6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Comfornting Our Discomfort, September 24, 2003
This review is from: Confronting Our Discomfort: Clearing the Way for Anti-Bias in Early Childhood (Paperback)
This book is a gem. In it Tamar Jacobson calls for everyone to examine their past as well as their current feelings about themselves and others so as to confront their biases. The book is aimed at childcare staff who work with young children, but its message is relevant to all who want to examine their prejudices.
By being so personal the book provides readers with an example of how to go about confronting bias. By being so readable it offers its readers an effortless way to think about the causes and remedies for closed mindedness. By being so direct it cuts through the debris-things that prevent readers from confronting their biases.
Jacobson's main way for making the case that we should all be confronting our discomfort is by offering illustrative snippets from her own life. She tells stories about herself, her family, and her staff and about the families and teachers she works with every day (she is an administrator in a child care center and serves as a consultant to other centers across America). Her stories point to the ever present manifestations of bias all around her, and, by logical extension all around all of us. Some of the stories look back and offer explanations for how current bias originated. Others the stories point forward toward solutions. They are always authentic and familiar, and they always drive home the point that there is plenty of work to do when confronting bias in our own everyday lives.
Dr. Jacobson's book focuses mostly on the personal sources of racism and oppression in society. She sees it originating in people's natural efforts to survive both physically and emotionally as they strive throughout their lives to be accepted and safe. In the course of creating a safe place for themselves, individuals come to mistrust and mistreat others, sometimes out of fear, sometimes out of competition, often out of anger.
It is these uncomfortable feelings of fear, anger, mistrust that Dr. Jacobson focuses on when she asks people to confront their discomfort. She sees these feelings as a kind of debris that needs to be cleared away (hence the subtitle, clearing the way for anti-bias) and replaced with compassion and activism.
The primary means that Dr. Jacobson offers for clearing away the debris is through self reflection. She talks about various ways to develop personal insights including reading, counseling, journal writing, and support groups. She recommends professional development aimed at engaging people in passionate co-reflection and at supporting people to listen to their own and others' stories about survival.
One of Dr. Jacobson's favorite ways of engaging in self reflection is through supervised support groups. She offers some details about her experiences as a facilitator and member of such a group and reveals how she and others came to grips with their own biases as they worked to develop an anti-bias curriculum for their classrooms.
While this book focuses on how to bring about changes in teachers, underpinning it all is how to make the world a better place for children in childcare classrooms. She emphasizes throughout the power teachers have over children and how they can change children's lives, for better or worse, during this formative stage in their development.
This book differs from other books of its kind in its attention to the personal side of bias. Its focus is not on the curriculum or on how to bring multiculturalism and respectful practices into the classroom, but on how to confront and rid oneself of the debris, thereby clearing the way for anti-bias.
In her own words:
When we take on the challenge of an anti-bias approach in our classrooms and early childhood programs we take on the responsibility of confronting our discomfort about how we acquired bias and prejudice. No matter how many good intentions I have, when my subconscious is affecting me I have little control about the decisions I make: nor do I seem able to manage my behaviors in situations that seem to threaten those survival skills I learned at a young age. On my own I have searched for all sorts of ways to support self-reflection, including counseling, journal writing inspirational posters, bibliotherapy, and by acquiring a higher education. It has not been easy. I continue to work at self-understanding in all these different ways. I still have a lot to do and probably always will" (p. 157-8).
We continue to be blocked by shame, fear, guild, or old useless survival skills." (p. 161).
I like to think of how a cycle might be for some of us who choose to do this work: With courage we confront our discomfort and face ourselves. As we delve into our own early childhood experiences we discover feelings of hurt, anger, fear and guilt. It takes time and can be painful. We might choose to let go of some of our biases, and we might have to keep some with us. As we explore our shadows and limitations - our prejudices, our bias - we develop an affinity with all beings who suffer. Compassion enriches and enhances our understanding of the human condition. We become activists, more and more able to do powerful anti-bias work, and less afraid to stand up for what is right. (p. 162).
Judith Felson Duchan
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