Professional Hopes and Goals

One hope that I have when I think about working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds is that I can use what I have learned these last eight weeks to make a difference in my classroom and in the lives of every child I come in contact with including my own children. I have learned that we must respect others and individuality. I will work to collaborate with families and make sure that I am respecting their culture and ideals while being conscious of microaggressions and –isms.

One goal that I would like to set for the early childhood field related to issues of diversity, equity, and social justice would be that all professionals would embrace the anti-bias education approach and work to advocate for all children and their families.

I would like to thank my colleagues for opening themselves up and sharing their stories of sadness as well as your triumphs. I also appreciate your feedback and words of encouragement and support. I wish you all the best and look forward to collaborating and working with you in the future. 

Welcoming Families From Around the World

Country: Finland

Scenario: I am working in a child care center and receive word that the child of a family who has recently emigrated from Finland will be joining my class. I have no prior knowledge about Finland but want to prepare myself to welcome the child and her family.  The five ways in which I would prepare myself to be culturally responsive towards this family are:

1    1..    Know the primary language of Finland. I would try to learn a few basic phrases or words in Finnish.
2.       Finland’s ideas about education
3.       The role of children in Finland
4.       Gender Roles in Finland – how men and women are seen or valued
5.       Primary religious beliefs of the people of Finland.

I believe that taking these preparations will allow me to be prepared to welcome the child into the classroom. It would help to ease any uncertainty or apprehension that I may have about adding a new child to the learning environment and will also equip me with the tools I need to help make their transition smooth.  Knowing beforehand how the child’s previous county viewed education, the roles of children and gender roles will help me to know how to approach certain conversations or topics with the family as I work with them.  I do not want to offend them or make them feel as if they are not welcomed or understood. 

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

The memory that I will share involving bias, prejudice and/or oppression will be a story that I was told by mother.  My mother was working as a consultant providing home training services to parents who needed additional strategies to help their children at home and school. My mother made contact with a woman regarding her son over the phone. My mother informed her of who she was and what she would be coming to the home to do. When my mother arrived at the home she introduced herself as Dr. Johnson and asked to come into the home. The mother looked at my mother as if she was surprised to see her and that my mother was not the person she was expecting to see. While my mother was at the home providing information to the mother the father arrived home. The mother and father then began having a conversation in the other room and then the mother came out and said they would not be needed the home services. The next day the mother called back to the office and requested services again asking would the person coming out be white or black. A white person was sent out to the home and the mother accepted the home services. 

I believe this incident diminishes equity as I feel the mother and father were saying that a black person was not capable of providing services to the family because they were black. My mother has worked very hard to obtain her doctorate and was more qualified to provide the services but was denied the opportunity to help the child and their family just because of the color of her skin.

The feelings that this incident brings up for me are anger and frustration. I am upset that my mother was treated in this manner but I am also upset that a parent would turn down services that could benefit their child because of the race of the person trying to assist them.

The people that would need to change in this incident would be the mother and father as well as the company that my mother was working for at the time. Once the company found out that the parents were requesting a different consultant of a specific race they should have informed that parents that they would not be sending another person if race was the only reason to request another person in their home. I feel the parents were being told that it is okay to discriminate by the company when their request was granted. 

Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

The memory of microaggression that I will share towards myself comes in the form of a microinsult. Growing up and as an adult I have been told several times that I do not “sound black” when I am speak. I take offense to this. Being told that I do not “sound black” implies that black people only hold conversations full of grammatical errors and use slang and vulgarities. I make sure that I let everyone who implies or makes this silly statement towards me that I take offense and that they are insulting me and stereotyping me.

The information that I have obtained this week on microaggression, discrimination, prejudice and stereotypes will help me as I move forward in my career and as I raise my children because I am now more aware and will watch what I say. I recently attended a meeting where another director was telling a story about how her 5 year old daughter was telling her she did not have anyone to play with on the playground at school because she “didn't speak Dora.” The director laughed about it and then ended the story with “but she is not prejudice or anything.”  When people feel they need to tell me that they are "not prejudice" I usually think that they are. Children must be taught at an early age that there are people around them who speak languages other than English and that the language that the children were speaking was Spanish and not Dora. We cannot take these teachable moments for granted and laugh them off we must use these moments to help prevent these children from eventually growing up to use microaggressions and offending people in the future.

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

I completed this assignment while visiting friends for the weekend so I posed these questions to them along with my husband. The cultural differences included gender and age. They collectively came up with the definitions for culture and diversity. Culture was defined as a person knowing where they have come from, their roots, traditions and being able to pass that onto the next generation. Diversity was defined as being exposed to and being able to adjust to your environment including how your react when you are around people who of a different tradition or culture than your own.

Based upon the answers that I received I believe the answers did reflect some of what we have studied in this course. I think that the answers that were given were generalized statements that I believe the majority of people would provide if posed the same question. Unless you have been involved with taking a course on cultural diversity most people do not think deeper or past the obvious. I am guilty of the same but am glad that I have enrolled in this course and am looking forward to the next few weeks and the things that I will learn. As a result of this exercise I think that there should be more discussion or training on this topic beginning at the high school or middle school level in order to raise awareness and possibly prevent some of the events related to lack of cultural awareness that we are hearing of in the news these days. 

My Family Culture

If I had to relocate to a new country due to the scenario in this week’s assignment I would take a photo album/scrapbook, bible and cookbook. The scrapbook would allow me to have photos and memories of my family and friends. The bible will allow me continue to study and practice my religion. My cookbook would allow me to continue to cook and pass down traditional foods to my children and others that I come in contact with in my new country.  

If I found out upon arrival that I had to leave two of the items behind I would leave the cookbook and bible because I can rely on my prior knowledge to get me through cooking and God is always with me and I can practice my religion without having to have the bible on hand.

Insight that I have gained this week is that I hadn't thought about what I would truly do or take if I had to leave my home country and live somewhere new due to a catastrophe. I have seen it many times on the news and have close friends who had to relocate as a result of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana but I don’t think it really sank in as to what they went though until I put myself in that place this week. I will never take not having to do this (sudden relocation) for granted again. 

When I Think of Research.........

The most important insight or skill that I have learned from this course is how to read research. The breakdown that we received at the beginning of this course helped me to see what parts I need to read and what parts I can skim or skip over. I think this benefited me a lot as I would sometimes get so confused when looking at research that I would just say forget it and just use another source for information in the previous courses. I have also learned how to identify valid resources and vocabulary words such as quantitative, qualitative, mixed method, triangulation and validity as it relates to research.

I have to admit I was not very excited when I saw the name of this course as our next course but I am glad that I made it through. I would have to say that research is not my passion but know that I could get through it if I had to.

The lessons that I have learned about planning, designed, and conducting research in early childhood are that you must first make sure the benefits of the research outweigh the risks and the ethics involved in the research process.

Some of challenges that I have encountered during this course was knowing whether I was on the right track during my simulation. This was something that was new to me and I was confused a lot of the time.

I would like to wish all of my colleagues luck as we continue on this journey together. We are almost there!