Professional Hopes and Goals

Believe it or not we are in our final week of this eight week journey on Perspectives on Diversity and Equity! The past eight weeks have flown by and while they have been extremely challenging and exhausting, they have always been very eye opening and enlightening. I feel as though I have learned a great deal about myself, my colleagues, my field, and society. There is still so much more to learn and this journey to becoming an anti-bias educator will be long and eventful! In this last week's blog entry, I need to reflect on my learning and create one hope and one goal around the issues discussed throughout the course.


My hope for the future for working with children and families of diverse backgrounds is to make them feel appreciated, respected, welcomed, comfortable being who they are and understand that it will be celebrated. My hope is to make them realize they have so much to offer, just as EVERY child from EVERY diverse background does. My hope is to help them acclimate to the culture of society while preserving and celebrating their own culture at the same time. I truly wish to work hand in hand with the families and children to create opportunities for a bright future for ALL children in my classroom. I think I can do this based upon the knowledge I have gained in this course, my caring and nurturing demeanor, and the journey I will continue to take towards anti-bias education.


Additionally, one goal I would hope to create for the field of Early Childhood Education in relation to the issues of diversity, equity, and social justice would be a tiered goal. First of all, I would like all educators to be properly trained, as we are being trained through these courses at Walden, to begin a journey towards anti-bias education and ways in which to include and incorporate children and families from all cultures and backgrounds. Secondly, families need to be more involved and included more often in early childhood programs for their children, regardless of their diverse backgrounds, allowing for ALL parents and families to build a strong partnership with the educators and their children from the start of their child's educational career.


Lastly, I would like to extend my thanks to my colleagues for all of your continued support in this course, as well as our prior courses together. I have had the honor and privilege of working with many of you repeatedly throughout our journey through this program and I smile each time I begin a course and see a familiar name. While the idea of online courses seemed disconnected and distant prior to beginning, I realize now how inaccurate that truly is based upon the bonds and friendships I feel lucky enough to have formed so far in this journey. This course was not our easiest; the workload and content was exhausting, challenging, flat out DAUNTING and OVERWHELMING….BUT we have survived yet again! We are coming to the finish line of another course in the program and I couldn't be more proud to have colleagues as supportive, knowledgeable, and caring as each of you. Here's to each of you and our next adventures together! :)


--Ashley

Welcoming Families From Around the World

Hard to believe Week 7 of this course is upon us already! I have to say that while this class has been challenging I have truly enjoyed it overall. For our blog assignment this week, we have to envision we are a part of a specific scenario and discuss ways in which we would approach the situation. The scenario is as follows:

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. 

In order to imagine this scenario, I have chosen the country of Zimbabwe, as it is a country I know little to nothing about their language, experiences, culture, etc. If I were in this situation and learned of this new student coming into my classroom, I would attempt to learn more about the country, culture, and more. However, this would only be surface facts and information that may not necessarily be applicable to this specific student. Therefore, it would be crucial to find additional ways to learn about the country and this specific family. In order to properly welcome and work with a child from another country and culture one is unfamiliar with, one must first understand the concept of cultural responsiveness. "To be culturally responsive is to be open to those differences, to be open to those complexities, and realizing that not everybody thinks the way you do, that not everybody sees the world the same way you do," (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010). Considering cultural responsiveness, a few possible ways to help the student and family feel welcomed by utilizing culturally responsive practices could be:

1. Make the children feel important, feel valued, feel understood and appreciated in the classroom and in the home. Ask the child and parents about their likes, interests, language, culture, beliefs, country, and more. Having important conversations and taking the time to get to know them individually will set a precedent and help them to feel valued and invested in the education process, even when in a new country.
2. Incorporate the diversity in your classroom into classroom decor. Allow students to bring in or design items that represent their culture, heritage, family, beliefs, etc. to put on display throughout the classroom. Children can explain what it is and why it is important to be shared with their classmates. This will help students of all diverse populations feel comfortable and safe within the classroom environment. 
3. Create opportunities for children to share their family history and heritage with their peers and teachers in the classroom. It could be in the form of a family show and tell, traditions project, and more. It will help students to learn about the diverse cultures thriving within our society and promote tolerance, understanding, and acceptance, while also helping the child feel equally important and valued as other children in the class, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, etc. 
4. Invite families into the classroom frequently and keep them actively involved in their child's educational experience. This will allow you to learn more about the child and their culture, as well as their personal family values and family identity. Parents can come in as volunteers for events or in day to day classroom activities or just to observe. 
5. Make visits to the child's home to interview and observe family life in this environment. This will show you are invested in the child's well-being and education just as much as the family and it will give great insight into the family's perspectives, routines, culture, and more. Understanding the family in this way will allow you to communicate effectively and make a positive difference in this child's life. You will be able to utilize what you learn to accommodate the child within your classroom. 

