Blog: Welcoming Families From Around the World

I chose Russia to be my new family's country of origin. I do not know anything about this culture and would love to learn more about it. Working in an early childhood center, some things I would do to prepare myself for the arrival of this child and family would be:

 

-Read up on the country history and government and learn about the traditions, culture, education systems, food, pop culture, and music.

-Include Russian children's stories and books in my class library and put out the food and dress  representative of the country in the Dramatic Play area. 

-Learn some basic phrases and words in the language like sit down, paper, crayons, scissors, bathroom, hello, etc.

-Print out labels in the written language to post around the room to accompany the labels in English and Spanish.

-Purchase popular Russian children's songs and include them into the curriculum.

 

I hope that by researching this country and setting up the classroom to include some of the things the child possibly saw in previous classrooms would be welcoming to the child and family. That they would see I was open and willing to help with the transition and with the education of their child. I hope they would see that me and the class were happy to have them be a part of our class community. I do not want to appear to be trying too hard and fake, so I would not bombard them with too much enthusiasm. Moving to another country is hard enough, so I would hope they could find some peace knowing their child was in an environment that celebrated her and not ignored her.

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

When I was in my late teens, there was a corner store that my cousins and I went to. We were not the rowdy type of teens, we were taught to always be respectful and conduct ourselves as though our parents have eyes everywhere. When we walked into the store the Asian man behind the counter yelled and told us to hurry up and buy. We looked around to see if he could possibly be talking to anyone else but it was only us who were in the store at the time. We decided to ignore his comment/demand and continued to look through the store for junk food. The man was eyeing us very hard. He told us to hurry up or get out of his store and we better not steal because he is watching us and he will call the cops if we give him any trouble. At that moment my oldest cousin was getting angry because we did not deserve the way we were being treated. We never cause trouble but we get treated as if we steal and/or do worse. I told my cousin to lets not spend our money here and leave, but before we could my cousin being the outspoken person she is told the man that because we are Black does not mean we will steal or destroy and she said it again in Chinese which shocked the man. He looked confused and we left the store.

Making the assumption that everyone that is Black does wrong is wrong. I do not like to be judged by the color of my skin and I think it is unjust to treat anyone the way they do not want to be treated. As far as my feelings were concerned, I was bothered by what was said and how we were treated. I started thinking about my mom, dad, and grandparents and knowing they may have been treated worse when they were my age. Sometimes incidents like that make you a stronger person.

For an incident like the one I experienced to change, the Asian man does not need to make assumptions based on skin complexion. If he wasn’t quick to pre-judge us he would have gotten our service. It makes me wonder how he has treated others that have come before and after us.

Awareness of Microaggressions

Microaggressions can be hurtful both intentionally and unintentionally. It is important for people to think before they speak and realize that your words can affect the person receiving them. I have had many experiences where words and actions were harmful and hurting towards me. When I was taking my core courses in college, I remember an incident in the bookstore. I heard two females talking about hair and one of them was trying to get the other to ask me about my hair. Well, I turned around and the Caucasian girl asked me if all my hair was mine. I responded and said yes and asked her if she would like to check for tracks (weave) because she gave me an “are you serious” look. She responded and said no but touched my hair anyway. She said my hair was silky and straight and I must be mixed. I told her no I am not and both of my parents are Black. I really took the conversation offensively and the girl caught on because she seemed apologetic and walked away but never really apologizing. After the conversation I felt that since I am African American I cannot have nice hair. I have had several incidents regarding my hair even when I was in high school, not just by people outside my race but also those of the same race as me.

This week’s lesson has taught me that anybody can pass microaggressions intentionally and unintentionally, that is why it is so important to think before you speak and to treat others the way you want to be treated. I also learned about the different types of microaggressions, which I was unaware of. I enjoyed this week!

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

I talked to three different friends and below I will share their definitions on culture and diversity.

Kendri McCracken is a 36 year old female, she shared her views about culture and diversity.  She says, “Culture is the way you look at life and how you live your life according to yourself and others around you, it is your beliefs, religion, language, gender, etc.  Diversity is the inclusion of all races and each individual working together to form groups of people.”

