Fostering and cultivating culturally empathetic early childhood educators: A curriculum for pre-service educators

2018-07-30There has been increase of ethnically and culturally diverse learners in the nation, in our schools, and our early childhood classrooms. Due to this increase, pre-service teacher education programs, specifically future early childhood educators, need to work with ethnically and culturally diverse learners. While there are studies that address how K-12 teachers can develop and incorporate culturally relevant pedagogy in the classroom have increased, few of these include preschool teachers (Gichuru, Riley, Robertson, & Park, 2015). The purpose of this curriculum is for early childhood educators to become culturally empathetic in working with culturally diverse learners and use developmentally and culturally appropriate teaching and learning in their classroom. Using the social constructivism theory, sociocultural theory, and the cognitive learning theory, the curriculum will be a total of seven units to be implemented in a preservice teacher education program. Upon successful completion of this course, learners will be able to identify their positionality, critically reflect on their teaching practices, use culturally relevant teaching strategies, and create a classroom climate to bring about social justice. The summative assessment is a culminating portfolio of exemplars of their work such as, reflective journal entries, developmentally and culturally appropriate lesson plans, and a multimodal project. To effectively teach to ethnically and culturally diverse learners, early childhood educators, must be equipped with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to create a climate to be change agents and become culturally empathetic for those learners in their classrooms