What I have Learned

I hope that in the future when working with children and families that are from diverse backgrounds is that they will trust me and let me get to know them and allow me to learn from them and their culture. I hope that they will not only respect me and my culture but that I can learn theirs as well.

One goal that I have for the early childhood field is that we continue to inform children of the diverse world that we live in and allow them to embrace other cultures to try to eliminate some of the biases we have in our world today. The more we educate our children and teach them about differences the better chance they have at understanding and supporting diversity.

This class has taught me a great deal about myself and I have enjoyed learning from my classmates as well. I thank everyone for their knowledge and opinions throughout the course and helping me think deeper into many of the responses that I have had.

Creating Art

This class allowed me to reflex on my family, look at diversity within the classroom and as well as diversity among families.

We Don't Say Those Words

I will never forget when I was working in a special education classroom as a paraprofessional and we had just gotten a new student. The student had only been in our classroom about two days and he was a student with Autism. I was at a table working with some of the children and the teacher was working one on one with a student and the principal came into our classroom with some visitors from our district office. If any of you know much about children with Autism they often speak their minds and don’t consider others feelings before speaking. The principal and the lady from the district walked over to the teacher and the student and said something. No sooner than they had stepped away the student looked at the teacher and said “Why are that ladies teeth so big?” The teacher told the little boy to be quite. No sooner than she had said that the student got up and went over to the lady and asked the same question. The then told him “that was unacceptable go sit down.” Later, the principal came back and tried to reprimand not only the student again but the teacher for the child’s behavior and what he had said. The teacher had to get the principal to understand that the student did not realize what he was saying was in appropriate and reprimanding him for such behavior might cause the student not to communicate with others as well. 

When children say inappropriate things I think it is important to have a conversation with them about how certain things could hurt people’s feelings and better ways to say it. However, I don’t think that a student should be silenced for what they are saying because it could cause the child to be more shy and not really speak at all. I think the best way to approach the situation that my teacher was in was to tell the boy to apologize to the lady for interrupting her conversation with the principal, the teacher then should explain to the student that all people are different and that not everyone looks the same. She should have also told him that is it okay to ask questions about why others are different but you have to do it in a polite manner. Parents and Adults need to be role models for children because they often mimic what they are saying. This is why in our society today some children are very polite and others are not it is all what is expected of them and what they are exposed to in their life. It is important as adults that we should not silence children for talking but show them other ways of saying things and asking questions in an appropriate manner.

Start Seeing Diversity

I could see why many childhood education centers would want to avoid including books about gay and lesbian individuals. This is a very touchy subject for many people in the United States and they want to have the opportunity to take to their own kids and share there beliefs with them. However, I feel it is very important to expose children to many things and allow them to make opinions for themselves. I think especially if you have children inside your classroom that would have parents of the same sex it would be even more important to have these books. If the children are around other children and see these families they often have many questions which books could help give more unbiased answers than by them speaking to a person.

I think the term that I hear the most often when around children is when they say gay. I hate it when children use the term “that’s gay.” They are using it in the context of meaning stupid but it is not a word that should be used. I also think that in sports you often here children refer to each other and say don’t be a sissy especially in sports like football. I think it is important that adults make sure that they stop children from saying these things because it could offend someone. There are many children in our society today that are growing up with parents of the same sex so it is important to not make them feel uncomfortable.

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.