Professional Hopes and Goals

I hope that all early childhood professionals will be respectful of all children and their families who are of a diverse background that is different from their own ethnicity or race.  Young children do not see people as a color but as a person and it is important that the adults in their life does not tarnish that image with any biases.  The goal that I am seeking for the early childhood field is to teach professionals in the field how to work with children of diversity whether it is race, gender, disability, or same-sex families.  I had 2 teachers this week to come and ask me for advice on how to deal with a child who they feel has signs of autism.  They admitted that they do not have the training on how to work with the child and needing some guidance.  These teachers have been in the field for over 5 years and felt that their college education was not enough.  These are issues that our professionals are dealing with in the classroom and they need trainings instead of waiting on outside help.  The child deserve teachers who are trained in working with him.  The equity and social justice is in preparing our teachers better for the classroom.

I would like to thank all of my colleagues who have posted comments to my blogs durning this course on Diversity and Equity.  Your support in providing me with positive outlook on how I view diversity has motivated me to provide the very best for our young children.  I wish you all the very best as you continue to pursue your degree in early childhood education.  God Bless!

Welcoming Families from Around the World

If my childcare center enrolled a child from Malawi Africa, we would need to learn about the country before the family arrived for the first day.  Malawi is the poorest country in Africa so it will be important for the staff to treat the family with respect and not as a family in need looking for someone to take care of them.  The first thing the staff will do is learn about the culture and people of Malawi.  There are 11 different ethnic groups in Malawi and we will learn about the families ethnicity.  Although English is the official language of Malawi, the family may speak Chichewa which is also the official language.  If the family does speak Chichewa, the staff will find translations of daily survival words such as restroom, water, chair, and food.  By having a map of Malawi will also help the other children in the class to learn where the child is from and how far away the country of Malawi is (Geography).  The staff will also have dialogue with the family to find out what type of food does the family eat and ask if the family could share a recipe with the class.  This can be incorporated into a cooking activity for the class.  Lastly, the staff can incorporate some clothing that is worn in Malawi into the dramatic play area. 

By having prior knowledge about Malawi and during the enrollment process gather information about the family, it will help the staff in providing an environment that will help the child and the family to adjust to their new environment while still having a sense of their previous environment.  While the family will still have their family rituals at home, the center would still want to incorporate that sense of cohesivness for the child while at school.  During all of this the staff will also get the opportunity to learn about a different part of the world, it's culture and it's people.  In America we are always expecting other cultures to learn about us but we need to take the time and learn about other cultures as well.
  

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

There are many memories that I have on the title of this blog but I would like to share one that I am sure will be a memory for my son.  When he was a junior in high school he had a Caucasian French teacher in which he was not doing well in her class.  During the parent-teacher conference she ask me was he "planning to dropout of school because she has had so many students when they get to his age (16), they usually do".  I was shocked that she asked me that about my son and also shocked that she had made a bias statement about my son.  She assumed that because he was not doing well in her class, a African American male, and from a single parent home that he would be a dropout.  What she did not realize was that he was not failing in his other classes or having difficult in the other classes.  After I composed myself to remain respectful, I replied, "that is not an option for him.  He will graduate from high school even if he is 20 years old and he will go to college".  I am sure that I could have said more to her to make her realize that she had made a bias judgement against my son but I felt that it was more mature of me to not get into an arguement with her but to answer her question directly. 

Today my son did graduate on time and did attend college.  I have often thought about that I should have confronted the teacher after he graduated to let her know but it was not about her, it was about my son.  He did the opposite of what she expected and that is what is important.  "It's not what people do to us but what we allow to be done to us" (author unknown).  I refused to let the teachers bias-ism to take advantage of my son's future.  Her overt and covert isms is her issue, not ours.