“Professional Hopes and Goals”

The one hope I have when working with children and their families is to make a positive connection with the families while having an understanding that they are different, and that is okay. Therefore I want to learn about what they expect of me and what their needs may be in order that I may help assist them in all ways possible. Furthermore I want the families to feel comfortable working with me while showing that their culture or diverse background will have no effects on how the family or their children will be treated any differently than any other family when it comes to showing full respect for them, and their culture.  

 

Additionally the goal I would like to set for the early childhood field and others about diversity, is that being different is okay and because of your differences, whether by choice or not, does not mean that you should be treated any differently than any other group of people because of your dissimilarities. Moreover, as early childhood professionals we have to make sure that the families that enter their children into our early childhood programs feel that there is equity for them and that all within the program will be shown social justice no matter their culture background or any other differences they may have within their family.    

 

Last of all I would like to thank all of you I have worked with, and learned from with your countless insights, and views on diversity, equity and social justice for all people. I have enjoyed your experiences you have shared, and your help in guiding me to having a better understanding of the overall course through your questions and answers share on our discussion boards. Therefore I thank everyone and look forward to working with you again in the near future.   

 

Welcoming Families From Around the World

 

The name of the child family’s country of origin is Bolivia. In preparing for the child’s arrival, and her family that will be arriving from Bolivia I had to first find out what the child’s family background culture was and their language, understanding that in Bolivia the Spanish language is dominate but there are other spoken languages as well. Therefore working in the social service agency it gave me the benefits of searching out information about other cultures and their backgrounds. However in preparing myself to be culturally responsive towards the family I first found out that the family’s main cultural language was Spanish speaking. I found that the family is a close knit family, and that more than just the mother, and father may live in the household and this is considered to be normal. Also that the mother stays at home and takes care of all the home and family matters, while the father is the one that works in the family. The mother also use her maiden or along with the husbands last name which sometimes both last names are passed on to the child or the child will have the fathers last name while the mother still use her maiden name. I also learned that the family when meeting people prefer a handshake and direct eye contact. The culture also use a specific greeting for the time of day when meeting people. Moreover in understanding that there are many classes and groups within this country I would find out about the family’s cultures beliefs, and values in order not to offend them.

 

In preparing for the child, and her family I hope these few facts about the family will help me and the family form a beginning relationship that will help the child settle in comfortably and allow the family to build some type of trust with our agency, and the early childhood program.

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

 

On Tuesday of this week I was standing in the customer service line at Walmart and overheard a young lady being treated unjustly by a manager and another worker. The line at customer service was backed up with at least 10 people in line and I was the sixth person in line. The young lady was the only person working behind the counter at this time, but what upset me most was I overheard the manager say to the other worker, “she need to be working by herself because she can get some exercise” and they both laughed. Of course it was obvious the young lady had more weight on her than some people, but this was no reason to attach her in such a way of not giving her some assistances with the customers in line.

 

This incident made me feel not only did the manager not care for the young lady, but nor did she care about the customers standing in line. Therefore I made sure the manager, and the other worker heard me say to my son, “this young girl is doing a great job in being polite with the customers even though she has all these people in her line”. Then a lady in front of me said, she sure is. I then stepped over to the manager and said, could you tell me who I can call and tell them about how well this worker is doing under pressure with all these people in her line. At first they just looked at me, then the manager said you can call the 1-800 number but am about to get her some help. I said that would be nice since we have been standing here for about 20 minutes and still have a way to go before we reach the counter. I wish you all could have seen the look on their faces. Lol!!

 

But the main thing is the young lady should have been treated fairly in the first place. However in order for this to have occurred the manager should have given her help right away and not judged her by her appearances. Furthermore for all the manager and the other worker knew the young lady could have an unknown reason for her weight. Nor should they have assumed that a person that look overweight is a person that does not exercise.    

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.