Continuing The Journey

When working in a diverse environment whether it be with the students and their families or my coworkers my hope is that there is respect. When dealing with a diverse group of people the most important thing is that people respect the differences and accept them. I also would hope that we are able to create a positive relationship and learn to understand each other. I hope that the children and their families think I am helping them and that I am able to understand them and their differences. It is important to me that I not only make a difference in the child‘s life but the parents as well.

One goal that I think that needs to be set for the early childhood field is that in every environment they make the parents a part of it regardless of their culture. Making the parents a part of the learning environment allows them to see what you are doing with the students and also teaches the students about each other’s families. The parents don[‘t necessarily have to have a physical presence but I think it is important to bring things that represent the families into the classroom so the students can get to know each other and learn about different cultures as well. This also creates a respectful environment and helps to eliminate prejudices.

I would like to thank all of my colleagues for making this an enjoyable experience. I love being able to read your feedback and it gives me ideas for the future. Good luck to everyone as we continue our journey!

Turkish Student

My student that will be joining my classroom is from the country of Turkey. This is not a country I know much about and I do not really know about their culture either. In order to but culturally responsive with this child I need to learn more about the child’s culture. One thing I would do is research the country and find out things that people do there. This might help me determine activities that this student would enjoy. Another thing I would look up is their traditions. This might give me a common point to ask the child about. I also would look up how to say Hello how are you in Turkish so I could great the family in their own language. I would also prepare some type of assignment that would allow the student to share with the class about the family and their culture. The final thing I would look up is if their culture has any dietary restrictions that they stick to. Some cultures have certain foods they do not eat. To show my respect for this I would make sure that I knew and as able to tell the parents to ensure the child would have something to eat on the days that our center is serving those foods.

I hope that these preparations will allow the child to express themselves to me and their classmates. I think it will also start to create a relationship that shows the child and family that I care and it will help to create a bond and open the lines of communication.

Prejudice and Bias

Growing up as an African American I have been faced with prejudice many times in my life. Often you can walk into stores and watch people grab their bags or just look at you different, especially if it is a higher end stores. I have learned that many people judge me just because of my color and make statements because they are ignorant and that is all they know. Having such experiences as a young girl I will never forget reading the story To Kill a Mockingbird in high school. This book showed some experiences that I had been through in my life. In the book it was references several times that white people had no business interacting with black people. As a child growing up in Miami there was different times when I had friends that were white that there parents did not like the fact that we would spend time together. We were allowed to be friends at school but not outside because their parents didn’t want us interacting. Judgments in this book were made about many of the people because of their skin color and that happens on a daily basis. When I read the book it made me realize that not all people were created equally because it showed that racism was still alive and well.

Reading this story as a child who had experienced some of these same things as a child brought up many mixed emotions. I believed that in our society there was more of equality but after reading that and knowing some of the experiences I had had it made me realize how prejudice some people still were. This brought up a feeling of mixed emotions for me and wanting better for our country. I think since then especially since the election of Barrack Obama it has shown how far our country has come which makes me happy and is a feeling of relief that my grandchildren will hopefully not feel some of the prejudice that I have.