Making Things Fit
Bonnie Headley, Project Director, Alaska Head Start Health
Improvement Initiative Dental Project, Anchorage, Alaska

Head Start and Colgate-Polmolive recently joined together to produce a new dental health curriculum entitled "Bright Smiles, Bright Futures." This curriculum incorporates current approaches to dental health and early childhood education, and in particular focuses on multicultural approaches. The materials include a videotape to be used with parents; an audio tape of songs and chants; a big book of dental information presented in a culturally diverse, age-appropriate text; and a manual of classroom, home-visit and parent-meeting activities to be used at the discretion of the program staff. 

Need for Curriculum Adaptation to Local Culture

As with all nationally-produced materials, adaptation is necessary to make materials relevant to the unique situations of ethnic minorities. This is particularly true in Head Start where a family focus and Performance Standards both mandate cultural relevance.

On a preschool level, cultural relevance in the classroom is crucially important, since the child's sense of self is still emerging. This important goal is achieved in Head Start classrooms by employing teachers of the children's culture who speak the local language and who know and understand the activities of the home and community. In rural Alaska, the vast majority of enrolled Head Start children belong to one of many Alaska Native cultural groups.

Not only are the native Alaskan cultures so small in population that national materials do not include them, but the geographical environment of rural Alaskan villages are unique and do not appear in nationally-produced materials. The teachers often adapt materials to fit the local culture. It is common, for example, to see kuspuks and parkas of dance blankets in the doll corner; four wheelers, fishing boats, or dog sleds among the transportation toys; and berry buckets or salmon-drying racks in the housekeeping area. Through play with materials that reflect real life, children are stimulated in their curiosity and intellectual understanding of the world around them.

Adaptation of "Bright Smiles,
Bright Futures" Big Book

It was important to re-illustrate the "Bright Smiles, Bright Futures" materials to make them fit life as it is lived in rural Alaska. An artist was found who had lived and worked in rural Alaska, and who re-illustrated the big book and a poster that were part of the curriculum.

The Big Book, which is to be held in the teacher's lap to read and discuss with a group of children, is illustrated with an admirable array of multicultural faces, some of which resemble children in rural Alaska. The book takes place in an urban setting, however, so several changes were needed to permit rural Alaskan children to see themselves in the book, such as:

  1. A group of children seated around a table enjoying a snack, have behind them a window through which an urban skyline is visible. That background was blocked out entirely to let the interior stand alone.
  2. A group of children playing in a playground was re-illustrated to make the scene a snowy winter day. As winter is a fact for most of the Head Start year, Alaskan children generally play outdoors in the snow.
  3. A scene in a dentist's office was changed to reflect the itinerant nature of dental practice in rural Alaska. Usually dentists set up their portable equipment in the high school or village clinic.
  4. The final change in the Big Book was to the scenes of children brushing their teeth at home. There are two illustrations; one of a boy and one of a girl. The boy is standing in a bathroom in front of a mirror that reflects an urban scene. The reflection was changed in the mirror to show a sunset over a frozen body of water, which could be either a river or ocean. (All Alaskan villages are located on water.) Since many communities in rural Alaska still do not have running water, drinking water is brought into the homes, and tooth brushing generally takes place with a bucket and dipper. The girl is shown in this way.

The "Bright Smiles, Bright Futures" curriculum also includes two posters, one of which shows a grocery store scene laden with healthy food choices. This scene was so clearly urban, representing an outdoor fruit and vegetable market, it was clear that Alaskan children would have a difficult time relating to the information presented. The scene was re-illustrated to show the interior of a typical Alaskan village store.

The questions programs need to answer as they look at curriculum for their programs are:
· What in this material do our children experience in daily life?
· What changes can be made to reflect life as we live it?

For more information on adapting this curriculum, contact Bonnie Headley at (907)272-6925, fax (907) 272-6946.

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