Professional Hopes and Goals

"Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still"- Chinese Proverb (Inspirational, 2013).

One hope that I have when I am working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds is that I will never lose sight of the importance of honoring each child's culture.  I want every child and every family to feel welcomed and valued in my classroom at all times.  I believe this is important in establishing a positive relationship with the children and families but also fostering a positive attitude about learning and the school community.

Something I would like to see more of in the early childhood field related to diversity, equity, and social justice is more collaboration between early childhood centers, agencies and schools.  We, in the early childhood field, tend to divide ourselves amongst these entities when we should be working closer together.  How can we, as early childhood educators, expect to include others when we ourselves are creating divisions within our own field?

Thank you so much to Dr. Sheri and all of my colleagues in this class!!!!  I have learned so much about myself and about all of you and your personal journeys!  I have appreciated the honesty, warmth and thoughtfulness of your discussion posts and blog entries!  May you continue your educational journey but also your personal experiences journey!  May you all have continued success in your classes and educational settings!

With much appreciation,

Nicolette

References

Inspirational Quotes.  (2013).  Personal Growth and Self Development Quotes.  Retrieved from 

       www.inspirational-quotes.info/growth.html

Welcoming Families From Around the World

                                         Flag of Mexico (Bing, n.d.).

I will actually have the opportunity to have a family from Mexico in my preschool classroom this year.  I have already had two opportunities to meet the child and her family at our Peek at Preschool which occurred last Spring and just last week at our school's Open House.  The little girl is bilingual; speaking English and Spanish in her home.  The mother speaks mostly Spanish and understands a little bit of English and the father speaks and understands Spanish and English.  This is not the first time I have had a child and family from Mexico but I feel I have gained so much more insight from my classes about ways that I can connect, respect and value all families and their cultures.

Five things that I would do to help celebrate and value this child and her family is:

1.  I am required to do home visits for my preschool program and I like to go on home visits early in the year to get to know the child and family better.  I have noticed in the past when I go on home visits that people's homes reflect their culture somewhat.  I would like to be able to ask the family in their home about their culture, language and customs that they hold dear from their home country.  I would also take that time to ask what their main concerns for their child would be.

2.  I would really like to be able to translate my parent newsletters into Spanish at the very least.  Last year I talked with teachers from Head Start because I know that is a requirement for the Head Start program and they told me that they get federal assistance to make sure that is in place.  I am going to make it my priority to talk to my administrators about getting a program that we can use on our computers to translate newsletters from English to Spanish and also look into other languages we are able to translate into. 

3.  I would like to find out some favorite customs, food and activities that the child and her family enjoy doing that are connected to her culture.  I have a snack center in my classroom and every Friday is our Lil' Chefs day and we could incorporate some of the child's favorite foods into our snack center for the children to make and try.  The recipes could also be sent home for other families to try at home (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010).

4.  I would like to reteach and refresh myself in the Spanish language.  I took Spanish in junior high and have used bits and pieces here and there but not enough to feel comfortable carrying on a conversation.  Spanish is one of the easier languages to learn so I think I could do this and do it well enough to have conversations and even pursue becoming bilingual in Spanish and English.  This skill would assist me with talking to Spanish speaking parents but also being able to talk to children whose primary language is Spanish.  It also allows me to teach the other children in the class Spanish.

5.  I would like to provide more Spanish vocabulary, literature in Spanish and have more dolls, costumes and puppets that represent Spanish culture in my classroom.  This not only becomes representational of children and families of my classroom but also teaches other children about  cultures and diversity (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010).

I would hope that the steps I am taking to better understand this child and her family would help to make them feel "at home" in our classroom, create a strong relationship with the child and family, educate other children and families about a different culture, and improve my communication skills with the child and family.

                         

Mexico City- Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe (new one on left), (old one on right) (National, 2013).

