Customer Reviews

Anti-Bias Curriculum: Tools for Empowering Young Children (NAEYC, No. 242)

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I was shocked to see the low reviews given this book, and once I read them thought I should chip in my 2 cents to offset the bizarre review previously submitted. This book is a standard for anyone interested in issues around equity and diversity and how the politics of our culture can best be answered and improved through our work with young children. We've known this since LBJ was president and he commissioned the Kerner Report - in order to stop bias and the anger that it causes, we need to start with the youngest among us. I've had this book by my side for the almost 20 years I've worked with children, and consider it to be as crucial and important as Sue Bredecamp's DAP. This is not a book of lies, it's the most honest direct approaches to diversity. And it speaks the truth.

Louise Derman-Sparks book continues to be a favorite of mine since I first purchased it nearly 18 years ago. As a teacher of young children, I found it invaluable in helping me create a classroom that tangibly respected the diversity of our families (chapter 2, "Creating an Anti-Bias Environment" was especially helpful with this task). When I first came upon the book I was well versed in helping children develop high self-esteem, but this book helped me realize that sometimes that positive identity is based on ethnocentrism or stereotyping. The introduction to the book was most thought provoking! I read "Boys need to learn competence without also learning to feel and act superior to girls"...and "Differences are good; oppressive ideas and behaviors are not." This book helped me move from a multicultural (tourist) approach to a genuinely respectful anti-bias approach to help children affirm and enjoy cultural identities in their community. Chapter 7 "Learning about Cultural Differences and Similarities" is an invaluable resource for planning respectful activities. I encourage all teachers of young children to read and use this most valuable resource.

I read this for an Early Childhood Education class, and it's amazing.

Parents, when you're looking for a preschool, you NEED to ask the director to show you the campus copy of this. If the campus does not have this on hand, do not put your kids in that preschool.

Basically, anyone can open a pre-school and anyone can run it any way they want (within bounds of state and federal laws), BUT Anti-Bias Curriculum (ABC) is the healthiest understanding for anyone who deals with a lot of different children on how to deal with how kids perceive differences between themselves and others. Also, whether you realize it or not, your kid is picking up YOUR biases before they even set foot in preschool, and this allows the preschool to teach the kids a healthy way to deal with those biases and learn how to accept other children who seem strange to them.

I would go so far to say that every teacher and administrator at any level should be required to read this, because even though its mostly talking about very little children, I think it would help in those schools who have found themselves faced with lawsuits because they had a teacher or administrator who did not know how to teach different kids like humans.

This book I received well in advance also. It must be a pretty old book. It cost me .82 cents, the shipping was more than the book. I could of gotten this book from the resource room where I work, but I did not know they had them in stock. Either way, I was happy to get the book before I needed to use it. That is why I go through Amazon because they have the books I need, at a reasonable price.

I am looking for a book titled as anti-bias curriculum by derman-man sparks and louise related to child education Can you help pl

Excerpts from NAEYC'S "Anti-Bias and Child Activist Curricula":
Anti-Bias Curriculum - Tools for Empowering Young Children

Multiculturalism:
Definition of "Whites: All the different national ethnic groups of European origin who as a group are disproportionately represented in the control of the economic, political, and cultural institutions in the United States." (p. 3)

Witchcraft:
"Kay sets up...a 'witch-healer' table, where the children can make their own potions." (p. 9)

Revisionist History:
"And if the hypothetical Indians who participated in that hypothetical feast thought all was well and were thankful in the expectation of a peaceful future, they were sadly mistaken." (pp. 87-88)

Homosexuality:
Definition of "Homophobia: A fear and hatred of gay men and lesbians backed up by institutional policies and power that discriminate against them." (p. 3)

Sexual Identity:
"...the purpose of these activities is to enable preschoolers to develop a clear, healthy sex identity through understanding that their being a girl or boy depends on their anatomy, not on what they like to do." (p. 53)

"Make copies of an outline of a body as drawn by a preschooler, and in small groups, ask children to fill in all the body parts, and to show if the person is a girl or boy." (p. 53)

Activism with Young Children:
"Young children have an impressive capacity for learning how to be activists if adults provide activities that are relevant and developmentally appropriate. (;. 77)

"Instead of one superhuman figure (usually a white male) righting wrongs all by himself, activism activities teach that real people, adults and children, make life better by working together." (p. 79)

I think I found what you are searching for! Found right here on Amazon.com is a book by Louise Derman-Sparks called Teaching/Learning Anti-Racism. Hope it helps. The cost seems very decent.