How can we encourage very young children's critical literacy and numeracy skills? By modelling or guiding their questioning? By reflecting on and challenging the texts or numerical issues (e.g. fairness) they encounter?
Key to this focus is the educator's role in supporting the child's development of theory-of-mind in order to understand that these texts or numerical issues are not neutral, as they represent certain points-of-view and silence others.
WHAT:
This week we looked into how as a teacher we can understand and promote the concept of fairness while teaching young children and how many story books and characters have stereotypes and that various text are not nuetral, so I read these two readings
MAIN ARGUMENT:
According to (Morgan, 2009) the prejudice towards different people start from early childhood and that teaching children to have multiple perspective in early age is going to solve problems relating to prejudice and racial differences, they state that conflict in schools can happen due to text books and courses that do not rightly represent other persons culture. According to them in order to help children develop multiple perspective teacher’s need to pay attention to not only how to teach but what to teach as multiple perspective can enhance children’s view of various topics. Teacher’s must be aware that not all children’s book represent cultural minority group authentically. They have provide different strategies that teacher’s can avoid biased children’s book, picture book biographies proposing multiple perspective, interactive read alouds.
The other reading on numeracy which I got from "I cannot be bothered about my reading" as I was unable to find anything relating to numeracy and fairness in early childhood was by(Wood, 2005) He wanted to know could grade one children do mathematical work that addressed social justice issues with a focus on power at their level. He said that during his class he often read books and talks about the mathematics in them. One favorite author, Shaun Tan, provided the idea for the first-graders final The Rabbits, written by John Marsden and illustrated by Tran (2003) which is an allegorical work about the colonization of Australia. Kangaroos represent the indigenous people called Aborigines in Australia and rabbits represent the colonizers.
This book shows the ways European colonists destroyed and replaced the Aborigines’ traditional culture and relationships. The author wanted to know that children could use their mathematical understanding to explore the power issues they’d read about in The Rabbits. Earlier the children had been working extensively with Cuisenaire rods, and he also wanted to know whether they might be able to use these manipulatives to explore the social justice issues in the book. He was amazed to find out that they took up the plurality of mathematics which taught him much about their knowledge in mathematics. According to him a complex mathematics classroom allows for the experience of diverse children. Jack’s words about how deeply people are mathematical, Melissa’s expressions of equality and inequality, and Kayla’s shifts identity proved that children showed that how children understood the issues of power and equality by using Cuisenaire rods. Which showed that children as an individual who can use mathematics to describe their sense of social justice and equality.
This book shows the ways European colonists destroyed and replaced the Aborigines’ traditional culture and relationships. The author wanted to know that children could use their mathematical understanding to explore the power issues they’d read about in The Rabbits. Earlier the children had been working extensively with Cuisenaire rods, and he also wanted to know whether they might be able to use these manipulatives to explore the social justice issues in the book. He was amazed to find out that they took up the plurality of mathematics which taught him much about their knowledge in mathematics. According to him a complex mathematics classroom allows for the experience of diverse children. Jack’s words about how deeply people are mathematical, Melissa’s expressions of equality and inequality, and Kayla’s shifts identity proved that children showed that how children understood the issues of power and equality by using Cuisenaire rods. Which showed that children as an individual who can use mathematics to describe their sense of social justice and equality.
I think the article on numeracy is very important as it dealt specifically with the big concept that maths is everywhere and he tried to incorporate this concept in his teaching by making student aware that maths is everywhere and that there are different forms of maths, and by reading this story book he simultaneously prompted discussion about fairness and equality and mathematics. While other reading on literacy I think this all is relevant to making children critical thinkers and to strive for justice. The other reading also very important as it suggests that teaching children to have multiple perspective can help in broadening their concepts about racial differences and fairness.
REFERENCES:
REFERENCES:
1: Morgan, H. (2009). Picture book biographies for young children: A way to teach multiple perspectives. Early Childhood Education Journal, 37(3), 219-227.
2:
(L) Wood, J. (2005). Moses’s story: Critical literacy and social justice in
an urban kindergarten. Beyond the Journal: Young Children on the Web, July, Retrieved 22nd July,
2011 from http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/vop/VoicesWood.pdf
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