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 for working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds is that the school I work for takes a proactive approach to acknowledge diversity. I hope that my children and families will know that all diversity/cultures are welcome in my classroom and there will never be any bullying! I hope to create lesson plans that incorporate diversity in the classroom but that allow children to work together in many different groups. I hope to be the best teacher I can be and make my students and families feel welcome, safe, secure, and comfortable around me and in my classroom.
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• 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 is: To increase the participation and involvement of the parents and the community.
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• A brief note of thanks to your colleagues: I just want to take a moment to say thank you to those that have been loyal readers of my blog posts. I look forward to each of your comments and I truly appreciate you taking the time out of your day to read MINE! It means a lot!
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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.

The name of “your” family’s country of origin: CHINA

At least five ways in which you will prepare yourself to be culturally responsive towards this family: 

1.) Be very welcoming and warm. Be accepting, making the family feel comfortable, showing them around the classroom and communicating with them in the best way I know how. 

2.) Create and integrate lesson plans and curriculum that will allow the students to learn about diversity/culture/other countries. Prepare assignments for the students that will let them know how there are many different types of people in the world and each one should be loved.

3.) Recognize my own biases and fix those!

4.) Become aware and knowledgeable about the family and their background/culture.

5.) Form study groups where I will be able to read culturally responsive literature that reflects the identities of the students in the classroom.

A brief statement describing in what ways you hope that these preparations will benefit both you and the family: I hope that these preparations will benefit both me and the families. I feel it is important to show the families that they are welcome into the classroom no matter what their culture is or where they are from. My classroom will be very accepting of all cultures! I also feel it's important for teachers to have lesson plans and assignments based on culture and allowing children to work in groups and show off assignments. Every teacher must recognize their own biases and get those fixed so they can truly be non-biased in the classroom and accept everyone for who they are. All of these things would be helpful for me and the Chinese family. 

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

1.) What memory do you have of an incident when you experienced bias, prejudice, and/or oppression, or witnessed someone else as the target of bias, prejudice, and/or oppression? Keep in mind that one can encounter such incidents in real contexts, including online environments, as well as in fictional ones, such as movies, books, television shows, and the like.

I think we have all been a victim of experiencing bias/prejudice at least once in our lifetime! I have been the victim and I have been the one to judge. A memory I have of an incident where I personally experienced bias/prejudice was when an ex of mine told me that I couldn't drive because I was a woman! Another example would be:
In America, women were not allowed to vote until the early part of the 20th century.

 

2.) In what way(s) did the specific bias, prejudice and/or oppression in that incident diminish equity?

This specific bias/prejudiced in that incident diminished equality because it took away from my self esteem and put a label on all women and their ability to not be able to drive due to their sex. The example of women not being allowed to vote takes away from women's freedom.

3.) What feelings did this incident bring up for you?

This incident brought up feelings of sadness, confusion, and betrayal for me.

 4.) What and/or who would have to change in order to turn this incident into an opportunity for greater equity?

In order to turn this incident into an opportunity for greater equity the best thing to do is to just prove people wrong. There are a lot of women drivers who are good at driving. Men should think more positively about women!

 
 

Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

An example of micro-aggression that I detected this week was: I went to the hospital to have Gallbladder surgery. When I arrived I got registered and prepped for surgery. I was brought back into a private room and there was a female physician wearing a stethoscope. My husband was in the room with me and told me to ask the nurse any questions I may have before going into surgery. He told me not to be scared to ask questions. He automatically assumed she was a nurse. The hidden message in this micro aggression is: Women are less capable of men. Women should not have decision making roles. When I observed this micro-aggression I felt bad even though it wasn't me that did it. I felt bad for the physician that we were not fully aware of her job title. I felt guilty like we should not be so judgmental. We were wrong in the assumption that she was a nurse when she was a physician. 

My observation experiences this week affect my perception of the effects of discrimination, prejudiced and stereotypes on people. It really was a clarification that everyone judges people, even if we don't realize it or mean it, we all do it. It's natural and it happens. I think there is a huge difference in judging others to be harsh and cruel and judging without others knowing you're judging and keeping your thoughts to yourself. From now on I truly want to take a few steps back before opening my mouth and stop being judgmental. I want to stop assuming and ask more questions!