Anti-Bias Acitity: Cultural Dances

*Cultural Dances*

Description:

Send a not home to parents asking if they, their older children, extended family members, or anyone they know would be willing to come to your classroom to demonstrate a traditional dance from their child's home culture. Teachers can also ask someone who participate in an ethnic dace group. Ask the parents or dancers to join your group time in their street clothes and talk with the children about when and where they dance, how they feel when they dance, what it means to them, and how they learned the dance.

I selected this activity because of the variety of cultural dances in the world. Personally, I have always loved to dance since I was little. In this world, there are so many types of daces based on the religions. Even in one religion, there are also so many types of dances such as for ceremonies, express emotions, pray, and worship. But first of all, dancing is FUN!! Therefore, children can have fun with dancing and at the sane time, they can learn the cultural differences. I believe that dancing is one of the most effective ways to teach children cultural differences and let them come in touch with the cultures.

I believe that this activity is appropriate for young children who are ages three to eight. Children LOVE to listen to music and move their bodies on the music by their own ways. They enjoy music and movement very much. Some people say that preschoolers are too young to discuss about cultural differences with adults and aware the difference. However, "young children are naturally curios about the world, which is why preschooler years are often referred to as the question-asking stages" (York 17). I believe that this activity will be fit for this age group of children.

According to the text, the themes of this activity are my people, bodies, music, and community (York 194). These themes are appropriate for the age group of children. In preschool year, children develop their self-awareness. Also, their body grows rapidly and their motor development increase during the period of time. Therefore, this activity is appropriate theme for their development and learning experiences.

Anti-Bias Goals:

- Introduce children to other cultures. (Handout)

- Demonstrate self-acceptance of one's cultural identity. (York 139)

- Recognize, appreciate, and respect the uniqueness, beauty, value and

contribution of each child. (Handout)

How Are These Goals Met?

Like I said above, introducing cultural dances is one of the most effective ways to teach children about other cultures. Having guests and dancers in a classroom is a great idea to meet the goals. Children can ask why they dance, what it is for, and how they learned the dance. This is appropriate for the children who are in question-asking period. Coming touch in other cultures and religion is amazing, valuable, and unique experience.

Children's Books:

1. How Can You Dance? By Rick Walton and Ana Lopez-Escriva.

This book is a rhyming book. Children can be encouraged to dance kangaroos, trees, foxes, and more. Children would learn cultural dances from this activity but also learn silly and funny dances that other things such as nature and animals do. This would be a really fun activity with young children.

2. Going To My Ballet Class? By Susan Kuklin.

This book is a nice, straightforward introduction of ballet dance for young children. Ballet is one of the most famous types of dance in the world. I had really hard time to find children's books about cultural dances. However, I believe that this book is a great opportunity to learn ballet dance for children.

References:

Anti-Bias Activity Goals Handout.

York, Stacy. Roots & Wings. Redleaf Press: Minnesota. 2003. Print.

*All pictures are from Google Images.

Children's Film Review - 101 Dalmatians

Title: 101 Dalmatians
Release Date: January 25, 1961

This film is about Pongo that is make Dalmatian, Perdita that is a female Dalmatian 

and their puppies. Pongo is living in London with Roger who is his master and a songwriter. Pongo arranges meeting Anita who is beautiful and has female Dalmatian which is Perdita. Pongo's arrangement succeeds and Roger and Anita get married after not long later they meet for the first time. A few months later, Perdita gives birth to 15 puppies. Cruella De Vil who is a wicked boss of Anita wants the puppies to make her own coat of Dalmatian pelts. However, Roger and Anita reject her offer so Cruella kidnaps and buys Dalmatians including the 15 puppies of Pongo and Perdita. When Pongo and Perdita realize that their puppies are kidnapped, they run away from the house to find the missing puppies. They communicate with all dogs in the city with barking and plan to save the puppies from Cruella's house.

I still remember when I watched this film for the first time. I do not remember how exactly old I was but it was when I was in kindergarten or first grade. I LOVED this film so much. At my parents house, we had a dog at that time and he was a Japanese dog. Until that time, I have seen only Japanese dogs. Therefore, I did not know Dalmatian dog. In this movie, the puppies are really cute. I also loved the name of the puppies. After I watched this film, it instantly became my alternate favorite film forever. My dream dog is Dalmatian too. However, I do not know nor remember how I felt or thought during I was watching this film. Only one thing that I remember is that I hated Cruells De Vil so much. I did not think about any issue by watching this film. I did not think about stereotypes, well I did not know anything about stereotypes at that time thought... Although this film is one of Disney's old and classic film, I believe that this film still would be a hit for young children in this century. Children would love how Pongo, Perdita, and other animals save the missing puppies all together. I believe that the scene when they beat Cruella is the best scene in this film.

