a. Main Presenter: Dr. Colleen Finegan

Title: Associate Professor, Early Childhood / Special Education

• Business Mailing Address: 376 Millett Hall

Wright State University

Dayton, OH 45435

Work Phone: 937-775-4582 FAX: 937-775-3301

• Home address: 7630 Rozelle Court,

West Chester, OH 45069

Home Phone: 513-779-9994

E-mail address: cfstoll@aol.com

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b. Other Presenter(s): Dr. Ron Helms

Title: Associate Professor, Social Studies Education

• Business Mailing Address: 374 Millett Hall

Wright State University

Dayton, Oh 45435

Work Phone: 937-775-3231 FAX: 937-775-3301

• Home address: 7123 W. Von Dette Circle,

Centerville, OH. 45459

Home Phone: 937-433-2611

E-mail address: SavantIII@aol.com

Equity / Diversity / Culture and also Technology

Leaders and practitioners in the field of early childhood recognize the great opportunity they have to affect the attitudes of children toward others who are not like themselves. To support the anti-bias in the early childhood classroom, caregivers and teachers need to understand, respect and accept the children as individuals and treat all children with the respect they deserve. If children observe this respect being extended to each child, they themselves will respect the teacher and the other children. That is a beginning toward appreciation of cultural pluralism displayed locally, nationally and globally. Teaching in the next century will require educators to nurture an appreciation for pluralism both locally and globally. Resources are needed to provide factual information about various cultures, races, religions, etc. Books are available on a variety of multicultural topics, but often become obsolete upon printing. World Wide Web resources are usually current, readily available and many are interactive. Children are becoming technologically-wise at an early age. The computer is a friendly tool with can "place the world at their fingertips". The presenters will provide a selected review (text fields and hyperlinks) of Internet Multicultural Resources that will enhance the anti-bias curriculum in the early childhood classroom.

Audience participation will be encouraged

NAEYC supports the implementation of the anti-bias curriculum, as well as developmentally AND individually appropriate programming. The Internet is recognized as a great equalizer – providing experience to children who may not otherwise have the opportunity to experience certain things. Teaching in the future will require that teachers use technology to enhance curriculum in the classroom. Therefore, this topic is an appropriate one for this Conference.

7. Summary of content for proposed presentation:

National and state education standards mandate the teaching of multicultural education at all levels of education. NAEYC supports the modeling and support for the anti-bias curriculum in the early childhood environment. As a result, many colleges and universities require multicultural or diversity courses for all pre-service education students. As those who prepare the citizens today for the world of tomorrow, it is of paramount importance that pre-service as well as in-service teachers receive instruction in multicultural education.

Educators are role models for their students, just as parents set an example for their children. If teachers accept students in their classroom who may have some characteristics different from their own, the students in their classrooms will be more likely to accept one another (Finegan, 1999). This process needs to begin at an early age since children begin to notice racial and gender difference between themselves and others at the age of three or four (Maccoby, 1988; Ramsey and Myers, 1990).

Gollnick and Chin (1994) in their textbook, Multicultural Education in a Pluralistic Society, state the often-quoted statistics that by the year 2000, one-third of the school population will be composed of students of color. These authors also reveal that nearly 25% of children in schools today are living below the established poverty level. As the nation increases in diversity, and international commerce becomes an everyday occurrence, citizens of the future will need to grow in their appreciation and understanding of others.

The U.S. macroculture is shared by all of the nation’s citizens; however individual microcultures are also an invaluable part of the society referred to as American. "Conflicting forces related to values, lifestyles, and societal impediments within and between cultural groups are integral to this complexity and the resulting cultural adaptations" (Gollnick and Chinn, 1994, 11). Often these conflicting values and lifestyles become issues of debate or even open conflict in the schools, even in the early grades.

Multicultural education is much more than simply knowing and transmitting facts about the various races, cultures, and belief systems that exist in the United States. It is a process that will produce an affective change in its recipients. Teaching about diversity requires more self- involvement including attention to one’s own feelings and reactions to others, as well as the ability to manage individual emotions. Electronic resources, especially the Internet, provide even young children the opportunity to experience interactive learning. Therefore, teachers will need to become very adept in selecting appropriate content links to use both as teaching resources for themselves and as resources for their students. Computer labs and access to the WWW have become a necessary educational activity for all students, even young ones.

Websites, introduced in this presentation, have purposefully been selected to represent various points of view to assist early childhood caregivers and educators in the process of information gathering, introspection, and self-evaluation. Many sites may be appropriate for young children themselves to investigate the world of children from varying cultures, races, ages and gifts.

Format: The presenters will demonstrate on-line the use of their diversity web site that they designed for instructional use by teachers. Specific sites for early childhood educators will be featured. The presenters and attendees will discuss Internet resources that may be used for multicultural instruction and in establishing the anti-bias curriculum in the early childhood classroom. A handout appropriate for early childhood educators containing WWW addresses of resources will be provided.