Professional Hopes and Goals

When I think of working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds, my number one hope is that they feel valued, understood and respected.  I hope they feel this from me, from my co-worker, from other children, and from other families.  If children and families feel valued, understood and respected, my program will be well on its way toward being appropriately sensitive to diversity, equity and social justice.

The one goal that I set for the early childhood field that relates to issues of diversity, equity, and social justice is that all staff recognize their own biases so that they can step back from themselves and see the reality of the lives of children and families.  When staff are able to see the reality of lives, they can appropriately support the development of children.

I want to thank my colleagues for sharing themselves so that I could better understand myself and how I relate to and think of others.  Our course together has provided us with a safe environment to take risks through sharing our personal experiences.  I have appreciated this opportunity to learn with you.  Thank you and I wish you much success in the Early Childhood Field!

Welcoming Families From Around the World

I am going to imagine for a moment that I am a teacher in an early childhood program and I just learned that I will be having a new student join our classroom who recently immigrated from Iceland.  In order to prepare myself, my new student, and her family for her arrival in school, I would do the following things:

• Research the internet to learn some of the basic facts about Iceland (it’s location, weather, language, industry, animals, foods, geography, traditions and culture).
• I would make every effort to visit her and her family before she comes to school so we can meet each other for the first time and I would try to make her feel as comfortable as possible in my presence.  During this visit I might ask her if she could spell her name in English and Icelandic so we could show the other students in the classroom.  I would ask the family if they had any questions, concerns or goals for their child and let them know that I am open to communicating with them at any time.
• I would ask the child and family if they had any pictures they wanted to share with the other students that might be special to their family or might show us what Iceland is like.  Then I would be sure to share them with the other students while this new little girl has the opportunity to tell about them if she chooses to.  If the family doesn’t have pictures I would ask what they would show if they could then find some online myself, to print and share.
• I would invite the family to come to school at a time when there are no students and then the first days of school if they would like to attend with her to help easy any nervousness that might exist or satisfy any family curiosity.
• I would display a world map in the classroom showing student where we live and where Iceland is then share some of the things that are different and the same about the two places (location, weather, language, animals, etc.).
• I would invite family members to visit during class and share something about Iceland and/or a favorite children’s book or oral story.  I would also find children’s books about Iceland if they are available and/or find picture books that show pictures of Iceland.

Thinking about this possibility is exciting to me.  I would look forward to learning about this student and family so that I know how to help them learn and grow throughout the year.  Learning about a new country through one of our students will be a highlight for all the students in my class.  I would hope to share with this new student and her family, what they look forward to learning in America.  Doing things from my above list would let the child and family know that it is delightful to have them here and it will be an exciting journey of learning from each other throughout the school year.  J

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

I have a personal memory of an incident of oppression that occurred during my high school years.  Our high school band was traveling to an event together in vans.  I expect the transit was approximately two hours.  To entertain ourselves, we played games together.  I recall my friend, purposefully not allowing one not so popular girl to participate.  My friend had mean comments for this girl and made her feel uncomfortable with every word, look and gesture she made.

This particular oppression diminished equity by my friend acting as if she was much better than this unpopular girl.  My friend placed herself much higher than this girl and made this girl feel very low and not valued at all.

I remember feeling absolutely awful!  How could my friend do this to another person?  I remember turning away from the group in shame because of my friend’s attitude and behavior.  I felt trapped being in a traveling vehicle unable to get away from the situation.

My friend would have needed to change her attitude toward this girl in order for equity to begin happening.  My friend should have been kind, inviting, including and thought of this girl as an equal to herself.  We were all band members traveling to the same place to perform as a team.

Had I been more confident, I should have been bold enough to tactfully change the direction of my friend’s motives by saying kind, inviting and encouraging words to the girl while not putting my friend down.  I could have earned a new friend instead of letting my friend hurt this girl.  We both could have earned a new friend. 

I can see how ridiculous our reasons for bias, prejudice and oppression are when I think of the above incident.  We are all people with values, characteristics and talents that can be shared and from which we can learn from and become better and richer people.

Practicing Awareness of Microagressions

This week I tried to observe the actions and verbal interactions of my self and others to see if I could detect examples of microagressions.  Over the course of this last week, I traveled by plane, visited two different towns, ate at restaurants, shopped in stores, went to a movie theatre and hiked in a public park.  I am amazed at how many different cultures I encountered over the last 6 days:  Caucasian, Alaska Native, Indian, Vietnamese, Mexican, German, Russian, African American, a child with a severe disability, Russian Orthodox, multiple people from various social economic statuses, plus more that I may not have noticed or recognized. 

I did not notice other people commenting or interacting with others in a microagression manner nor did I experience microagression, but I was surprised by how much I found myself stereotyping people in my thoughts.  I realized this week that I am probably always doing this.  Even though I do this, I do not act in a negative manner on these thoughts.  I know that if I were to encounter these people (rather than be an observer or by-passer in public), I would be open-minded and more that willing to get to know them.  My thoughts are based on my past experiences and the facts that I know about different cultures.  I have concluded that this in itself is not a bad thing; how I act on these thoughts is what really matters. 

The following paragraph from the Teaching Tolerance Website we visited as a resource this week helped me put my thoughts into perspective:

           

The ability to distinguish friend from foe helped early humans survive, and the ability to quickly and automatically categorize people is a fundamental quality of the human mind. Categories give order to life, and every day, we group other people into categories based on social and other characteristics.

Understanding facts about a culture helps me know how to interact with others.  I think I have been successful with respecting people of cultures different than my own.  I know that I have most likely committed microagressions toward others in the past but now I have a greater awareness of how I may offend others unconsciously so will proceed with my thoughts, words and actions toward others, more cautiously.

Reference

Teaching Tolerance. (n.d.). Test yourself for hidden bias. Retrieved May 25, 2011,

from http://www.tolerance.org/activity/test-yourself-hidden-bias