Professional Hopes and Goals

• One hope that you have when you think about working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds

One hope that I have when I think about working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds is that they feel welcome and visible in my classroom.  I hope that I can embrace the vision of anti-bias education and make it a prominent part of my teaching. 

• One goal you would like to set for the early childhood field related to issues of diversity, equity, and social justice

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 anti-bias education is embraced and made evident in classrooms to promote diversity, equity, and social justice. 

• A brief note of thanks to your colleagues

I would like to thank everyone for sharing their thoughts and ideas during this course on diversity.  I have enjoyed reading many of your blogs and I am looking forward to continuing to share ideas.  Also thanks for all the comments I have received throughout this course! 

Welcoming Families From Around the World

For this assignment, imagine the following scenario:
You are working in an early childhood setting of your choice—a hospital, a child care center, a social service agency. You receive word that the child of a family who has recently emigrated from a country you know nothing about will join your group soon. You want to prepare yourself to welcome the child and her family. Luckily, you are enrolled in a course about diversity and have learned that in order to support families who have immigrated you need to know more than surface facts about their country of origin.

I would be working for Head Start as this is what I am most familiar with.  The new child and her family are coming from Latvia, although I could probably choose most any country because I think that I would have to do my homework for any child coming from another country.  I would have to find out what language the family speaks and learn some key words and phrases to help them feel more comfortable and welcome.  I may have to seek out someone from a local college that speaks the language because we do not have anyone on staff that can help with this.  I would also want to schedule a home visit prior to the child beginning in the classroom as Head Start is required to do this and it is a great time to observe the child and family where they are most comfortable.  While I was at the home visit, I would ask the family questions about their culture, home life, and what goals they have for their child.  I would use the information I learned from the family and my own research to bring in materials that let this child and her family know that they are welcome.  I would also want to invite the family into the classroom to observe what goes on there and to encourage them to continue to volunteer.  I would hope that the preparations I would make and the actions I take would help make this new child and family feel welcome in the classroom and with me.  I would also hope that this new family would feel comfortable talking with me and the lines of communication would be open.  My preparations would also allow me to better understand this family and be able to be more responsive to their needs and the needs of their child.  I may be able to refer them to community resources that did not know about to help them or their child.  I have always found it interesting and exciting to watch the children whose home language is Spanish grow and flourish, so a child from another country would be very exciting and I would hope to find a special place in their lives! 

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

Like I said before, I don't get out much these days, but I have found myself paying more attention to what is being said around me.  Yesterday, my daughter and I went over to my parents house to watch the olympics.  As we were watching, we also talked about what was going on and made comments throughout our viewing.  As they went to track and field events and the first women runners ran for the 100meters, my daughter made a comment about our olympic athlete looking like a man because her muscles were so large.  Later, my mom made a comment about that athlete probably being a "dyke".  As we continued to watch they talked about how this would be the last or only olympics for some of the athletes and I remember my dad saying something about how they would be too old when the next olympics rolled around.  Each of these comments brought home different microaggressions and different "isms".  There was sexism, LGBTism, and ageism.  I was somewhat surprised by my daughter and how disgusted she was with the muscles the female runner had.  She is an athlete herself and works very hard at her sport.  I was terribly ashamed by the comment my mother made, it was so mean and hateful.  And since when did age stop someone?  These comments diminish the equity of these people, by making it wrong to be themselves.  She is still a woman regardless of the size of her muscles and regardless of her sexual orientation.  Some of these athletes will make room for new and younger athletes to compete and others will continue to work and come back in 2016 and perhaps show people like my dad that they are competitive at any age.  This incident made me feel frustrated and ashamed.  I am usually frustrated with my parents and the comments they make regarding most of the "isms" we have learned about.  And I find myself wondering how I have such differing views when I grew up in their home.  I also found myself becoming angry that they made these comments and that they believed they were true.  In order for this to be an opportunity for greater equity, my parents would have to change their way of thinking and view of the world.  I know that I can talk to my daughter about her comment and help her to see what her comment can do to someone. 

Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

I don't get out much these days and I guess I keep to myself most of the time so I have not heard or witnessed much microaggression lately.  The most recent microaggression I have been a part of was when my ex-husband came to my home on the pretense of visiting with our daughter.  He asked if she was here and I told him she was at soccer practice and he would have to go to the school to see her.  He then started to ask me questions about a guy that I had started seeing a few months earlier.  He had heard many untruths about this person and was trying to find out more information.  He asked what his name was and when I would not give him more than a first name he headed to his vehicle to leave.  I shut the door and locked it and began to walk away when he called me a whore.  I was shocked and very upset to have this man call me a name like that.  I met him at 17 and was with him and only him for almost 25years.  Until this point, we had a very good relationship and could talk, I even helped him purchase the home he now shares with his new wife!  We are still not on the best terms, but there is a little more that he is upset about, but I keep trying and I am always polite and pleasant whenever we are around one another.  I asked my daughter about microaggressions and we talked about what they were and she remembered going out with friends and everyone expecting that her friend Kervis could dance just because he was African American.  I also watch the show 30Rock and it is full of microaggression, or at least it points out stereotypes that we are exposed to.  I would guess this is one of the ways that bias is passed on to our children. 

