A Moment with Dr. Moore

Culture and Confidence

Hispanic early childhood teachers are shaping the future in our nation’s diverse classrooms. Currently, one in four children are Hispanic, and 32 percent of them are dual language learners. Across the country, 37 percent of the children enrolled in Head Start programs are Hispanic, and 22 percent come from families that mainly speak Spanish at home. Both the children and their families face pressures and cultural roadblocks that many of our Hispanic early childhood teachers have also been through first-hand, so they’re in a unique position to provide support. Shared challenges build empathy and compassion, as some Hispanic teachers have pointed out.

“I was a migrant child,” said an early childhood teacher who served seasonal farm worker families in Wyoming. “I know how it feels as a child to go from one place to another place. I think that has influenced me to be able to talk to the children in our migrant program and be able to comfort them. I can get down to their level and really understand what they are feeling or afraid of.” And so could an early childhood teacher in Texas who said, “I can relate to my students and their families. I know what it’s like to not speak English and need to figure out what the teacher is saying. I understand the feeling of not having help at home with homework. I can sympathize with parents who want to help their children with homework, but the language barrier stands in their way. That’s why I use social media to upload examples in Spanish to help parents with homework.”

It also helps to have a rich curriculum that gives Hispanic children pride in who they are. That was among my goals some decades ago when I was CEO of Plaza de la Raza Child Development Services, a nonprofit in Los Angeles. And a rich curriculum includes the right books, according to a Hispanic first-grade teacher in Texas. “One year,” as she recalled, “I had a student who was Hispanic and had darker skin. Her mom shared that it had become a huge issue at home. In response, I obtained culturally relevant books through DonorsChoose, a nonprofit that that funds public school classroom projects. And the donation not only helped her in class. It also provided an assortment of books for her to have at home to work through her feelings. And appreciating our different shades of brown brought the girl and me closer together.”

So does a shared language, according to feedback from a teacher who worked with Mexican children and families in Michigan’s Great Lakes region. “A lot of the children don’t speak English,” she said, “so I think we need two bilingual educators in every classroom. The children become closer to you when you speak and read to them in Spanish.” And this also builds bonds with parents, said another Hispanic teacher in the program. “When we talk to them in Spanish, I feel like the parents have more trust in us, because they know who we are and that we speak their language.”

The Hispanic parents and teachers also have something else in common. They share a set of cultural values that are intrinsic to Hispanic culture: family or familismo, belonging or pertenencia, education or educación, and commitment or compromiso. Granted, these values play a role in other cultures, but they lead to distinct principles and practices for Hispanic families. So, the families respond better to educators who are familiar with these cherished values and make them a basic part of classroom practice.

Educators who aren’t Hispanic can cross the cultural divide, but it takes concerted work. This includes respecting the children’s home language by providing bilingual instruction, bringing translators in and picking up some Spanish. All this presents challenges for English speakers in the classroom. And the roadblocks continue when they are meeting with parents. English-speaking teachers in the Great Lakes region admitted to feeling discouraged when trying to build partnerships with families and explained that it made their work hard. Even a teacher who spoke a little Spanish pointed out the impact of the language divide on families. “I’d say the hardest thing for me is the language barrier because I’m still learning Spanish. The parents will sometimes come and talk to me, and I’ll say, ‘No hablo español.’ Or I’ll have to pull somebody in and be like, You’ve got to translate for me because I don’t know what they’re saying.”

That’s an issue since a shared language boosts trust or confianza for Spanish-speaking families, as the data shows. Teachers who don’t speak the families’ language may not have the same kind of trusting bonds. And an added challenge in building confianza is closely reading behavior and responding to cultural codes, as English-speaking teachers have pointed out. “I think you need to be willing to be very open, and always ‘see’ the children and families,” said an early childhood teacher in Wyoming. “You have to listen carefully to the parents as well as the child. You know you might say something that is offensive to their culture without meaning to, and you don’t want to do that. You want to make the child feel comfortable because then they will learn.”

It helps to bring a child’s culture into the classroom and invite parents to come share a family tradition or favorite pastime. This shows the children that they are important, that their family background is important, and that they belong. At the same time, it is important to know individual families and not assume that all members of an ethnic group have the same customs and beliefs, as another English-speaking teacher in the Great Lakes region warned. “Do some research, learn about them. Don’t just say, they are Hispanic and assume everybody is going to have the same culture.”

I learned this lesson at Plaza de La Raza when I found out that an educator who made home visits was using her own money to buy ingredients for a family celebration. We had made no provision for these supplies since they weren’t part of our standard program for Hispanic families. But that changed after I went with her on a home visit. I saw the family’s excitement when she pulled out her little bag of goodies, and after that we set aside funds for home visitors to purchase supplies that met families’ unique customs, traditions and needs. So, I realized that it made a difference when the person doing the work in the field was part of the cultural family or part of the cultural community. They understood the importance of these home celebrations or family gatherings that I wasn’t fully aware of from my perch as CEO.

In short, Hispanic early childhood teachers have insights that can guide us as we build inclusion in the early childhood classroom. Doing so demands that we respect and research parents’ preferences and beliefs, shape curriculum based on family viewpoints and values, take steps to provide books and resources in both Spanish and English—and have more Hispanic teachers in our early childhood settings. These steps will help the early childhood field make a closer connection with children who are the future of our nation.

The efforts we make to help them grow and learn have a major impact, says Tania Villarroel, senior early childhood policy analyst at UnidosUS, the largest Hispanic civil rights group in the U.S. “This is not just a Hispanic issue, and it’s not just a children’s issue because how we serve Hispanic children today will impact how America is going to be tomorrow. Today, one in four babies in the U.S. are Hispanic and that number is expected to rise to one in three by 2061. This is how fast the Latino population is growing.” Like all our multicultural children, “they are the workers, the innovators, and the leaders who will drive our economy and democracy in the coming decades.” And they will learn best from people who share their language, values and culture. Having a diverse early learning workforce, including many Hispanic teachers, should give us all more confianza in the future.