Working with Children from Culturally Diverse Backgrounds Essay

Working with Children from Culturally Diverse Backgrounds - Essay Example Its importance cuts across the board from support staff to specialists in a particular field. Russell (7) appreciates the difficulty in working with children and families due to the rapidly expanding development in research findings on brain science and early childhood education. Alongside this, there have been changes in early childhood systems which affect accreditation and licensing as well as curriculum and models of delivery. Whereas the amount of growth and change presents great opportunities for quality improvement in this sector, necessary tools need to be implemented to ensure alignment with the changes. Professional development among teachers who impart development among children also becomes an important consideration. The features necessary for achievement of effective professional development include adopting new forms in teaching that include strategies such as mentoring, study groups and research projects. As these strategies take more time than the traditional approac hes, Gay (106) notes the importance of extending development programs over a longer time span. Collective participation where teachers would be given the chance to work with their counterparts would be critical in building communities hence resulting in sustainable change in professional development. ... The employer should also offer support by creating opportunities to enable employees discuss developing practice. The exchange of diverse knowledge propagates self development among professionals. With the increased cultural diversity among children in learning institutions, EHSNRC (5) asks teachers to be prepared to handle considerable diversity in children experiences. This raises the need for culturally responsive teaching where cultural experiences, perspectives and characteristics would be used as tools for effectively teaching them. The assumption here is that when knowledge and skills are based on children’s frame of reference and lived experience, they become more personally meaningful and learnt more thoroughly and easily. Explicit knowledge on cultural diversity would be an important consideration in meeting developmental needs of ethnically diverse children. Gay (107) notes that this knowledge includes understanding the characteristics of cultures and the contributi on by various ethnic groups. Culture encompasses various issues including cultural values, learning styles, traditions and communication. As such, Byrd-Blake and Olivieri (9) outlined five steps to be adopted to ensure development among culturally different children: acquisition of explicit knowledge on cultural diversity; collection of factual information on cultural particularities of various groups and consequently designing instructional strategies and curricula; creation of conducive climate for learning among ethnically diverse children; adoption of effective cross-cultural communication; and appropriate delivery of instructions to ethnically diverse children. Various tools should be employed to ensure development in culturally diverse environment. Gay