Professional Hopes and Goals

Professional Hopes and Goals

One Hope that I have that have when I think about working with children and thir families who come from diverse backgrounds is that I am able to make a family feel welcome, gain their trust  and to help the family reach the desired goals that they have in place for the education of their young children. I hope to inspire children to embrace their own differences as well as the differences of others.

One goal that I have set related to the issues of diversity, equity and social justice in the field of early childhood is to reach out to fellow colleagues to examine themselves, the class materials so that we can all work together to present an anti-bias learning to our young ones.

I would like to thank all of my fellow colleagues in this course for sharing your views honestly and also for increasing my own understanding of how we might be successful advocates of equity, diversity and social justice in the field of early childhood. The following is a quote  from Raffi, a well known children's folk singer, author, and speaker taken from this week’s Laureate Media presentation. I think this statement is something that we can all adopt as our own covenant for honoring children.

 

"We find these joys to be self-evident that all children are created whole, endowed with innate intelligence, with dignity and wonder and worthy of respect, the embodiment of life, liberty and happiness. Every girl and boy is entitled to love, to dream and belong to a loving village and to pursue a life of purpose."

-Raffi

Families From Around the World

My family is from the country of Eritrea! 

 I learned that a family of five includes a 12 year old a ten year old and a young daughter of the age of three. The parents will enroll her at my center. They were referred to my center by relatives that live in the community.

 

Five ways I will prepare to receive my new family and demonstrate cultural responsiveness is to;

1. Label everything in the class in the child’s native tongue- and try to get the children in the class to be come familiar with the labeling as well. I would display lots of pictures as well.

2.  Learn some simple phrases of the language to communicate with the family

3.  Encourage the children to learn simple greeting phrases in the language like, hello, goodbye, want to play?

4.  Read stories or tell folk tales that originate from the family’s culture

5.  Encourage the family to share as much about themselves to the class regarding their culture by having them to let us borrow music, sharing literature, or inviting them to share family traditions.

The preparations I would have in place are to greet the family in the child’s native tongue and to label every day material in the native language to ease transition to English speaking. I would study the customs and cultures of this country and try to initiate some parental support from the existing parent roster for them. As an educator for the young children I am also acting as an advocate for the family to help their move to a new country be as smooth of a transition as possible.  I hope these preparations will be of assistance for the benefit of the new family so that they will feel welcomed, the child will feel safe, and begin to become a part of our Learning Center Family!

 

 

        

 

 

 

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

On the Catwalk  

The memory I have of experiencing bias is during my early college years. All of the students were to be placed within an internship for the college program I had enrolled in at the time which was fashion design. I noticed that my white colleagues got better job placements than I did. These placements were to give each student work experience and could lead into employment after graduation.

This job bias diminished equity by way of limiting my chance for gainful employment within the industry. The feelings that came into my mind were feelings of inadequacy; I began to question my skills and learning. I did not doubt myself as I had the courage and fortitude to move along and persevere.

The job placements were assigned by the department internship coordinator. I had been previously told that the industry was not favorable to blacks at that time. The change would have had to take place with the department heads toward the students that did not fit the “look” of the industry. I understand now from other sources that the department of this university is all about diversity and is vigorously seeking out individuals to show diversity within the department. I think with this shift in thinking by the design department of this university, there is now a greater opportunity for equity and fair play among the students that are currently in attendance.