].  Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWg- ZrV3wPk

Ontario College of Teachers. (2018). Ethical Standards. Retrieved November 18, 2018, from https://www.oct.ca/public/professional-standards/ethical-standards

Samuels, D. R. (2014). The Culturally Inclusive Educator: Preparing for a Multicultural World. New York, NY:  Teachers College Press.