Professional Hopes and Goals

• One hope that you have when you think about working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds (any format and any length) One hope of mine about working with children and families is to gain a broader understanding of other cultures. Also,  A goal of mine is to become an advocate for anti bias education. I want to strive to work hard to open doors for children from all backgrounds. My hope would be to teach children and families that they are each valued and important members of society. I want to do this by continually educating myself and the children I am teach about how to be anti-bias. I also want to resources and materials that will help me better meet this goal.
• One goal you would like to set for the early childhood field related to issues of diversity, equity, and social justice (any format and any length) My goal for the early childhood field is to one day work in a field and an environment where there will be equality within the field. Whether male, female, black, white, purple, pink, green, gay or straight that each person will have an equal opportunity to work in the early childhood field. I think it is crazy that there are still restrictions within this field. I think one of the best ways to teach children how to be anti-bias is to have many different people represented within the field.
• A brief note of thanks to your colleagues Lastly, I would like to thank each of you! I have learned a lot of things from your posts each week and I am grateful for the opportunity to work with each of. I think it is important to collaborate with one another and I feel as though it has been helpful for me to do so with all of you. -Amy 

Welcoming Families from Around the World

Family's Country of Origin: Botswana

Five Preparations to become culturally responsive:

1. I would ensure that my classroom is already culturally diverse through resources and materials including books, poster and activities.
2. I would do my best to study where the child is moving from to make myself knowledgeable of current events and issues from her home country.
3. I would prepare my students for the arrival of the new student. I would explain to them that she is from another country where things are different and it is all of our jobs to make sure that she feels welcome.
4.I would also make sure that I am communicating with the family of the child to see if there are any special things I need to know or different things I can do to make sure that the child feels most comfortable.
5. I would also invite the student and their family in for a a visit to the classroom before the child's first day of school. This would give the child the opportunity to become familiar with their new classroom and would also the the family and I a chance to chat in person.

My hope would be that these 5 preparations to become culturally responsive would help the family, child and my classroom of children to become comfortable with the new situation. It would also help me develop a rapport with the family. Although a few of my preparations may not seem as though they directly effect the child they all do. The child is coming from their culture and entering my classroom, which has it's own classroom culture. Filling my classroom with books, posters and activities that are culturally diverse would lay the foundation for cultural acceptance within my classroom. By preparing my students it is already going to prepare them, as well as myself, to be culturally responsive.

Resource: Google Images

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

• What memory do you have of an incident when you experienced bias, prejudice, and/or oppression, or witnessed someone else as the target of bias, prejudice, and/or oppression? Keep in mind that one can encounter such incidents in real contexts, including online environments, as well as in fictional ones, such as movies, books, television shows, and the like.  I worked in child care for a number of years and I witnessed a number of different situations that I would consider prejudice. There was one where a little girl and her family used water to clean themselves after using the restroom. In order to meet this need, the little girl used a small watering can. This situation sticks out to me in particular, because I remember a newer teacher substituting in the classroom and this little girl asked her if she could get down her watering can so that she could finish using the restroom. The teacher did not know that this was a need of the child and told the little girl to just wipe and finish. The little girl was upset and I tried to figure out what was wrong. She said what was wrong and it was then explained to the newer teacher that culturally this is how her family did things. The teacher said, "That's weird."
• In what way(s) did the specific bias, prejudice and/or oppression in that incident diminish equity? I think this situation diminished equity because by the teacher calling what the child's family did 'weird' she was basically saying that it was wrong and she did not necessarily agree with it. Rather than understanding that it was something they do in their culture, she made a judgement about this action, based on her opinion of it.
• What feelings did this incident bring up for you? I felt very sad for the child, it is hard enough being a four year old in preschool and to be different from the other children, but to have a grown up...someone you should be able to trust say that something you do is weird would be very hurtful. It is also giving this child, the impression that she should almost be ashamed of what her family does. I think in this situation the teacher just didn't understand what the child meant and it seemed like she was almost embarrassed and just expressed this the wrong way.
• What and/or who would have to change in order to turn this incident into an opportunity for greater equity? I think the teacher would have to change in order for a greater opportunity for equity. Obviously, the child didn't understand what was happening in the situation and the teacher could have used other verbage or had a different attitude in the situation.