Professional Hopes and Goals

One hope, I have when I think about working with children and families from diverse cultures is: I hope children and families will experience cultural continuity when they attend my program or classroom. I hope to welcome all Children and families from diverse cultures in my program.

 One goal, I would like to set for the early childhood field related to issues of diversity, equity and social justice is: the early children field will increase anti-bias education and professional development for staff and children to decrease discrimination and increase diversity and equity.

Note to colleagues:              

Thank you for sharing you experiences and thoughts on the many topics we discussed on equity, diversity and social justice in this course, Perspectives on Diversity and Equity. I have gained many insights from your perspectives, Thank you! Good luck on your future endeavors!

Welcoming Families From Around the World

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 setting I chose for the scenario is a child care center and I imagine a family emigrating from Romania.

5 Ways I Will Prepare Myself to be Culturally Responsive towards this Family:

1.      Reflect to identify any personal biases I may have about the county or  culture

2.      Learn background knowledge about the family culture, family structure, behaviors, morals, values and traditions

3.      Share background information with staff and students to understand the culture of the arriving family and raise cultural awareness/diversity

4.      Prepare the environment: Display welcome signs in the family’s language and other artifacts that reflect their country or culture

5.      Recruit an interpreter to translate and support communication with the family to  establish effective communication

My hopes for these preparations are supporting the family in their transition, creating a welcoming environment and establishing positive relationships. Reflecting on my biases will increase my cultural awareness and increase my culturally responsiveness. Learning about the family’s culture and country will give background information into the family’s structure and way of life. This peek into their background will increase my understanding and respect for their culture. It will also allow me to share the information with staff and students to raise their awareness and encourage diversity.  Incorporating items from their culture is very important for children and families to see their culture reflected in the environment. I believe it sends a message of acceptance and membership in the community. Having a staff member that will be able to communicate with the family and child in their language creates positive communication. These preparations will support the family’s transition into a new country and education setting.

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

Recently, I was watching a talk show about two friends discriminating against another friend because he came out the closet about being gay. He decided to live his life as a female and wanted his friends to accept his new lifestyle. They disagreed with his lifestyle and were bias against homosexuals because of their religious beliefs. In fact, when they saw him in the neighborhood they threw objects at him, shouted insults and threatened him on social media. Their biases diminished his equity by discriminating against his sexual orientation. Their behaviors oppressed his freedom to express his social identities. He felt betrayed and hurt that his “so called” friends were threatening his life and embarrassing him in social settings. I felt compassion for the young man because his closest friends became his enemies overnight. I was also disturbed by his friends emphasizing their Christian beliefs as the influence of their prejudice behaviors.  As a Christians, I did not agree with their methods, it is not right to harm people because you disagree with their lifestyle or beliefs. In this situation, I think the friends would have to change their hateful ways to create an opportunity for equity. A possible solution maybe, “to agree, to disagree,” but most importantly eliminate the vicious behaviors and insults. They have a choice to be his friend or not, but they do not have a right to harm him because of his personal choices.