Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

 

Although I did not recognize any microaggressions this week, but I do have a personal experience with microaggression that I shared in my diversity profile that I would like to share with all of you. This was when I first moved to Georgia, and I experienced racism by a neighbor. This neighbor was not settle in any way displaying his dislike toward me and my family. One day he purposely blocked the door way to us entering our front door with a group of his friends and pretending not to see us as we drove up, and got out of our car. When we walked up I had to ask them to excuse us so we could get by. When we got in my son and I look at each other as to say did that actually just happen. However, in dealing with this situation I chose to leave it along understanding that sometimes when you leave things along they have a way of correcting themselves. In doing so, and continually showing respect for my neighbor things really begin to turn around. Although he did not come right out an apologize for his pass behavior, he showed his apologies through doing things for us, such as coming out one day when we had a flat tire, he told me and my son he would fix it because I was a woman and did not need to be fixing a tire. Then on another occasion he and a group of his friends were blocking my entrance to my front door. However, this time when he seen us driving up we could see him directing his friends to move from in front of our door.

 

In looking back on my observational experiences this week I learned that people can be unaware of the things they do and say to others. On the other hand, I believe some people just want to show they are more superior, and have more power by belittling others. I also learned that discriminating, and stereotyping can be shown through a person race, their gender, their size, their abilities or disabilities, just to name a few. Therefore after learning what I learned this week about the different microaggressions, I now realize I have to be more alert, and mindful of the things I say and do around people in order not to offend anyone.

 

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

Ask three people to share their definition of culture

First of all I really enjoyed asking my son, brother-in-law, and my neighbor this question so much that I continued asking other people this same question. However, when asking my son his definition of culture he said, it’s who I am, his race, his background, his principles, and morals. Then I asked my brother-in-law who is from India. He said culture to him is all about morals, beliefs, and respect for yourself and others in his culture. And also holding on to traditions, and family customs. The last person I asked this question for this assignment was my neighbor who is from Germany. She said culture is who you are. It can be a lot of people within your culture group but at the same time separate groups within your culture that do not have the same beliefs as you may have.

 Ask three people to share their definition of diversity

Then I asked, what is diversity? My son said it’s the difference between people’s culture, and people themselves. It could be old or young or tall or short, it’s about being different. My brother-in-law said to keep it simple the definition of diversity is me (brother-in-law), and you (me). I laughed when he said this because it was true. He said for instance our gender or some of our beliefs are different so things like that shows diversity. When asking my neighbor this question she said she thought diversity was just like culture, showing that you are different than someone else.

 Which aspects of culture and diversity that I have studied in this course are included in the answers I received—and what are some examples?

In looking back at their answers to my questions, all their answers to culture and diversity were included in what I am learning in this course. For example, my son said culture is who he is. My brother-in-law said diversity can be gender or having different beliefs than someone else which shows different characteristics of a person. And last my neighbor said she thought culture was diversity, which in a way made some sense to me.

Which aspects have been omitted and what are some examples of such omission?

I believe some of their characteristics where omitted such as; their language, and only my son mention his race. Although two out of the three mentioned beliefs, no one said anything specific about their religion.

In what ways has thinking about other people’s definitions of culture and diversity influenced my own thinking about these topics?

In thinking back on their answers to the definitions of culture, and diversity, it made me think that people in general define culture and diversity as being tied into one category. As a result they do not see pass a person’s ethnic background when thinking about culture or diversity. However I have to say that before this course my way of thinking was somewhat the same.    

 

 

 

My Family Culture

A description of the three items you would choose

If this were to happen I would take our family Bible, picture of my parents, and my little black bag.

 How you would explain to others what each of these items means to you?

First of all I know I would take our family Bible because it represents where I come from and, it has some names, and dates of older family members in it. The picture of my mom and dad means a lot because down the line when other new family members are born into our family, and telling them stories about our childhood they would have a visual picture of their grandparents or great- grandparents to look at or in a way getting to know them without them being there. My final choice would be the little black bag. This bag is import because it has all our birth certificates and other important information just in case something like this should occur.

Your feelings if, upon arrival, you were told that you could only keep one personal item and haveto give up the other two items you brought with you.

This would be very hard to deal with. On the other hand, in thinking which one would benefit my family most I would have to keep our identity information. My choice for letting go of the other two items would be that I know God’s word will always be in my heart, and the picture of my parents will always be in my mind. Therefore considering this important decision I would keep the little black bag because it would be more beneficial to us because it would alleviate the stress of proving who we are.    

Any insights you gained about yourself, your family culture, diversity, and/or cultural difference in general, as a result of this exercise,

What I learned from this exercise is that if something bad were to happen, and we lost everything, I realized that I could always continue my family culture ways without a lot of pictures, and paper information. Therefore, I learned through me, and my family continuing to carry on our family beliefs it will reserve our heritage, and our family values.  

 

When I Think of Research…

 First of all I have to say this class was one of the most challenging classes I have taken thus far. However I believe this class has taught me how to look at data and information in a very different way, and applied it to make a positive difference. As a result I have learned that all information I read online may not be valid information or even beneficial to those within a research study. 

However my views of doing research has change in ways I cannot believe. Although I thought I was doing research in the beginning when doing my other courses, but through this class I have learned that I did not know the extent it really took to do real research for a project.

