Professional Hopes and Goals

As I look back over the past eight weeks and begin to think about working with children and families who come from very different and diverse backgrounds I hope that I can offer an environment that has trusting relationships, love, compassion,patience, respect, and consideration for all children and families that I come in contact with. This course has really touched my heart in so many ways,  I hope that I am able to take what I have learned from this course and help others who have struggled with diversity, culture, inequities and use the knowledge to help them understand about similarities and differences. 

A goal of mines when it come to to issues of diversity, equity, and social justice is to see anti-bias education for children, parents and all education people who deal directly with children and families. I think that if better understanding of culture and diversity was to happen, better communication will transpire between everyone.

I would like to thank all my colleagues because I have learned something from everyone. I enjoyed reading the discussion, blogs and learning about how others have dealt with situations similar to me, it made this experience some what easier. 

Welcoming Families From Around the World

As a early childhood professional are working in an early childhood setting.You receive word that the child of a family who has recently emigrated from a country you now nothing about will join your group soon. You want to prepare yourself to welcome the child and her family,in order to support families who have immigrated you need to know more than surface facts about their country of origin.”

I chose the country of Hungary, Hungary is located in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe. I believe to in order to truly help this child/family, I want to first learn about their country's food, customs and belief before I can do anything else. I want to help them  feel comfortable in their new environment. I want to learn their customs upon greeting others so that they don't get offended. 

I would make them feel comfortable fixing food that is similar to what the family eat or are used to, such as Hungarian cuisine, goulash and chicken paprika, but their food are associated with much more.  I would also try to find little artifacts that are from their country such as clothing, pictures, and others.  I would also create a photo album with picture of their country so they can have things are related to what they are used to. I would try to learn Hungarian (Magyar) language by purchasing the Rosetta Stone series. I think all of this strategies will help the family feel welcomed.

As an early childhood professional, I would see if there is anyone in the community who is able to help the family by translating their language and I would take the family to local markets, schools, community events so that they can feel a part of the community in which they are in. 

I would encourage the local school that the child will be attending to make their classroom as culturally sensitive as possible with poster, pictures, books, artifacts that are welcoming and inviting. 

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

This week I have the chance to share about an incident where I have experienced bias, prejudice, and/or oppression, or witnessed someone else as the target of bias, prejudice, and/or oppression in this day and time.. I choose to discuss an incident that will never leave my mind and I will always try to best to change the attitudes and  behaviors of the people in this town. On July 27, 2012, a friend and I chose to go to a local restaurant in a small town in Mississippi, the same town where I have lived for 36 years. We entered to building and a sign said, please wait to be seated by waiter, so we waited and waited and waited so after after five minutes or so we seated our selves. After a minute of being seated a man walked over to our table, please let me remind you that this man is the waiter who was supposed to seat us when we entered to building. He blatantly said " you can't sit here, you have to sit back yonder", my mouth dropped and my friend begin to drop her head because she knew what was about to come out of my mouth. I explained to the man that we were not going to move and I did not see a reserved sign that said " white only"" or "colored". I asked the man why was he whispering did he not want all the professional people in the restaurant to know that there was a table for " colored only" in this day and age. So I let the people know that they were eating in a restaurant that had "hidden prejudices". I asked to speak with the manager and he came over along with some other people in the restaurant and I explained my story, several people asked for us to sit at their table, the restaurant was fill with white people. I joined a white couple who was so polite and she explained to us, that they was not aware that blacks was asked to sit in the back, she had never noticed it and the lady got up and went to every table talking to others, so many people came over to us apologizing for what we had went through and paid for our lunch to eat at the same restaurant for the next week. My friend and I have been enjoying lunch on the locals and we will eat our last meal on Monday. The people are much friendlier as we walk through the door, but there are still a few stares and whispers, but we will continue to eat there even when our free spree is over, we change change some attitudes if not all. 

I was so hurt because everything really thinks that prejudice like this instance does not exit, but they do, I call them " hidden prejudices' and they will never go away. This incident reminds me of what I see in movies not real life situations, and it disturbs me to think that with all the changes in the world we still have situation like the one me and friend encountered just last week. I don't think it's nothing I can do to change these types of situation, people are going to want to change from the old into the new, and people refuse to change and that's just final. Education and knowledge key if we are going to change the mindset of people.