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

I asked three friends what their definition of culture and what their definition of diversity is...

1.  Culture - has to do with a person's ethnicity, family values, & beliefs
     Diversity - are the unique differences of individuals in regards to race, norms, & beliefs

2.  Culture - traditions, hand-me downs of your people, what you grow up with; religion, government, environment, social standing.  Where you live also shapes your culture.
     Diversity - reaching outside your culture, circle, and yourself to experience other cultures, traditions, and other peoples ways

3.  Culture - It is where you come from, your traditions and beliefs
     Diversity - what makes us different

I think that each person I interviews understands that we all have a culture that makes us who we are.  We have shared traditions and also we have traditions that are unique to our family and/or community.  My friend Sharon (2) has been in early childhood education for over 30 years and understands that everything around us shapes our culture.  My friend Sandra (1) is African American and will be taking this class in the near future.  I think she will deepen her understanding even more about what culture and diversity are.  And my dad (3) seems to get it, but I may need to deepen his understanding.  No one mentioned diversity as including differing abilities, I know that Sharon and Sandra, as early childhood professionals are aware of this, they did not mention it when we were talking.  They also did not mention gender and how that shapes our culture and is also a part of diversity.  By asking others to talk about culture and diversity, I can see that it can mean a variety of things to other people.  We all seem to understand that culture makes us who we are and that we need to embrace diversity.  It also gives me a better understanding that we all see things differently and yet very similarly. 

My Family Culture

Imagine the following:
A major catastrophe has almost completely devastated the infrastructure of your country. The emergency government has decided that the surviving citizens will be best served if they are evacuated to other countries willing to take refugees. You and your immediate family are among the survivors of this catastrophic event. However, you have absolutely no input into the final destination or in any other evacuation details. You are told that your host country’s culture is completely different from your own, and that you might have to stay there permanently. You are further told that, in addition to one change of clothes, you can only take 3 small items with you. You decide to take three items that you hold dear and that represent your family culture.

Trying to decide what three small items I would want to take that would represent my family culture was quite difficult.  I would want to take my family photo album as this item holds so many memories and shows our family story in a way that we can see.  It shows how we celebrate birthdays and holidays and the births of each of my children.  It has pictures of family members that have left this life so that I can always see them and remember the good times we shared.  It also shows us being silly and just being a family!  After that, what else to bring is quite hard, at least for me.  I would probably bring my box of recipes because it holds the recipes to the foods that we enjoy most and makes me think of the happy times baking cookies and being together.  I would also like to bring my box of home movies to watch and remember my children growing up.  Most of all I would just be happy that my children would be with me and we would be able to take our memories with us and find new ways to be a family. 

If I had to give up all but one item, that would be alright, as long as I could keep my photo album.  The other items are just not as important and recipes can be replaced and as many times as they have been used, I could probably rewrite them!  The home movies would be a significant loss, but we still have our memories.  Even if I had to give up everything, knowing that my family is safe and together would mean so much more.  Having to start over in a country that is so drastically different would be very difficult, but together we can accomplish so much more. 

I learned that my family culture isn't something that is easily tangible.  It is in how we are with each other and the traditions we have created together.  It's more about the relationships we have and how we relate to other people.  I also spent time thinking about how difficult it could be to be thrown into another culture that you are so unfamiliar with.  That would be very challenging.  I would hope to have a good support system and be able to make life in this other country the best it could be! 

When I Think of Research...

From taking this course, I have learned how to read a research paper, what parts I can skip and what parts are going to hold the most information and where to find it.  I have also learned about how research is conducted and what goes into designing a research study.  It would take a great deal of planning and organization to conduct a research study!  As far as my ideas about the nature of doing research, I probably have a greater interest in research and if the opportunity to do research or to be a part of a research project was presented to me, I would be more apt to become a part of it.  I had mostly thought of research as quantitative when we began this class and I now know it can be very qualitative! 

Lessons about planning, designing, and conducting research in early childhood are many.  There is a lot to think about when planning, designing, and conducting research in early childhood.  You have to consider who will participate, gather consent, perhaps present your research to an ethics committee, design surveys and questionaires.  There are also questions about ethics whether you will used mixed methods and if your research will be a case study, take place over time or not.  There is a lot to think about!  When this class started, I figured we would be doing research of some type, and I was grateful that we weren't, but I still feel as though I would be better prepared to do research after having this class.  Challenges were getting my research topic narrowed down and developing a hypothesis. 

Before this class I had not thought of an early childhood professional as being a researcher.  Now, I think that a lot of early childhood professionals are doing research daily.  All the observation we do in the classroom is a form of research.  I also had not thought of early childhood research as being a profession in itself, but I can see how this could be an important part of the early childhood profession.