Professional Hope and Goals

I have truly enjoyed this class!! I have learned many things about myself that I had not fully understood before taking this class.  I have learned about microaggression and how people unintentionally marginalize others. As well as how those who are privileged oftentimes do not realize they are privileged. I know that equity work does not happen overnight and if you do not have support you could easily burnout. I understand how my bias can affect my work with children and their families.

When I think about working with children and families from diverse backgrounds my hope is to share the knowledge I have learned with others so that we can effectively serve each family in a way that makes them feel welcomed and valued. I want them to be able to freely share their experiences in an accepting, non-threatening environment.

 One of my goals for the early childhood field is that teachers embrace diversity. I would like to see more training offered so that every teacher could become more aware and begin to practice equity work in the classroom. Once armed with the knowledge I am certain teachers and administrators would embrace diversity in their programs.

 To my colleagues, I wish you the best of success in your future work with children and families.  I would also like to thank you all for your words of encouragement, wisdom, and respect during this class.  I have learned so much from each of you this semester. This has been a great experience.

 

Welcoming Families From Around the World

 

 

In my scenario I am working in a child care center and the family’s country of origin is Switzerland.

The five ways I will prepare myself to be culturally responsive toward this family are:

1.       Research the language or languages spoken in Switzerland and try to learn a few conversational phrases. If I was able to find someone who spoke the language I would ask them to join me in welcoming the family to our center.

2.       I would also want to research their education system and talk with the family about their previous experience in a child care setting and what their hopes are for their child’s experience.

3.       I would research the culture of Switzerland and be certain I can bring their culture alive in our center prior to their arrival.

4.       Family relationships are an important aspect of culture. I would want to learn more about family structure and relationships in Switzerland to help us understand the family better.

5.       I would reflect on any biases I might have that would affect my relationship with this family. If I found that I did indeed have biases I would find ways to overcome those biases.

 

I believe that by trying to have a deeper understand of a family’s culture will help us to understand the family and child much better. Being able to communicate with the family is a crucial element in building a relationship with each family. This is vitally important in learning about their goals, values and principles—which will help us to better serve their family. By taking the time to learn about the culture of their country and integrating their culture into our center will help the family become more comfortable and help them to see we truly want to serve their child and family the best way we possibly can.

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice and Oppression

 

 

The memory that is the most vivid to me is an incident that occurred a few years ago regarding sexual orientation.

One of my son’s childhood friends “came out” in high school. He was very well-liked, popular and active in the school. Most of the students didn’t change their attitudes toward him after he announced his sexual orientation. He was also a very good friend of my niece. They were both in gymnastics and on the cheer leading squad and hung out a lot. The young man (“Jason”) joined my niece at a party one evening and encountered other young men who were very prejudice toward gays.

My niece had very innocently taken a hat from another young man at the party and placed it on Jason’s head. This set off a fury of verbal assaults on Jason and within seconds four boys had attacked and beat Jason to the point that he underwent months of reconstructive surgery. The four boys spent some time in jail, but this did not change their views on homosexuality. They still view homosexuality as abnormal and inferior; and a great deal of people share their view. People see LGBT as wrong and sick, but who is to say what is right and what is wrong? I am personally heterosexual, but I have friends who are homosexual and they are some of the most amazing, giving, kind people I have ever met.

This incident affected Jason a great deal, however, he has moved on—he finished college, completed an internship in fashion merchandising in New York City, is now working in Dallas and seems to be doing well.

I remember feeling outraged when I heard about the incident. I knew one of the boys who helped with the beating. He was a very good friend of my oldest son and he had even lived with us for a while when his mother was going through a rough time. We had brought him into our home and treated him as our own. It broke my heart to hear he was involved in the beating. I never knew this side of him.

In order for change to occur in regards to homosexuality (or any other -ism), we as human beings need to quit stigmatizing those who are not exactly like us, and accept the differences. No two people are exactly alike and that is a good thing. We are not robots walking around, we are all human beings with our own likes, dislikes and beliefs and difference is okay.

 

Practicing Awareness of Microagressions

This week's assignment was a real eye-opener. I had never thought much about some of the comments I have heard throughout the years. But, through this assignment I can completely see how some people would take offense to comments made toward them.

I have spent the week in DC at the NAEYC conference and haven't had a lot of time to observe others. I mentioned my coworker who made a comment about not taking a class presented by a Jewish man, because he was afraid he wouldn't be able to understand him.  He just assumed that this presenter, whom he had never seen nor met, wouldn't speak clear English.

Another example I witnessed was when my colleague and I went out to dinner. I had intended to pay for dinner, however, the server handed to check to my male colleague. I understand that usually the man pays the bill, but we were not there as a couple, we are colleagues and it was presumptuous of the server to think the male was paying the check.

