Professional Hopes and Goals

One hope that you have when you think about working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds:

The one hope that I have when working with children and families from a diverse background is that they all feel welcome and comfortable in my classroom. Once I am teaching again, I hope to take all the information that I have learned from this course to make sure that I am culturally aware of all of my students. I know that in the past, I had a classroom of diverse students and didn’t do much about it. We made sure that their culture was displayed around the room, but i never took the time to get to know the families. Whether it be they never stayed in the classroom long enough to talk or something would happen with the children to where I didn’t have time to talk. I now know that I must find time to get to know my families and really pay attention to what the children are doing and saying.

One goal you would like to set for the early childhood field related to issues of diversity, equity, and social justice:

One goal that I have for the early childhood field is that it becomes a place for children to feel safe and encouraged to try new things. Children should not be judged by the color of their skin, their gender, or their economic status. Every child should have the same opportunities to learn and grow in the early childhood field.I think that Derman-Sparks (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011) picked a good quote from Raffi that stated:

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.

This is exactly what I want for all children!

I would like to thank my colleagues for helping me down this journey, called diversity. I learned a lot from each and every one of you, and value the experiences that you shared. Hopefully now, we all have the knowledge about diversity and equity that we can start standing up for our students. I wish you all the best of luck as you continue your journey to your master’s degree!

References:
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Diversity and equity work: Lessons learned. [Video webcast]. Retrieved from the Walden University website: http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=6488767&Survey=1&47=9303639&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=1&bhcp=1

Welcoming Families From Around the World

The country that I chose my family coming from is Finland.

Five ways in which you will prepare yourself to be culturally responsive towards this family

• Look up information on Finland on the internet
• Talk to the family
• Try to connect with people from Finland
• Check out books that have information on Finland
• Figure out the language and learn key words

I think that by working through these five steps, I will be able to set up a classroom that is inviting to the new family. My goal would to also make sure that the child feels at ease and can relate to materials in the classroom. By looking up information, I can learn about the country and find posters and books to put in the classroom. By talking to the family, I can learn what they expect for their children and what they expect out of the school. Before the family comes, I would plan to see if there were people in the area from Finland. That way I can use them as a resource and hopefully connect the family with them so that they have someone to relate to. I also think that learning key phrases will help the child transition from their home language to English. This should also help build a connection with the child.

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

Just recently I had an experience with oppression while watching a television show. My husband and I have been getting on Netflix and watching some of the shows that we used to watch while growing up. Recently we have been watching Futurama and on its last season there was an episode that had my jaw on the ground! The whole episode was all about how women needed to be in their place, which meant making food and cleaning. There was even a part that insinuated that women knew more about television shows and “little” stuff while the guys knew how to lie. The guys in the show saw themselves as better than the women and were superior in many ways.

The idea of this show made it clear that the writers were trying to make a joke about the inequality that women face in society. The ideas that could be put in young male’s minds are the reason that comments like, “get back in the kitchen,” are still around. While watching the show, I felt out of place and so did my husband. He kept saying it was because the last season was taken over by Comedy Central they were being very bias, but I don’t think that is the case. I think the writers were given the opportunity to push boundaries that they were not allowed to do with the network they were with before.

While watching the show, I felt so out of place. The ideas they were saying, were outrageous and really got on my nerves. Growing up, I have heard those sayings from my uncle and to this day, I do not find any of it funny. Women had to work so hard to get to where we are now, and the fact that these thoughts are still being said, are ridiculous.

I think that a way they could have turned this incident into an opportunity to teach about equity would have been to have an ending that showed that these comments are outdated; that women can do just as much as men can do. Men can make sandwiches and clean up after themselves and women can think on their own and can problem solve.