By completing the following guidelines and examples of cultural responsiveness, it would positively impact and benefit the lives of the children and families within your classroom, as well as the teachers and staff. These guidelines could make a positive impact for children and families in that they will feel important, feel appreciated and respected. It will instill a positive foundation for their future in education. Additionally, the guidelines could positively impact the educator(s) involved as it will allow them to learn more about various cultures and understand ways to incorporate diversity into the classroom to allow ALL students, regardless of background, to feel welcome, comfortable, safe, respected, and appreciated so they can learn and grow in a community of learners. 

References: 

Laureate Education, Inc. (2013). Cultural responsiveness. [Video webcast]. Retrieved from      

     https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_4067193
     _1&content_id=_13667522_1&courseTocLabel=Resources

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, & Oppression

Welcome back! We continue with this course in Week 6, discussing more and more controversial and emotional topics. From what I am gathering from the discussion posts this week, each of us (including myself - BIG TIME) has been experiencing a bit of a roller coaster of emotions over the last six weeks: frustration, anger, disappointment, confusion, pride, etc. As we continue to learn about diversity, culture, perspectives, equity, isms, micro aggressions, and overall equality to all human beings in our society, my eyes continue to be opened to instances I had not considered previously and to my own views and biases in that regard. While I have always considered myself to be open, tolerant, and accepting - overall bias-free - I, along with some of my colleagues, have been shocked and saddened to discover that I have committed micro aggressions against individuals due to some type of ism….unconsciously, unintentionally, and without aiming to hurt or harm. I was heartbroken when analyzing my own life and experiences and realizing I have not lived free of bias as I had always thought prior to this course; however, I am taking this as motivation to go down this extremely daunting and challenging road to becoming an anti-bias educator.

That being said, this week for our blog assignment we needed to revisit and analyze an example of an incident in which I, or someone I know, experienced bias, prejudice, or oppression and describe the scenario for discussion and analysis.  While learning about these ideas, I have been relating to one specific ism and specific encounter(s) or experience(s) in regard to this ism lately….that being sexism and being sexually objectified as well as mistreated and disrespected by a male parent of one of my student's from my class. However, I would like to turn the tides for this specific example this week as that prior example was more intentional. For the example this week I refer to an act of micro aggression, which was unintentional yet continuous in my experiences. Again this example could be considered sexism in some way, shape, or form but it took place with friends and was an unconscious and unintentional blight committed with me being the recipient.

Growing up, I was a bit of a tomboy. I always played sports, especially softball, and was surrounded by sports my whole life - either watching, talking about, or playing at home, school, on a team, or with friends and family. By the time I had reached high school, I was at an age where (as most teenage girls) I began to have "crushes" on boys. Being a tomboy and interested in sports and attempting to avoid the drama, I had several male friends, as well as female friends. It was awesome because I always felt comfortable since I knew and loved sports so we always had that in common to talk about. They respected me for this and for some this was the basis of our friendship. However, the comments made in passing were frustrating at times and completely harsh on my sensitive self-identity and self-perception. While my guy friends had the best of intentions, they had no idea what they were saying was being perceived by me as hurtful and frustrating. They would say things like "You know so much about this for a girl" or "It's so nice to hang out because you're like one of the guys". Both comments were equally frustrating and upsetting as the first felt like a punch to the guy - just because I am a girl means that I can't play, like, or know sports? That felt so WRONG! The second was just as difficult to hear because yes…I AM A GIRL… and yes… I LIKE you. Due to the second comment, a follow up sometimes occurred - "But you're like a little sister to me, I could never see you like that so it's best we just stay friends." All of the aforementioned comments, as I stated, are unintentionally harmful to a teenage girl's self-esteem, self-identity, and more. During such instances I remember feeling low, feeling like I did not have the respect I wanted or deserved, feeling like it shouldn't be one extreme of a guy abusing his rights with you because you're a female or the other extreme of not being considered a female just because you participate in what used to be considered a "predominantly male activity".

I think that such instances, while innocent and unintentional in nature, are detrimental and can take away from the equity of women versus men in our society. It is not fair to portray certain things for men to do but not for women - this goes against equity or providing opportunities for ALL human beings, regardless of age, race, gender, ethnicity, culture, identity, sexual orientation, etc. Even though my male friends are wonderful and had the best of intentions and would be the first in line to "handle" any person who "gave me a hard time" or "hurt me" in ANY way, they could not wrap their heads around what they themselves had done with just a few words in passing conversation. In order for things like this to stop perpetuating on the small scale like this or on an even larger scale like my previous examples last week with sexism, our society and our society's expectations MUST change. We have come so far through the years and I think we still have a great many battles to overcome in order to have a truly just society. However, I do strongly believe we can get there, whether it be 5 months, 5 years, 500 years from now, I do believe it will happen….eventually. :)

Until next time...