 Moreover through this class I learned that doing research within early childhood takes a lot of prior planning and that research also have to be design to accommodate all participants involved and ensuring that the overall research show respect to all participants and being respectful of their rights as well.    

In looking back on some of the challenges I encountered, I believe my biggest challenges was separating the research terms and understanding variables and how they play a part of the overall research findings. Therefore in meeting such challenges I had to review the information given for the course over, and over again. I also took the feedback given from the instructor and applied it and this also helped me have a better understanding of all the information for this course.

 As a result in taking this course I have a greater respect for effective research and how important it is to do proper assessments on young children, and accurate observation as well.

Also at this time I would like to thank all of my colleagues for their effective thinking skills, and sharing their research experiences, and information with us in the discussion. I would also like to thank you all for the positive feedback given as well.

 

Research Around the World

Some of the current topics I chose from the website of Early Childhood Australia: http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/ were;

• Belonging means you can go in’: Children’s perspectives and experiences of membership of Kindergarten. Here they find that child want to belong and not just be accepted in kindergarten. 
• From your perspective: Black preserve early childhood education students share their stories. Through this study it is hard to recruit teachers of color due to those able to get a degree see it more beneficial to select other jobs they feel are more important and worth their while than teaching.
• Science learning affordances in preschool environments. Here this research was about understanding the benefits and importance of science in preschool. Also how it does not take much for young children to get involved with science in their environment through simple affordable ways. Such as taking a walk and experiencing nature.
• The impact of new technologies on musical learning of Indigenous Australian children. Here it is a concern for new technology taking over the learning of music. “The increasing distance of musical development away from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and to propose new methods for exploring how digital technologies may be utilized for promoting children’s musical development in various contexts. The findings are applied to early childhood practitioner recommendations for future community-led music research”

 

Some insights I gain from exploring this international early childhood website was that all of the topics that I took notice of were topics that we face in our country as early childhood professionals. Therefore this shared information helped me understand that no matter where early childhood professionals are in the world there will be related issues within the early childhood field.

 

It was also noteworthy in one of their additional links that focused on the quality perspective of play and mentioning that “The National Quality Standard reminds us that the physical environment plays a ‘critical role’ in contributing to children’s ‘wellbeing, happiness, creativity and developing independence; and determining the quality of children’s learning and experiences’ (ACECQA, 2013, p. 80).

 

Reference

Early Childhood Australia: http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/

Quality Area 3: Physical environment NQS PLP. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/nqsplp/resources/case-studies/quality-area-3-physical-environment/

 

 

Research that Benefits Children and Families

Uplifting Stories

Hello everyone,

My niece and her husband have four children. Their first child was a healthy baby girl. Then about four years later they had a healthy baby boy, so they thought. As time went on my niece started having concerns about how her son acted at age three comparing him to the other small children within our family around the same age. We all just kind of blew it off, but she had that mother instinct to know something was different. Time went on and he started pre-k, and they labeled him with a behavior problem. She even asked his teachers for information on how to have him tested, but they said she just needed to help him have better self-control. As all this was going on my niece was going on the internet putting in the different things her son was doing and re-acting to different situations. What she found was unreal to her, but at the same time made some sense as well. Then by the time he was enrolled in kindergarten she asked if she could speak with someone about her child before he started school. They agreed and this led her to the school social worker. My niece explained her concern and asked if he could be tested for Autism. She told the social worker that the only information she knew about autism was what she had found online and it seem to fit her son. The social worker asked if she had talked with her doctor. My niece said yes, but the doctor at that time said her son needed to be around four or five to be tested, and he was only three. The doctor said they would also need more information from someone like a professional or teacher observation to compare information. The school said they would observe him for the first six to eight weeks and then hold a meeting on what they thought. After all the waiting, observing, and doctor visits, my niece finally had her answer, her son was diagnose with some forms of autism. By this time it was around mid-winter and he had been placed in a different classroom and did an awesome job in school. However through all this my niece, and her husband had another child which was a girl and everything was good. But later they had another boy and he too way diagnose with autism at the age of three because this time the doctor did not wait to test him because of the research my niece had done online.

But the moral of this true story is that through research on the internet my niece found some symptom’s that favored her son temperament and she would not give up on realizing that something was different even though she did not know what. Moreover both boys are doing great thanks to the determination of their mother not giving up, and online research leading her to a real condition with her son’s.

The Personal Research Journey

Hello everyone,

The topic I chose to do my research on is “Child behavior in the early childhood years”. My choice for this topic came to me when speaking with other professionals within the early childhood field who felt more, and more children are entering early childhood programs with some type of behavioral problem. Therefore my journey is to research information on child behavior relating to parenting. The reason for searching out this area of child behavior is because when modeling desired behavior, and re-directing un-wanted behavior some children in our class followed through with great surprise, and glad to do so even modeling good behavior for other children in the classroom. On the other hand some of the same children seem like totally different children when their parents were present as if their parents have no control over their behavioral actions.

Furthermore, in thinking of subtopics for my main overall topic was harder than I thought. Although early childhood behavior is an enormous topic, I feel I needed to narrow my research down to subtopics that explain how, or if some parents can be a possible cause to their child’s behavior unintentionally. Therefore this is some ideas I had for subtopics, however any other suggestions are gladly welcomed.

1. How to identified different types of early childhood behavior.
2. How to re-direct child behavior relating to parenting as a professional.
3. In what ways can professionals within the early childhood field help support families in modeling good behavior for their children?