What’s wrong with teaching pre-schoolers that racism is wrong?

In my Today show spot this morning, one of the news stories we discussed was the plan to introduce a program designed to help pre-school teachers about some social and ethical issues like reconciliation and racism. According to reports today:

 …the guidelines focused strongly on
play-based learning, the importance of communication and language, the
role of family in children's lives and social and emotional development.

Critics of the initiative, which claimed to make children socially
responsibly for a "future world", yesterday said youngsters should be
left alone to play."It is unnecessary and will cause enormous angst in the community,"
Opposition community services spokeswoman Pru Goward said yesterday."Let children be children. I have never heard of racism or discrimination (at a childcare centre). For goodness sake, they are three and four years old."

Perhaps Pru hasn't been to a kindy for a while. Because kids become aware of differences VERY early and even if they're not aware, what better time to begin to promote lessons about tolerance than when they're young? Is it ever too early to teach kids to be nice to each other? Is it that much different to teaching kids how to share?

I find the hysteria from some sections about this rather surprising. No-one is suggesting that playtime be replaced with strict lectures about genocide or a PowerPoint presentation on current anti-discrimination legislation.This is simply about guidelines for childcare workers to help introduce concepts about tolerance and kindness to others. That's a lesson I'm happy for my child to learn any day. Obviously, we talk about that kind of stuff at home – many interesting conversations have sprung from the fact that Coco goes to school with a little girl who has cerebral palsy – but what's the harm in it being backed up by similar discussions at kindy?

OBVIOUSLY it's going to be age-appropriate – they're KIDS. And the people who have come up with the program are specialists in early childhood education.

The whole idea that it's 'political correctness gone too far' doesn't wash with me. In this case, 'political correctness' simply means the promotion of empathy and understanding of people who are different to you.Isn't that what we want for our kids?