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Thinking about Lunar New Year – a critical reflection

Kristina Grana reflects on recent practice, recognising the value of embracing vulnerability, starting conversations and exploring biases, to evaluate and step forward with new understandings.

By Kristina Grana, KU Children's Services

October 2024

In February this year, we planned several learning experiences to acknowledge Chinese New Year. I believed our planning was very intentional and culturally sensitive – I consciously made efforts to invite input from all the families who we know celebrate this event. I was inspired by an old colleague who was from a Chinese cultural background and remembered “The story of Nian” she shared with the children last year. I believed this was a good place to start teaching and revisited the story again with children. Following this, I planned to collaboratively make our own dragon using recycled materials. The children and educators alike thoroughly enjoyed this moment. The children asked for music to accompany the dance, and it was lots of fun.

In addition to this, we invited families to contribute cultural artefacts we could explore. This led to a “cultural box” and a provocation table with traditional clothing, Chinese money, coins, red and flowered pockets and Chinese paper for water-based painting. We collaborated with a parent and engaged in a dumpling cooking experience. My colleagues and I were very pleased with the success of the experiences and the week!

On the morning of the celebration (10 February) I put a message on Storypark, sharing a greeting with all families – “Happy Chinese New Year”. Within minutes of posting this greeting, I was left feeling very confused. A parent had very quickly responded to my greeting stating, “the content here is not appropriate”, “we hate it when people refer to it as Chinese New Year”. In this initial moment I could feel my heart and head racing with thoughts – how could I get feedback like this when we just did all this incredible work? Should I delete the post? That didn’t feel right either.

After gathering my speeding thoughts, I decided to reply and thank the parent for the perspective they shared and expressed our commitment towards learning and growing in culturally responsive practice. I edited the greeting and image. 109 views, 7 likes and 8 responses from different families later, I was very pleased that I trusted that uncomfortable, heart racing, “did I stuff up???” moment because it has helped me and the team to grow.

Initially the team were simply relieved that our response to the parent was well received. However, I then invited the parent into the conversation the next time he came to the service. I asked if he could help us learn more about his experiences and if he would be willing to work alongside us to put this learning out there for others to become more informed. The parent researched and shared articles with us about the different cultural perspectives and differences in the celebration of Lunar New Year. Did you know that in parts of Vietnam this is called Tết?

We found this a powerful process of critical reflection because it reinforced that even though we know ‘Lunar New Year’ is a more inclusive term, we didn’t know enough about the differences amongst varying Asian cultures. We could have done better in representing this in our teaching, resource planning and questions we asked families. We took time capturing these thoughts and feelings, using a critical reflection process, discussed as part of a KU Critical Reflection workshop. In thoroughly examining all perspectives, we knew there was more learning that would see us continue growing in our cultural responsiveness.

Our learning journey continues. In March we embraced Harmony Week, another calendar event inviting a celebration of the diversity that is multicultural Australia. Again, we were enthusiastic about how we could bring this together. We invited families for input into the program through sharing language in songs, books, dance, cooking and simply looking at the world map.

What has changed in our practice since February because of critical reflection? We continue our collaborative efforts between educators and families to learn and understand more about cultural perspectives. We have more inclusive resources about Tết, as well as Vietnamese books and cultural ornaments in prominent locations at the service. We continue to invite family input into the program through sharing knowledge, songs, numbers and words in different languages and through cooking. We look at opportunities to explore similarities and differences amongst cultures. A parent from a Nepalese background came to cook with us, making little dumplings called ‘momos’. This learning opportunity stemmed from the first dumpling cooking experience, which involved children pretending to make their own dumplings using playdough. During this play a child taught us that in Nepalese the dumplings are called ‘momos’.

We discussed the unfolding of critical reflection. Educators shared their perspectives and thoughts, particularly about the language associated with the celebration, i.e. Lunar New Year vs. Chinese New Year. It was a great example of how each perspective was shaped by our own lived experiences or personal beliefs and in some cases biases/stereotypes. The critical reflection process continues to help us raise questions not only about Lunar New Year but cultural responsiveness more broadly. For example, ‘How else does this look?’

This experience has reminded us of the critical reflection process. This includes the willingness to acknowledge and sit with uncertainty while staying true and committed to our efforts towards learning. We need to sit in a place of vulnerability, ‘putting down our clever and picking up our curiosity’ (Viv McWaters and Johnny Moore). This allows others to share their own experiences and knowledge. Our families are aware we are going through the process of critical reflection, so they know we endeavour to broaden our perspectives and cultural responsiveness. We want to learn from their wisdom and experience. It is very easy to become defensive and go into a state of fight or flight when navigating critical reflection. This experience showcases that ‘negative feedback’ can turn into something good, particularly when we have collectively worked hard.

Having a strong example of this in practice has created a benchmark for thinking. What else could we meaningfully think critically about? When you learn something new, you commit to making small changes to do better. I could have removed the post and not entertained this as a learning opportunity. Now, I am pleased we embraced it. I hope in some small way our journey has the potential to inform others and influence practice as we grow in our collective humanity as educators.

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