Start Seeing Diversity: “You Don’t Need to Say That!”

I have heard many stories from parents about “embarrassing” things that their children have pointed out about other people and in my classroom I’ve had a few curious students ask questions about the diversity that they observe. One story in particular that stands out to me happened about 2 years ago at the preschool I work at. A lady came to visit the 3-year old classroom; she looked as though she was in her early 30s and a large portion of her hair was gray, the rest was black. One of our students, Bea, said “wow, that lady has two-colored hair.” My first response was to nod my head and say “shh” because I did not want to offend the lady. My co-teacher also heard the comment and said “let’s not talk about that now” I think that both of us were at a loss of the correct thing to say; our responses however communicated to Bea that there was something wrong with her observation. She said louder, this time to the visitor “did you know that you have two-colored hair?” My co-teacher said “Bea, you don’t need to say that!” Looking back, I can see that our responses were not the best-but fortunately the lady stepped in.

Our visitor came in front of the class and explained that her hair had started to turn gray when she was in high school and that she could not keep dyeing it so now she had two different shades of hair. Another student piped up and said “but you look like Cruella De Vil!” she smiled and explained that she did have two different colors of hair like Cruella De Vil but she was not like her and that she thought that having black and gray hair was a special part of her.

I was amazed at how the lady handled the situation and my co-teacher and I both thanked her at the end. She told us that she did not mind answering questions and talking about her hair, she knew it was different for people to see and that children were often curious about it; I think that this was really my first lesson in being open about differences and the idea that questions are ok. Hearing this lady’s response made me realize that it is only natural for children to ask questions and that it is our responses that turn the curiosity into a negative experience.

I think that an anti-bias educator would have handled the situation in the way that our visitor did-calmly acknowledge the difference and remind the students that everyone has different colored hair and follow up with a diversity lesson or activity later. It is sometimes hard because the things children say may embarrass us and so our first reaction is to silence them or to tell them that “we don’t say things like that” but this may make the child think that there is something wrong with their observation or the person that they are observing and we are teaching them not to discuss diversity. However, if we learn how to take a deep breath and handle situations and questions matter of factly and with honesty then we are helping support the child’s understanding of diversity and differences.