Professional Hopes and Goals

As an early childhood educator, I hope to be an effective culturally responsive teacher when I work with children and families that come from diverse backgrounds. In order for me to be effective, I will strive to make learning more appropriate and teach the "whole" child, by taking each child's strengths and challenges into account, and plan and develop the curriculum and environment accordingly.

One goal I would like for the early childhood field related to issues of diversity, equity, and social justice would be to set the foundation in early childhood for every child to grow up in a world free from bias and discrimination, and be able to learn in an positive environment that will promote academics success in their lives.

I would like to thank Dr. Morgan and my colleagues for a successful learning journey in this course of "Perspectives on Diversity and Equity". I wish that each and everyone of you will continue to fulfill your goals in the early childhood field, and strive to promote equity, and social justice in an increasingly diverse nation.

Welcoming Families From Around the World

As an early childhood professional, we encounter children from diverse backgrounds all the time whose families come from many different countries. For this week's assignment, I were asked in what ways can I prepare myself for working in an early childhood setting when a child of a family who has emigrated from a country that I know nothing about will be joining my classroom soon. I was told to choose a country I know nothing about as this family's country of origin.

I currently live in the United States, and the country of origin I chose for the family to be from was China. First of all, for me to be culturally responsive, I need to have the ability to relate and to communicate with others who I don't share the same backgrounds, cultures, languages, and ethnicity. In order to be an effective culturally responsive teacher, I will teach the "whole child". I will have to do research and learn about the Chinese culture and find out from the family as to what they expect concerning the child's education, and how I can support them. My classroom will need to reflect the Chinese culture of the family and child. I will want to build positive bridges between the home and school experiences, and use a variety of instructional strategies that are connected to the different learning styles of both the American culture and Chinese culture.

As I done research on the early childhood education in China, I found out that much of the curriculum content there is similar to an American program, but the teaching methods are different from the "developmentally-appropriate practices' advocated by early childhood educators in the United States (NAEYC, 1986). The emphasis is upon the teacher directed, total group instruction. All children are expected to do the same thing at the same time. They are expected to proceed at the same pace. The child is responsible for keeping up and poor performance is usually attributed to "not working hard enough." Unlike the early childhood curriculum in the United States, the teaching methods and available materials limit opportunities for creative expression or pursuit of individual interests. Most importantly, in China as well as in the United States, the educators and families greatly love and value their children. They make major investments in their children and the education system.

By keeping this in mind, as an early childhood educator, I hope the child, as well as myself, will be able to learn from each other's cultures and let this learning experience be beneficial to the child, family, and other children on how to liverespectfully together in a diverse classroom setting.

References:
National Association for the Education of Young Children. (1986). Position statement on developmentally appropriate practive in early childhood programs serving children from birth to age eight. Young Children, 41(6), 3-19.

Vaughan, JoAn. (1993). Early childhood education in China. Association for childhood educational international. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/kcts/preciouschildren/earlyed/read_vaughan.html.

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

One memory of an incident when I experienced bias was when I applied for an Administrative Coordinator position online. I believe the hiring of this position was bias because I wasn't contacted for an interview. All I received was  an email stating:

 To whom It May Concern:
 Your application for the Administrative Coordinator, is greatly appreciated. Your qualifications, along with those of other applicants, were very competitive. However, the search has concluded and the hiring department has selected a candidate whose qualifications appear to meet its current needs...

This incident diminish equity in that there wasn't any interviews conducted, and the email was sent out unprofessionally. I felt like this was unfair and unjust treatment in selecting the candidate for the position, and that the person hired was already employed in that business. From experience, I know that in the school system I work, they have to post the available position, but many times someone in the system has already been hired for that position prior to the posting.

In order for this incident to be turned into an opportunity for greater equity, I think every candidate should be given an opportunity for an interview, in order to get to know the candidate personally and professionally, instead of drawing conclusions from an online application.

Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

For this week's assignment, we were instructed to describe an example of a microaggression we have detected this week or remember from another time. One example of microaggressions -microinsults and microvalidations- that happened to me I can remember was when a woman from another race was in the store looking at the African American hair products and asked me, "What do ya'll put on your hair to make it stiff, do ya'll use wax?" At first, I got offensive, but I replied, "I don't use wax on my hair." I knew no offense was consciously intended because she was a hairstylist, but I was put in the "Catch 22" position.

As a person of color, I felt insulted because most whites usually consider African Americans to have "nappy" hair. Even though I knew she unintentionally meant harm, it made me feel discriminated because of my race and made me wonder what was her hidden message in the question. I am aware of microaggressions because of my race, but I have chosen to be an overcomer of them because I know who I am, and what I am striving to become in life.

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

In this course, "Perspectives on Diversity and Equity", I have been studying that there are many different perspectives, views, and beliefs about culture and diversity.

For this assignment, we were asked to find out from three different people their definitions of culture and diversity. The three people I asked defined culture as our heritage, or beliefs, why we do things; the way you were raised, your morals and rituals; and who you are, what your were brought up in. Culture can be referred to how particular groups of people live. It is the way we live our everyday lives, which include the language we speak, the religion or spirituality we practice (or do not), and the clothing, housing, food, and rituals/holidays with which we feel most comfortable (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010, p. 55).

They defined diversity as different cultures living together and around each other in the same community; the inclusion of different people which sets us apart from other cultures; and how we are all different, but come together. To sum up their definitions of diversity, diversity is recognizing and appreciating the variety of characterisitcs that make each individual culture unique in their own way, but learning to live together in a community or group.

My thinking about this topic has been influenced by seeing how other people define culture and diversity. As an educator, I have to be willing to talk openly about the different cultures in order to help foster a positive sense of self in our children and their families, which can make a difference about diversity in our community. Also, I can help children realize that eventhough we are differnt in our cultures and traditions, but we can learn to value each other differences and learn to live together and benefit from one another.

References:
Derman-Sparks, L., & Edwards, J. O. (2010). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).

My Family Culture

If I could only take 3 small items with me that I hold dear and that represents my family when evacuating to another country, I will take my Bible, family portrait, and my MP3 player. I will take my Bible, because my mother always tell me to trust in the Lord and He will see me through my trials. My family portrait, because I can look back on the time the portrait was taken and remember the good times the family spent together. Also, I will take my MP3 player, because I often listen to music to smooth my soul and songs have a tendency to carry an inspirational message.

If I were told that I could only keep one personal item upon arrival to the unknown country, I would be devastated, but I would choose to keep my Bible, because I know it will give me strength to survive in this country.

As a result of this exercise, I can now relate to how the children from another culture feel when they are dominant by our culture. When I put myself  in the position of being evacuated to another country, I felt a sense of fear, loss, confusion about not knowing what to do. The insight I have learned is that we always need to be willing to accept different cultures and families, because we never know when we will be put in a similar situation when we will want to be accepted by our different culture.

When I Think of Research...

In the course of Building Research Competencies, my knowledge and understanding about research had definitely been deepened. I have learned how to find reliable resources, narrow my general research topic of choice down to related subtopics, and also, gained knowledge about the terms and concepts used in the research process.

My ideas about the nature of research has changed because now I realize there is alot of information you need to know in regard to understanding research in early childhood. As with any research, there are risks of doing research involving children and their families.

I did encounter some challenges in understanding research in this course. In order for research to be informative, ethical, meaningful, persuasive, and significant, researchers have to follow the proper steps from selecting a topic to drawing conclusions. I found out throughout this course that learning about the process of formatting these steps can be challenging as I began to develop my research study outline.

My perceptions of an early childhood professional has been modified by understanding and evaluating research. Research today is greatly needed in order for advocates to seek out for the improvement in the early childhood field.

I would like to thank Dr. DiSpagna and all my colleagues for the support and helpful information shared throughout this course. I'm looking forward to gaining more knowledge and understanding of early childhood as I continue to work on obtaining my Master's Degree in early childhood studies.