Ronrico Green is a 30 year old male that will share his beliefs on culture and diversity. He says, “Culture is morals guidelines and ways in which you were taught as a child and even ways in which you have developed as an adult. It is not just race but it is everything that makes you the person you are.” “Diversity is the individual make ups that are in a common place like work or school.”

Eric Small is a 18 year old male that will share his thoughts on culture and diversity. He says, “Culture is your language, beliefs, morals, rules, food, etc. It is everything that makes you who you are and where you came from.” “Diversity is sharing who you are with others that are different in any way. It is getting to know others.”

Each person had their own definition but they said similar things. They talked about culture as if they are taking this course with me. Their views on diversity are about the same as each other.  I really enjoyed talking to different people about their thoughts and beliefs on their definitions of culture and diversity.

My Family Culture

If I had to leave the country due to a major catastrophe I would take these three items:

1.    My Bible because of my religion and faith in God and through his word I know everything would be great.

2.    Family photos, I want to keep my family close at all times. Pictures hold special memories that I would not want to lose. I have pictures stretching back several generations.

3.    My wallet would be another item I would take. Having money and my ID would be very important. I would need some type of funds to start my life over and to get settled in a new country.

If I had to choose one of thing to take it would be my family photos. The Bible would be hard to let go but it is dear to my heart and I know my faith in God will never change. I have memorized scriptures that are very dear to me but it would be hard to let it go. Having my family photos would help me through the lonely times and keep me strong. I love looking at photos and reminiscing on the great times and other times. I would continue to pray every day and know through God and my faith everything would work out accordingly.

Through this assignment it made me realize how important my family is to me and my culture. My family has always taught me to put God first and through Him I can do all things. If this was to every happen I would not forget my culture, I would embrace the new culture that is around me and respect their beliefs.

Week 8 When I Think of Research...

The insights I have gained from learning about research is to analyze the different types of research and what do they mean. I did not realize that there were different types of research. My ideas about the nature of doing research has change is when you start off doing the research you have to have a topic and then from there you have to do the subtopic and brainstorm the main points to form an outline.

The planning, designing and conducting the research in early childhood did I learn is respecting the justice and fairness in everyone regardless of their age, gender, and culture. I also learn to have a consent form in place of doing my research and keeping my personal bias to myself and do not let interfere with my research.  The challenges I have encountered was analyzing between the quantitative designs and the qualitative designs. The ways did I meet them is doing the assignment and reading the different materials in the textbook to give me a better understanding of what they mean and examples of how to use them in a research. My perceptions has been modified as a result of this course is to analyze more better of my topic of doing my research, learning who is going to be in my research, learning about the independent and dependent variable. It made me think in deep thoughts and was very challenging.

I just want to say I really enjoyed everyone from these past eight weeks. To my colleagues and Dr. Darragh I felt like I learned a lot from your comments and post on blackboard and the blogs from this course. I do not like to say good bye, I will say to all of you I will see you later, and I wish everyone much success!!!!

The website I chose to look at was European Early Childhood Education Research Journal.

Many of the issues they are researching are similar to early childhood issues here in the US. Some of their articles include, Introducing children's perspectives and participation in research, Early education for diversity: starting from birth, The influence of play context and adult attitudes on young children's physical risk‐taking during outdoor play, The dynamics of early childhood spaces: opportunities for outdoor play? What's so interesting outside? A study of child‐initiated interaction with teachers in the natural outdoor environment, Togetherness and play under the same roof: children's perceptions about families and The social and cultural contexts of second language acquisition in young children. This journal covers many issues. There are studies on topics ranging from diversity to professional development. I noticed that some of the more recent issues focused on a specific topic. One focused on children between ages zero to three and another covered different aspects of children’s learning outdoors. The other thing I noticed about this journal is that it’s very diverse. There are studies done in many countries and not just the European ones.

Since I’ve already taken the Trends in Early Childhood course, I was not surprised by the things I found on this website. I had already learned that many issues in the field are similar in most parts of the world. One thing that I have noticed after talking to my international contacts from the last class and by looking at this website is that they are much more concerned with children having outdoor time. Here in the US, many school age children don’t have recess. Since the journals were mainly talking about younger children, I wonder if there is a push to get school age children outdoors as well. The other thing I have gained from this assignment is another useful resource for articles and information. Here is a link to their most popular articles as well.