Cultural Riches

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Cultural riches defined:
Cultural riches are our shared human accomplishments. Cultural riches include our stories and other ways of understanding and celebrating and sharing what what we know and believe about the world, including the arts and sciences. Cultural riches also include religious ideas and practices. Cultural riches can be experienced through written and spoken language, the visual arts, music, movement and all other forms of expression.

• See also: Social values

The concept of cultural riches provides a way for early care and education practitioners to structure curriculum and content. The concept also provides a basis for including the arts, sciences and other cultural practices and achievements in early education and care settings.

Cultural riches include:

• Literary arts, storytelling, dramatic arts
• Musical achievements and experiences
• Visual arts, graphic design, visual aesthetics
• Human understandings of the natural world, mathematics
• Myths, histories, personal and family stories
• Mysteries, unknowns, spiritual understandings
• Understandings of theories of mind and of community life

Cultural riches and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

• Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. (article 27)
• Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression. (article 19)
• Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. (article 18)
• Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives. (article 21)
• Everyone has the right to a nationality. (article 15)

Call to action:
Cultural riches, together with social values, are the bedrock of the curriculum for any human rights early care and education program. Early childhood educators plan and develop curriculum based on the values and cultural makeup of the children and families in the program. Once the content of curriculum has been developed, it is shared with children through meaningful activities, including storytelling, structured learning activities, play and exploration, visits to cultural repositories and the sharing of children's own stories and cultural experiences and practices.

Culture is both universally shared by all humans and deeply personal. In a diverse and multi-cultural society, how "culture" is understood and what cultural riches are either included or excluded in educational practice represent political choices. These choices come with profound implications for children's self-concepts and the shared identity of cultural groups. Human rights education opens up the political process to include the families, staff and other stakeholders within a program to decide which cultural riches will be prioritized as part of the curriculum.

By providing ample time for each child to express their own views, interests, cultural practices and ways of understanding, we can ensure that each child's cultural ways are expressed in the early care setting. Additionally, by providing ways and support for families to be directly involved in what is experienced in the classroom (to be part of the classroom experience), centres will by default be more reflective of the actual cultures of the children in the program.

Providing ample space for children and families to express themselves in early care and education settings is not enough to ensure that content and curriculum is culturally relevant and inclusive. More is required. As early childhood educators it is our responsibility to seek out the stories, practices and other accomplishments of all the world's cultures, making sure that what is taught reflects the values and experiences of the children and families in our care.

It is also important to recognize that not all cultural achievements are necessarily aligned with the core values of human rights education. Education is values-based, and human rights education places emphasis on the values of love, respect and dignity, and the sanctity of human life. These values are the basis of liberal democracy, which is based on certain assumptions and beliefs. Not all families share these values. Tolerance of persons is not the same thing as tolerance for ideas. While all humans are born worthy of love, respect and dignity, not all ideas and cultural practices are worthy of inclusion in a human rights curriculum.