This week I have been enlightened about microaggressions. I am not a prejudice person and have a difficult time with people who are prejudice. I never thought about some of those very slight words or actions that could cause a person to feel insulted. This assignment has helped me to become more aware of microaggressions and I feel confident I can help others to understand how the little things we say and do, even unknowingly, can cause a person to feel bad.

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

This week’s blog assignment was interesting in that it allowed me to see how friends and co-workers viewed culture and diversity. People don’t see things the same way, everyone looks at things through their own cultural lens—they bring with them the culture from their own family, from their school, their church and other organizations with which they are affiliated. Culture is not static, it is changes and evolves as the person or group is exposed to other’s culture.

The first person I talked with is a 35-year old, Caucasian male. He believes culture is a particular society that has its own beliefs, ways of life, customs, arts etc.; and that diversity is understanding that each individual is unique and recognizing our individual differences, race, ethnicity, gender, etc.

The second interviewee is a 60-year old African American female. Her definition of culture is inherited beliefs and values, types of food eaten, how the families are arranged, and religion. Diversity in her opinion is differences, variety, a group of people having many forms and shapes.

The third person is a 20-year old Hispanic female who believes culture is the way a group or race live, from language, beliefs, religion, and arts. She went on to say that it was the way certain people live. Her definition of diversity is the accepting of people for who they are. Positive acceptance of people who have different beliefs, cultures and ethnicities.

The interviewees described both surface culture and deep culture. They spoke about art and foods which are both surface culture; as well as religion, family roles, and language which are all deep culture.

This class has helped me to reinforce my understanding that people see culture and diversity in many different ways. Many people think of surface culture, but a great deal of people do look deeper and see more of the deep culture such as a person’s values, religion, language, roles of children and other members of the family, and historic events.

My Family Culture

In the event of a major catastrophe the three items I would want to take with me to my host country would be my IPhone, a thumb drive with family photos and contact information to family and friends, and perhaps a Kindle reader.

I would choose my IPhone because it has so much information on such a tiny device. There are phone numbers and addresses to just about everyone I know. There is music which is very important in our family. We are always listening to music of all different genres and on this little IPhone we have everything from Christian Music to Hard Rock and everything in between. It also contains auditions samples my daughter has made and those are priceless. The IPhone also contains many apps that keeps my son occupied when he gets figity. The IPhone also contains a camera and pretty good flashlight which I think might come in handy in the event of a catastrophe.

About two years ago our pasture caught on fire during a very dry Texas summer. I was at work and my brother saw the flames and called me. As I was driving home he called me back to tell me the house was about to catch on fire and what did I want him to get out before the fire consumed the house. My children were safe and my husband was at work, so there wasn't a single item I could think of to send him into the house to get. I am not attached to material possessions. My husband said if anything run in and get the external hard drive from the computer as it contains a massive amount of pictures and videos of the kids and the rest of our extended family. Since then we have purchased a large thumb drive and have transferred photos and videos as well as important contact information to the thumb drive and we keep it in a fire proof safe. Luckily, just as the fire was at the house the wind shifted and went the other direction. We were very lucky to have not lost anything, but honestly the only thing we really cared about losing were the photos. Photos tell so many stories and evoke so many memories--they are very important to our family.

The Kindle reader would be loaded with books for each member of our family. We all enjoy reading and having the opportunity to read a book of our choice would be comforting and would ease some of the stress of the evacuation.

If I were only allowed to keep one item it would be the  thumb drive. The IPhone would very quickly lose its charge and would be harder to keep up with than the small thumb drive that could easily be carried in my pocket. The Kindle reader too would lose its charge and the only value of this item is the ability to read our chosen books. My children would probably choose to keep the IPhone because of its versatility, but I think I would prefer have copies of old (and new) photos.

The only real insight I gained from this exercise is that I am not a very sentimental person and our family doesn't have a lot of "tradition". I also realize it is time for me to update my thumb drive with newer photos and videos.

When I Think of Research.....

At the beginning of this course I was very apprehensive about research and found it difficult to grasp many of the terms. Though I still do not consider myself to be adept on the topic, I do feel as though I have learned a great deal about research in early childhood. 

In the past when I thought of research, I thought only “experts” could conduct the research. I understand now, that anyone can conduct research; though I still have a hard time seeing myself as a researcher. I had never thought about what went into planning, designing and conducting research, but throughout this class I have learned about the steps and processes required to conduct a valid research study. I have also learned about the different methods and designs.

I encountered many challenges during this course, the biggest being that I spent three weeks of the course at conferences/trainings and found myself stressing over the fact I wasn’t “getting it”. I had very little time to devote to studying and completing assignments and feel that may be part of my “block,” because I still don’t fully understand the process. In an effort to overcome my challenges I read and reread the course material trying to make sense of it all. I found it difficult to develop a question for my simulation, but by completing the charts I was finally able to break down my thoughts and develop a question. 