References

Bing.  (n.d.).  Pictures of Mexico. Retrieved from http://www.bing.com/images/search?

        q=Pictures+of+Mexico&qpvt=Pictures+of+Mexico&FORM=IGRE
Derman-Sparks, L., & Edwards, J.  (2010). Anti-bias education for young children and
         ourselves. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children       
         (NAEYC).
National Geographic. (2013). Your Mexico Photos.  Retrieved from  
          http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/countries/your-mexico-photos/#/mexico-travel-
          pictures-09-21-0927762_29597_600x450.jpg

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

A couple of items in the news and personal experiences came to my mind this week when creating my blog this week.  One particular story stood out about a gay man who went for a physical with a new doctor and the doctor diagnosed him with "homosexual behavior" and coded it with the code (302.0) (Kemp, 2013).  This man is openly gay and was simply going for a check up.  When he confronted the doctor about the diagnosis and the code and the doctor stood by her diagnosis even though that code: (302.0) means "sexual deviancy or mental illness" and the code was to stop being used as of 1973 (Kemp, 2013).  After hitting a brick wall with this doctor, he decided to write a letter to the network that the doctor works for and received an apology for them explaining that they do not condone this diagnosis from the doctor and do not participate in using code (302.0) (Kemp, 2013).  I could not believe I was reading this story in 2013 in the United States.  I really believed that our society had at least moved past treating homosexuality as an illness with at least the medical profession.  I am hoping that the action this man took will send a message to the doctor's network to talk to her about her bedside manner and diagnosis process.  I applaud this man for pursuing equity in a calm and intelligent manner.

Another example of biases and prejudices that popped into my head this week and it may seem small but it was enough to get my attention and cause me to think about what I was going to do next.  I was subbing for a teacher at summer school and she had left in her notes that the children were to play around the world with sight words with the second grade classes.  Since this is summer school, the classes are small.  This particular class had 9 students with 4 being female and 5 male.  The kids were excited to play and I kind of asked them how they played because everyone plays differently and it gave me the opportunity to instigate conversation with the students since this is my first day subbing for them.  The first thing the students told me was "We have to line up boys against girls."  I said "What?"  They said "Yeah, we make two lines, girls on one team and the boys on the other team."  So realizing the chance to make this a teachable moment, I said "We're going to mix it up a little today and have boys and girls on each team."  They fought me for about 2 seconds and then got into the game just fine when they realized they had good teammates regardless if they are boys or girls.  I know some teachers do this as a type of organizational way of categorizing and/or lining up children but as an educator, I really believe we need to get away from this type of thinking because then we unconsciously pit girls against boys and start evaluating and assessing children based on their sex.  There are a ton of other ways to line up children such as with numbers, letters, colors, etc.  By doing something simple as using another way that does not involve someone's identity, we as educators bring the equity back.  Also as educators we have to call each other on things like that in a productive and sensitive manner in order to show what that action can actually lead to such as boys thinking they are superior to girls and vice versa but being sensitive to the teacher and where they might be in their thinking.

Ok so I have to end with this funny moment with my son the other day with no intention of offending anyone.  Sometimes, you have to laugh at life's little moments and not take life so seriously.  My son, Anthony, is 6 years old and him and I were playing the LIFE board game.  By the way, talk about stereotyping, the LIFE game still uses pink pegs for the girls and blue pegs for the boys. Well it appears our LIFE game is missing some pieces because there was only 1 girl (pink) peg.  So when my son landed on the space that says "You get married", he could not find any more pink pegs.  So he says, "I guess I'm going to have to marry a boy because there are no more pink pegs."  It was one of those funny moments but also an insightful moment.  People worry about young children being affected negatively by homosexuality.  My son has been exposed to homosexuality due to the openness of some of my family members.  I thought it was interesting that his statement was so "matter of fact" and he really was not expressing a homosexuality issue but a way to solve the problem he was having.  That is how kids think and work.  Too bad more adults do not think and work that way.  Our world would be a lot more accepting of people's differences and a lot more fun.

References

Kemp, J. (2013).  Chronically Gay?  California doctor diagnoses gay man's "homosexual
      behavior" as chronic illness.  New York Daily News.  Retrieved from
      http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/chronically-gay-california-doctor-diagnoses-
      gay-man-homosexual-behavior-chronic-illness-article-1.1423160