Professional Hopes and Goals

It is a joy to work with children and families from diverse backgrounds.  It gives you an opportunity to look into the lives of others that are different from you and allows you to compare and contrast as well as learn additional information about their various background, culture and customs.  It also provides the child and family with a foundation for success because of the collaboration among the educator, children and families.  One hope that I have working with children and families with diverse background is to provide for them all the essentials needed in order for them to thrive in their new environment such as making them feel welcome, learning more about their culture prior to their arrival just to name a few.  One significant aspiration I have is to be able to effectively communicate with them and learn their language.

One goal that I would like to set for the early childhood field as it relates to issues of diversity equity, and social justice is that we all work together as one providing children and families with quality services despite their race, culture, sexual orientation, or religious affiliations.  To be sensitive to one another needs, treat everyone with respect and embrace one another and all the diversities.

To all my colleagues it has been a pleasure sharing these past seven weeks with you. I enjoyed reading all of your post- you all imparted useful information that will be beneficial for future ventures.  As this class comes to a close I wish you all the good luck in your future endeavors.

Welcoming Families From Around the World

My family of origin will be  from Cambodia.  In order to prepare myself for their arrival I would do the following:

·         I would first try and learn all I can about their country of origin.  Gain and access information through community supports, churches and ethnic.

·         I would also become familiar with some of their cultural values.  This will extend my ability to anticipate their reactions, as well as their responses to my actions.

·         I would also try and learn some of their vocabulary especially their greeting.  This will be welcoming to them and can also be used as an icebreaker this will allow them to feel more comfortable.

·         I would also embrace their culture and diversity and respect it as well.

·         I would also research the different foods and attire that they are accustomed to and perhaps prepare a meal representative of their custom and dress in their familiar attire.  This too let them know that I relate to them and is trying to bring some of their familiarities from their country.

Hopefully these things will assist me with being culturally responsive toward this family.

So that we are all able to accept, embrace, respect each other’s diversities and work for the common goal of establishing positive relationships among early childhood educators and children and families.  As a result our support of and response to people that we serve will be more appropriate and successful.

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

It’s sad that we still live in a world where bias, prejudice, and/or oppression still exist.  Why can’t we all just get alone and live in peace and harmony.  I cannot recall any other incidents of bias, prejudice and or oppression other than those I previously touched upon. One of the incidents occurred a couple weeks ago in which a Jewish man goes into a Greek restaurant and orders a Greek salad and the man asked him will that be that be the regular size or Jewish size because we all know Jews are cheap.  I was offend by this comment because it revealed that bias, prejudice and oppression is still very much alive. Even though I would like to think that we have made greater advancement in this area, however that isn’t the case.   This incident brought up feelings of despair, angrier and sadness because it took me back to an era in which bias, prejudices and oppression were very much alive.  It gave me a visual image of some of the things my ancestors had to endure but on a much deeper scale.  In order for change to take place it starts from those persons that exhibits behaviors such as bias, prejudices, and/or oppression.  I think we all should accepted one another for who we are and embrace our differences because in our differences is where we find our strength.  I feel that the necessary steps were taken in this particular incident because first of all I feel that we should acknowledge that it occurred.  Secondly, I feel that an apology should be in order.  And thirdly I feel that it is necessary to take responsibility and on up to your actions that were displayed and reflect upon them.  In this particular incident that two parties met and a public apology was issued.