Professional Hopes and Goals

Throughout this course I have learned a great deal of information.  While I knew that all of the -ism's existed learning more about them increased my knowledge of diversity.  My hope for working working with children and families from diverse backgrounds is that each person will feel more apart of the group, that they won't be singled out because of their traditions or beliefs and that each professional working with individuals from diverse backgrounds are more aware of microaggressions and are able to identify their own biases. 

One goal that I have for the early childhood field related to diversity, equity and social justice is that people will began to treat individuals more of equals and that they will be able to appreciate the differences that people may have because the diverse world that we live in will continue to be diverse and they should be able to accept it and if they can't accept it they should at least respect it.

Throughout this course I have learned so much from each of you through our blogs and discussions.  This has been a difficult quarter for me because I have been going through a lot of medical issues and thought many times that I should just drop the class cause I didn't feel like I was producing my best work, but I continued to press my way and have made it to week 8.  I appreciate each of you who took the time to read my discussions and blogs and for those who commented on them.  Good Luck in your educational and professional journey.

Latarsha

Welcoming Families From Around the World

The county of origin for the family that I have chosen is Jamaica.  

5 ways in which I will prepare myself to be culturally responsive towards this family:

·         I would first try to learn about Jamaica and their culture by researching the culture as much as possible.

·         Some Jamaicans speak English and some don’t I would try to learn the basics of the Jamaican language such as good morning, good afternoon, to try to incorporate their native language.

·         I would get background information on the parents from previous educational settings to become more familiar with them so that when I come in contact with them I would know who plays the dominant one in the family; basically learning the family dynamics.

·         Because various countries would be represented in the setting I would make sure that Jamaica was also represented and incorporated as much as possible.

·         I would have a family survey that the family could complete to help in getting to know the family better to prevent assumptions.

     Trying to learn about various cultures is what you make it.  If you go into a situation with biases and assumptions it will only make it harder to get to know the family.  I believe that by learning these things it will help in getting to know the child.  I know from experience that these things will work and I also know that these things won’t tell you everything that you need to know about the family this is why it is important to keep an open line of communication with the families, ensuring that they feel welcomed and not judged.

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

I read a lot of articles on the internet, especially yahoo new and I tend to comment on a lot of the articles that I read.  Last year I commented on an article about a man being found not guilty in a particular case.  I added a comment to the article because it was my way of venting.  I didn't put anything about my race or race at all in the article but received several replies and one that stuck out in my head was the fact that someone said that I was an ignorant black woman and that they could tell that I was black...because of the stupid name that I had.  I was offended and stereotyped because of my name and the person who commented was racist and prejudice in my opinion.

This prejudice diminished equity because of the fact that stereotypes and racial biases were used in commenting on the post that I did concerning the article.  Not one individual commented on what I said about the situation but rather I was bashed because they felt I had a black name.  I was pissed at the comments but realized that those commenting were the one's that were being ignorant.  I gave them names of white women who they could look up to see that this name wasn't just a "black name" and although they gave me no response afterwards I figured I had proven the point of not stereotyping people based on their names and making prejudice comments.

I can't say what or who would have to change in order to turn incidents such as this one around for an opportunity for greater equity.  However, I do feel that it is important that people grow and get over racism, stereotypes and their biases when dealing with people from other ethnicity's or cultures.  It's important that people are educated on what prejudices and racism is because people will say quickly that I'm not racist, I'm not prejudice but won't realize that they have microaggressions that they may not be aware of that will portray them as a racist or someone who is prejudice.