PROFESSIONAL HOPES AND GOALS

One hope that I have when I think about working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds is that every early childhood professional will become mentally and educationally prepared to embrace every child and every family that is different. As we learn to become more accepting, we intentionally begin to break every hidden barrier that is existent within the culture.

A goal that I would like to set for the early childhood field with regards to issues of diversity, equity, and social justice is to create an atmosphere that is non-judgmental within every early childhood sphere of influence that would promote acceptance, promote tolerance and promote awareness of the many social identities that are existent and viewed as controversial. By learning to embrace and interact with many of the cultural differences this would promote personal growth and development and break every hidden barrier that is prevalent in the field.  

Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to all of my colleagues and our professor for making this a memorable learning experience during these past eight weeks. I appreciate your transparency, your insight, and your willingness to share your personal experiences with us throughout the course to help bring clarity and understanding of those difficult and challenging issues we had to discuss.

 

 

Welcoming Families From Around the World 

 My early childhood setting takes place within a child care center. I have received word that the child of a family who has recently emigrated from a country I know nothing about will join my group soon. In preparation, I prepare myself to welcome the child and her family. Luckily, I have enrolled in a course about diversity and have learned that in order to support families who have immigrated I need to know more than surface facts about their country of origin.

The name of the country of origin I chose is “Aruba”.  This is a country that I know little about except that many Americans tour this country and I have heard that the weather is beautiful. I wanted to know more about the culture, people and country to see what it has to offer.

Some of the ways in which I can prepare myself to be culturally responsive towards the family is that I would begin to read about the culture and language via various resources.  I would look to find what significance the country and culture has.  In particular, the country is both multi-lingual and multi-cultural. There are 4 different languages spoken to include, Dutch, Spanish, Papiamento, and English.  Familiarizing myself with some of the basic terminology in these languages (English, Dutch and Spanish) would be a start and would help me to understand the family dynamics. Another approach would be to learn of some of the cultural meanings. I would find and gather items that represent the country and place them in the day care room and ensure that the family/child has some things that they can identify with that is familiar to them. I would also see if I could find someone that is familiar with the culture/language and probe and ask questions that would help me to communicate and understand the family better.  I would also want to find out more about the family and would have them fill out a questionnaire prior to me meeting with them. This would help me to at least see ahead of time some of the family’s interests and needs which would help with the interview and personal contact.  

 All of these practices will allow me to become better prepared, acquainted and possibly feel more at ease if I prepared ahead of time and take the time to find out about the family. Learning about their likes, dislikes, customs, and/or things that we may do or not do that may be offensive is well worth exploring prior to my visit with the family. 

 

 

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

One experience that I would like to personally share is many years ago when my oldest daughter was younger we took a family vacation to Disney World. At the time, my daughter was probably about three or four years of age and was in a stroller.  As you can imagine the theme park can be overcrowded with droves and droves of people.  During this time the parade was just getting started and my daughter could not see all of the Disney characters because she was in the stroller. As people normally do, we pushed our way into the crowd so that we could get a good view.  As all the people were moving forward there was this white man who was beside me who blurted out “stay in the back where you belong you black bi---” and pushed me forward into the crowd.  Well needless to say, my husband who was behind me did not take to kindly to this as he reacted and pushed the man back and told him not to put his hands on his wife. The man then glared at my husband and continued to push his way to the other side into the crowd. 

This particular incident diminished equity when the man called me out of my name. His deliberate racial behavior, attitude and statement removed all opportunities to promote peace. This deliberate hostile act is known as a microassault which was discussed during Dr. Sue’s media segment on micro-aggressions (Laureate Education, 2011).

The emotional feelings that I experienced on that day was that of anger, fear and sadness. I became angry because this man disrespected me and thought that it was okay to call me out of my name and then push me. I was also angry because he thought that he was in some way superior to me and that hatred was in his heart. My heart became fearful because my husband became enraged and pushed him back in order to protect me.  I was afraid that this was going to lead into a bad situation. So I calmed my husband down and talked him into not taking this incident any further. It took me a while to let that incident go but I was saddened by the fact that racism still existed and that this man had this amount of hatred and anger in his heart.   

In this situation in order to bring about equity the man that pushed me would have had to have a softened heart. His behavior and superiority mentality of how he viewed me as a black woman would have had to change. However, I chose to not stay angry and not to hold a grudge against this man and others that are ignorant just as he was. I chose not to develop and or hold onto racial attitudes and behaviors because I had a bad experience and a victim of someone else's prejudices. I believe that this situation helped me to grow and become more tolerant of other people’s ignorance.