Cultural diversity - Working with children from a minority culture

As a Chinese teacher working in New Zealand, I feel so privileged as I have the unconditional trust from the Chinese parents. They have faith in me looking after their children well, simply because I am Chinese and speak their language. They like me well before they get to know me. As such, I feel obliged to take on an extra responsibility to take care of the Chinese children.

Interestingly, parents from other minority cultures seem to like me better and tend to talk with me easily. An Korean mother said that she is happy to see a chinese teacher in the kindergarten and feels comfortable to send her girl here. I can't understand Korean at all! Employing a Chinese teacher is definitely sending a clear message to the community that minority cultures are respected in this kindy.

Also, I am quite aware of the cultural aspects in teaching. Though the indigenious culture in New Zealand is Maori, the European/white people are dominating in terms of education, finance, politics and so on. The mainstream language is English, whereas Maori language/te reo is at risk of dying, unfortunately. I am the only teacher at my kindy using Maori songs and reading Maori legends regularly. One day, a Maori parent complimented me for reading a Maori theme book at end of the day mat-time. When I explained that teachers here are all respecting the culture, she remarked that she had only seen me using Maori resources at mat-time. That seems to be true. Since then, I started observing, other teachers use Maori resources during the day, but never at the end of the kindy session when all parents are here, waiting to pick up their child. (A bit shy when parents are watching?) So, it's about making the teaching visible. It needs to be seen to believe it.

Making learning and teaching visible is a big issue in early childhood education. For school children, reports and examination results reflect the quality of teaching and learning that happen, to a large extent. For young children, teachers need to do something extra to communicate with and seek feedback from parents.