                                    

I believe that people think Cruella De Vil is the most controversial character in this film. From my research, I saw a lot of articles and blogs talking about Cruella. In most of the Disney films, the "bad guy" is mostly male. However, Cruella is female character and is a classical example of middle-aged villain. This category refers to what has been called, Disney's femme fataes (defined as powefu; women defined by their sexuality). From many of Disney movies, I realized that Disney depicts beauty as being good. Leach states that "physically attractive characters were more likely to achieve positive life out comes at the film's end and were more likely to be romantically involved." I totally agree with this statement. For most of the heroines from Disney films are "beautiful", "cute", "innocent" teenage girls. On the other hand, "bad" female characters are more likely "ugly", "overweight", and have "vicious" looking.

The nanny also describes the stereotype and the gender role. In Disney film, older women are defined as fairies, godmothers, and servants. In this film, the nanny serve food and drink for Roger and Anita, and clean and take care of the house. She takes care a lot of Roger and Anita when their dogs and puppies are gone by serving some tea to comfort them. 

In conclusion, I did not realize these stereotypes until I read the articles and blogs. I really enjoyed this analysis since I could see different perspectives, not only just enjoy the film. I am interested in watchid other Disney and children's film to evaluate the stereotypes, gender roles, and other controversial issues. 

References:

Leach, B. (2010. Disney characters portray 'beauty is good' stereotype. The Telegraph, Retrieved from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/8098733/Disney-characters-portray-beauty-is-good-stereotype.html

(n.d.). (2012). Disney's depiction of stereotypes in 101 Dalmatians. Wordpress.com, Retrieved from: http://daliadiscoversdigitalmedia.wordpress.com/disneys-depiction-of-stereotypes-in-101-dalmatians/

Children's Book Analysis and Evaluation - Daddy's Roommate

Title: Daddy's Roommate

Author and Illustrator: Michael Willhoite

Originally published by Alyson Books in 1991

The main character of this book is a boy whose parents got divorce the previous year. He and his father move in together with the father's roommate; Frank. His father and Frank do everything together. The boy lives both father's and mother's house. At the end, the boy is told that his father and Frank are gay by his mother. He realizes that he is happy with his two "daddies".

This story is definitely about sex orientation and gay acceptance. The author does not mention that the father and Frank are gay until the end. However, we can see that the father and Frank do everything together. I believe that the author wanted to show how gay couple live together or there is no problem to raise a child by two men. I also believe what the author wanted to show mostly is how normal homosexual is. At the time when this book was published in 1991, sex orientation and same-sex marriage were the most controversial issues. According to the video, this book was banned in any parts of this country in 1990s. People took this book away from schools and libraries to keep this book out of children's hands. 

This book includes a lot of illustrations and a bit of sentences. This is important for young children to develop their imaginations. However, I feel the illustrations are a little bit of stereotypes. What the father and Frank wear in this book shows typical gays such as shorts and many colored tops. I am not sure that is the trend of clothes at that times. But I feel like the illustration shows typical gay men.

Like I mentioned above, this book describes gay couple's daily life by the perception of the boy. Also, it shows how normal they are like heterosexual couple. We can see the normal life through all pages in this book such as "Dad and his friend Frank are living together. They work together, eat together, sleep together, shave together, and sometimes even fight together" (Willhoite, 1991, p. 3-8).

I choose this book because it relates to my personal life. The knowledge of homosexuals and same-sex marriage have been expanding and accepting in the U.S. The number of states that accept same-sex marriage legally is getting increase. I believe that the number of children who have two daddies or mommies is not zero anymore. However, in the early childhood environment, there are still traditional family style materials such as picture books, songs, finger plays, and toys. I have never seen picture books like this book in preschools. I am sure that there are some parents who do not want their children to look or read this theme books. However, I believe that this is important to show gay acceptance for young children to show two daddies or mommies are normal and nothing different.

 The biggest message to children from this book is that "Being gay is just one more kind of love. And love is the best kind of happiness" (Willhoite, 1991, p. 26-27). I totally agree with this; love is love. We should accept that there are many types of family style. This book does not explain gender roles such as men work and women do domestic work for family. This book shows the equality. 

At the last, I would recommend this book for children. Some children might feel wondering or weird about this book. This theme to show young children that homosexual is acceptable is not common theme like many books address. I believe that this is disappointing. Preschools or publishers should have more books like this; showing many types of family style. Children mostly get wrong knowledge of homosexuals from their parent's statements or medias. Of course I know that accepting homosexuals relates to beliefs in regions for some people. I understand how difficult to accept it completely. However, from my perception, there is nothing bad about homosexuals or other LGBT people. We cannot change others. Homosexuals is not a choice. Personally, I really really want children to take a look this book and read.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWLBPaTAIb8

Works Cited

Bliss, Kellie. (2014). Evaluating Children's Literature. Retrieved    from https://sierra.instructure.com/courses/245205/assignments/2570955

California Department of Education, Council on Interracial Book for Children. (1998). 10 Quick    Ways to Analyze Children's Books For Racism and Sexism. Sacrament, CA; Bill Honig.

Willhoite, Michael. (1991). Daddy's Roommate. New York: Alyson Books.