Games For The Future
Early childhood education for a shared society and against racism
Why Begin In Early Childhood?
From a very early age, young children already distinguish between people based on their differing group characteristics. Even infants, just a few months old, will recognize differences such as language and skin color and will prefer the company of those resembling themselves. As they grow older, children will recognize even more differences– including, for example, gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic status.
Children of preschool age prefer to spend time with the social group to which they themselves belong (the ingroup) and demonstrate this preference through a variety of possible behaviors. For example, they choose children from their ingroup as friends and share toys and food with them. They attribute positive qualities to them and even express stereotypical generalizations about children who are from a social group other than their own (an outgroup).
Alongside the development in early childhood of attitudes toward the ingroup and outgroups, young children are also undergoing emotional, social, cognitive, and linguistic development processes. These processes offer an opportunity for social learning: broadening their social skills, developing empathy, learning to conceptualize, and learning to see the other.
By providing early childhood education for shared society and against racism, we aspire to develop an emotional and social foundation enabling children to feel comfortable and secure in their own identity while becoming aware of and open to social and cultural diversity.
What We Do
Training Trainers
Gan Shalem is an educators’ community of lecturers, academic and pedagogic , and course facilitators who, after being trained themselves, go on to train education students and teachers on working with the Persona Dolls.
Gan Shalem community members specialize in the Persona Dolls Approach to early childhood education for shared society and against racism. The community currently comprises 17 members from 11 different academic institutions in Israel.
The community was established in July 2023 in memory of the late Yerushalem Baruch, an attorney who consulted and mentored the development of the Persona Dolls Approach in Israel from its inception.
Research
We assign great importance to monitoring and evaluation, from the development phase through
implementation.
Please see this article, detailing the findings from a study conducted on the effects of our unique approach.
Teacher Training
Since 2018 we have trained some 150 early childhood (preschool-k2) educators in Israel to use the Persona Dolls approach. The concept is taught in officially recognized professional development courses, and in undergraduate and graduate academic courses for both novice teachers and experienced teachers.
The academic courses in early childhood education for a shared society and against racism – using
Persona Dolls – are held at academic teacher training colleges, such as the David Yellin College of
Education and Kaye College.
Content
Design
We aim to develop the pedagogy for early childhood education for shared society and against racism based on socio-psychological principles. The rich pedagogical content includes stories that encourage dialogue with preschoolers and offer suggestions for activities with the Persona Dolls. Working with Persona Dolls allows for the integration of additional tools like books and songs to
support social and cultural literacy.
The development process includes consultation with organizations, educators, and activists, as well as with people from the social and cultural groups represented by the Persona Dolls. This helps ensure that the Persona Dolls’ stories will reflect the diverse lives of boys and girls across today's Israel.
The Persona Dolls Approach
We developed a unique approach for educational work with young children in Israel. The key tool is Persona Dolls. These are soft dolls made of cloth that resemble girls and boys from different social backgrounds in today’s Israel. The Persona Dolls help us advance aChord’s mission of promoting respectful, equal, and tolerant relations between the various groups making up Israel’s social mosaic, by working with children from a very young age.
The Persona Dolls approach is values-based, educational, social and pedagogical.
The dolls, which are true to the size of an infant, bring the sociocultural diversity in Israel into early childhood education class settings. Their integration helps the children develop both a strong self-identity and a sense of belonging to Israeli society, and familiarizes them with children from diverse backgrounds while forming positive attitudes towards them.
The Persona Dolls also help children enhance their emotional and social skills and improve their abilities to solve problems and process events from their daily lives in kindergarten, the classroom, family and society. The range of possible educational activities with the dolls is both expansive and creative.
Our Team
Prof. Margalit Ziv
Pedagogical Director
Lima Abu Salah Shahen
Project Leader
Reut Kidron
Director
Suaad Saffia Khatib
Pedagogical Team Member
Dafna Dinerman
Pedagogical Team Member
Dr. Tamar Verete Zahavi
Pedagogical Team Member
Goals Of The Approach
Allow children to feel comfortable and secure in their sociocultural self-identity
Encourage curiosity and interest in cultural diversity, both in the child’s culture of origin and in relation to other cultures
Encourage social activism from an early age, drawing on a sense of responsibility and of belonging to a group, a society, a country
Establish an egalitarian worldview featuring solidarity and a sensitivity to differences and injustice
Prevent or minimize prejudices and reduce discriminatory, exclusionary and racist behaviors towards outgroups
Empower girls and boys from minority groups and disadvantaged groups
The Persona Doll Approach In Israel Comprises Three Components And Rests On Three Foundations
Psychology
Foundation
Society
Education
Psychology
Developmental psychology: Developing the approach for using the Personal Dolls in Israel rests on a multidimensional understanding of the developmental stages of young children. That is, it addresses both the development of attitudes toward ingroups and outgroups and aspects of linguistic, emotional-social, cognitive and expressive development in early childhood.
Social psychology: The approach relies on current knowledge and findings from the social psychology of intergroup and interpersonal relations. The training course includes concepts and theories from social psychology to give educators a deeper understanding of the processes taking place on both the adults’ and the children’s levels.
Education
The approach is flexible and designed to integrate with the teachers’ routine educational activities, offering them an additional, supportive and useful tool for their important work. The teacher is the leading figure in the use of the Persona Dolls approach in preschools and classrooms.
Society
This educational approach stems from concerns about the challenging social tensions that exist in Israeli society. The Persona Doll work celebrates sociocultural diversity and seeks to promote a society where every child is seen and has an equal place, a society that is committed to their wellbeing and to ours.
Persona Dolls
Components
Teacher Training
Pedagogical Materials
Persona Dolls
A set (thus far, designed for Jewish society) including seven Persona Dolls. Each doll has a permanent name and its own individual characteristics (hobbies, fears, dreams, and so on) along with familial and sociocultural characteristics. Like us, each doll has different circles of belonging. Educational activity with a set of individual Persona Dolls helps children learn to celebrate the diversity in Israeli society through exposure to the dolls and the range of experiences and perspectives they introduce.
Pedagogical Materials
The pedagogical materials include guidelines for working with the persona dolls and a variety of suggestions for conversations and activities with each of them. The stories provided enrich the world of the dolls and add more potential points of connection between the dolls and the children.
Teacher Training
Training includes current background information from relevant research and theories dealing with aspects of how children form attitudes toward ingroups and outgroups, plus principles of culturally sensitive education. Participating teachers undergo
a personal and professional process that includes attention to the various circles of impact (children, staff, and parents).
During training, the teachers - mentored by the pedagogical staff - begin applying the Persona Dolls approach in the field. The courses include both group meetings and individual mentoring. This ensures that the needs of a particular teacher and preschool can be identified in depth and each teacher provided with solutions adapted to them.