Though I do not fully comprehend the full breadth of research, I feel as though I have learned a great deal overall. The assignments were set-up to help me break everything down step-by-step and the feedback from Dr. Todd was invaluable.

Overall, this course has helped me realize the value of research and how important it is to the early childhood field. As an early childhood professional I want to make sure that I am aware of current research and that I use research as a guide when designing & implementing programs for the young children with whom I interact. 

 

Research Around the World

I chose to explore the website for the early childhood Australia, and was greatly rewarded with a plethora of wonderful information. The current international research in Australia covers many of the same topics that we cover here in the United States, such as the importance of play in early childhood, relationships in early childhood, mathematics, transitions ( attachment, consistency, availability), partnerships, and much, much more.

They also publish a magazine called Every Child which is much like NAEYC's Young Child magazine. I skimmed over a couple of the articles and decided I would subscribe to their newsletters.

I also found a link to supporting best practice and read a couple of the articles and found that information to be really great. Australia's Child Care Assistance program is so much better than what is offered here in he United States. This information can be found by clicking on the mychildgov.au link at the bottom of the page.
This web page is a fantastic resource that I will be visiting often for ideas. they have an "Everyday Learning" series I would love to subscribe to, however it's not in my budget at the time.
If you have not visited this website, you should it has tons of information!

http://www.earlychildhood.australia.org.au.

Research that Benefits Children and Families

My sister has a set of fraternal twins who have been subjects of a twin study at Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville, TN.

My nephews are 16-years old now, but went through the first study when they were two. One of the boys has severe autism, while the other does not show any signs of autism.

The first study they were involved in was a twin study involving children with autism, where their twin did not have autism. The study used the Batelle Developmental Inventory to compare the differences between the two boys on their performance. The boys attended two sessions during the study which were six weeks apart. As part of the research process each child was screened for Fragile X and she learned that her son did not have Fragile X.

The information that was gained from this research project was used to develop an early detection assessment tool.  Researchers were able to come up with a method (or an instrument) to detect autism before the age of three.

My sister has explained that as a research subject (or a parent of a research subject) she was not given the specifics of the study.

My nephew who has the autism, has been a subject in three additional studies, two on autism and the third was a gene study.

Due to confidentiality my sister could not divulge specifics of any of the studies as she had to sign confidentiality statements.
 

My Personal Research Journey

I have chosen the topic of Social-Emotional Development as my topic for the simulation. I have chosen this topic because since my sudden entry into the field of Early Care and Education I have attended many training seminars and conferences and this topic seems to always be a topic choice at most trainings. I took several trainings on social-emotional development, which peaked my interest and enhanced my knowledge of the topic. I feel there are many parents and educators who do not understand the importance of healthy social-emotional development and I have a desire to gently nudge others into becoming aware of its importance.

I was (am) very apprehensive about this class because it definitely takes me out of my comfort zone. I am not knowledgeable in the area of research; and so often research uses lingo and terms of which I am not familiar and honestly, I get confused and frustrated. The amount of information in research papers is also overwhelming, however, last week we learned we did not have to understand the statistical information and that takes a huge burden off my shoulders.

Constructing the research chart is good because it helps me to focus on a couple of topics and really understand them better. Collaborating with colleagues is always an added benefit. We are able to share resources and support one another in this journey. I am happy to help in any way I am able and I definitely am open to any advice and tips from my colleagues.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The blog assignments for this class have helped push me to research early care and education in other countries and by doing so I have found a wealth of information I can use to improve my own understanding of the field, as well as make positive changes at my program. I have learned that there are countries who make children and their healthy development a priority.

Although I was unable to make connections with early childhood educators abroad, I still feel as though I learned a great deal about issues and trends in other countries. I would have loved to have had the opportunity to share ideas, hopes, dreams, goals and stories from others working hands-on in the field abroad. However, since I was not able to make connections I resorted to the alternate assignment and with the information I was able to retrieve though podcasts, web searches and reading posts from colleagues I was able to learn there are issues all over the world, many countries face issues just like ours. For instance, many countries struggle with poverty, equity and quality, just as we do here in the United States.

I also learned that there are people around the world who have a genuine interest in early childhood care and education. I learned there are countries that invest very heavily in early childhood education. These countries understand that it is this time in the child’s life that builds the foundation for their future. The United States could learn a great deal from some of these countries.

Finally, I have learned how important it is to receive on going professional development. Teachers need support, and they need to continue developing themselves in order to deliver high-quality in their classrooms. Teachers need to know how they can support families from diverse backgrounds.

It is my hope that through the connections I have made through this course that I will continue to learn and have the opportunity to put into practice many of the things I have learned. I want to learn more about how to help disadvantaged children living in poverty. I welcome any ideas from others as ways we can help to make high-quality early care and education available to every child.