Maryam Daha, MA, has been an instructor at Foothill College Child Development and Education Department in Northern California for more than 25 years. She has extensive experience working with children, families and teachers from diverse backgrounds. She has taught classes and workshops on child development, culturally responsive teaching, anti-bias education and teacher-family communication at Foothill College, Pacific Oaks and other organizations. Maryam holds graduate degrees in Social Foundations in Education and Early Childhood Education from Stanford University. She is a published author on the topic of implicit bias and microaggressions and research exploring ethnic identity development and bicultural socialization.
Forum Presentation
Cultural Humility and Unconscious Bias
Children in our care thrive when there is a partnership between their families and teachers. Bias on both sides can be obstacles in building respectful relationships. In contrast to explicit biases, it is sometimes difficult to recognize the implicit ones. This presentation offers opportunities to examine implicit bias through interactive and reflective examples to identify personal biases. These incidents that are often delivered unconsciously and unintentionally may result in a rift in the teacher-family partnership. Drawing from principles of cultural humility, we will explore communicating with a learning disposition to strengthen cross-cultural communication.