Aaron Lloyd

Anti-Bias Response Paper

ECE 211A
Mrs. Shuayto
Anti-Bias Response Paper

The classroom I observed was a first grade room at Arno Elementary, which is

taught by Mrs. Watson. She has been teaching for over fifteen years and has a love and

logic based teaching method. She stated this is one of her most challenging classes

because she has five english language learners along with two behavioral challenged

students.. She told me she has taught english language learners before, but not this

many at once.

After observing her classroom and the interactions that she had with her students

I would say this is an anti-bias classroom that focused on each student as a person and

working to mold them into the best person they can be. Looking around the classroom

you will see that it’s setup to encourage peer interaction. The tables are in groups of

four, while there is a large carpet area for daily five, reading, and activities. There are

many photos, word walls, counting charts, and more on the walls of the room. Above

the student's desk are the solar system, with Star Wars references and you will find both

a male and female jedi. If you look closer on the word wall there is a train car with three

kids in the window, one is white, one is black, and one is latino. If you look to the

number wall you will see the numbers 1 - 18, with five different ways to write them. Each

of this numbers has a child on it and not only will you see both male and female, but you

will see a mixture of skin colors among them. The door to the classroom host pictures of

the students and their families, so that their peers can see them every day they come in.
 Aaron Lloyd
Anti-Bias Response Paper
ECE 211A
Mrs. Shuayto
The classroom library is abundant, so I wasn’t able to review all of the books, but

the ones I did observe were very diverse. One the main bookcase that showed many

books cover there was one about the Iditarod sled dog race with a female eskimo/native

on the cover that was depicting her as the champion. While in some of the book tubs I

found a book called “Children Around the World” that was about all the different cultures

around the world, but the how the children are all the similar. On another book case I

discovered a book with many children all with different skin color and on the shelf below

was the book “The Snowy Day” which main character is a black child.

While listening to Mrs. Watson interact with the children you notice that no one

student is more important than another student, but when the student is talking to the

student she gives her full undivided attention. Even when another student is trying to

interrupt or a student needs redirection, she apologizes to the student speaking and lets

them know that she wants to hear what they have to say, but she needs to do whatever

it is, so that she can hear everything they are saying. She does this for each student, I

witnessed it with males and females, with a African-American girl, a Asian boy, and a

Caucasian boy. She encourages the students to speak about what they are feeling

when they look disturbed or upset. I watched as she pulled aside a white male student

who looked to be upset to talk about it. I didn’t hear the exchange, but saw him break

out in tears and compose himself to explain what it was. When he returned to his seat

he seem to be on the uptick and feeling better.

There are two students who have behavioral challenges that are disruptive to the

classroom when they carry on. During an read aloud by another student that was
 Aaron Lloyd
Anti-Bias Response Paper
ECE 211A
Mrs. Shuayto
waiting so patiently on these two to sit and be ready, Mrs. Watson simply suggested to

one “John, I know you love to see the pictures, why don’t we have you sit upfront so you

can see. I’m sure your friends up there would make room for you.” He seemed excited

and took his place, his classmates made room for him. He didn’t disrupt the whole read

aloud. While the other student she offered him to sit in a seat at the edge of the carpet

or stand at the table since he doesn’t like sitting on the carpet. He walked around the

tables, but didn’t disrupt the story and seemed content.

In closing I feel this classroom isn’t in the beginning stages, but has make

conscious efforts to promote anti-bias. I believe that Mrs. Watson promotes anti-bias in

every interaction with the students showing no one favor over another, speaking with

care and the child of the focus no matter which student is speaking to her. She

constantly refers to classmates as our friends to build a bond between the class as a

whole. Couple that with the efforts in classroom library and images around the class the

children are being exposed to different races and cultures.