Professional Hopes and Goals

One hope that I have when I think about working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds is that I show respect and adhere to helping them feel comfortable and accepted in my classroom and in my program. I want the families and children to feel I am a teacher that cares about their children and their family. We are all diverse and unique individuals that come from a variety of backgrounds and cultures. I want and need to make sure my materials for weekly lesson plans are diverse. I find myself using materials that are not as diverse as they should be. I need to make preparations to make sure my props and attachments for my lesson plans are diverse and meet anti-bias curriculum requirements. I really enjoyed this course and learned a great deal from all the students and Dr. Turnhill. I love taking online courses and this course is a prime example of why I like them. We are all individuals online, we don’t judge based on looks, color, size, culture, sex, etc. We are each individuals that come to the course for a purpose. This has been a great course that has taught me a great deal about myself as a professional and personally. Melissa

Welcoming Families from around the World

In preparing for this assignment I decided to select the country of Poland as the country of origin for this family. Working with families and children is one of the most rewarding jobs however it comes with a lot of planning and preparing. I would want to try and make this child’s transition into a new learning environment as pleasant as possible with as much familiarity as possible. The first step would be to find out where exactly where in Poland the family was from. I would want to learn a few words in Polish especially thank you, please, and the town’s name. I would also try to write these words and others in English and Polish so the parents and staff could begin to recognize them. Being as knowledgeable as I can be with this diversity is essential to helping the family feel safe and comfortable. The second step would be to have a specific orientation with the family and maybe an interpreter so that they felt more comfortable and at ease with the center and classroom setting. Families who have a hard time communicating sometimes feel they are not appreciated or their family is not important. I want to make sure the family builds a bridge with us and their child’s classroom. I want to welcome their culture and diversity into the center and help them to feel as comfortable as possible. The third step would be to familiarize myself and the other staff with specific culture and religious attributes that would show our respect and understanding for the family. I would try and have a family questionnaire filled out with a translator if possible during the orientation. As much information about the child and family would be of great benefit for the staff and teacher at the center. The communication barrier will be a tremendous obstacle to overcome and key information from the family is important. The fourth step would be to bring in pictures, words, etc. into the classroom that originate from Poland and maybe even from their small town. The internet has valuable resources when it comes to finding unique pictures and memorabilia from different parts of the world. You can even get words translated into other languages to help with identification and pronunciation accuracy. The fifth step would be to involve the family into the learning environment and center. We want the family to feel they are valued and that their children are just as special as any other child. We are here to support families and children and we need to make sure that their diversity is embraced just as any other diversity. I think these five steps will help to plan and prepare for the family. When we reach out and make an effort to identify and familiarize ourselves with other family’s culture and diversity we are helping to build that bridge that is needed for them to fit into society without losing their diversity and culture.

The personal side of bias, prejudice, and Oppression

I experienced a bias when I first started working as a teenager. I was a waitress at a local pizza joint. My family lived close by and when you live in a small town everyone knows everyone else’s business. It is hard to do anything wrong in a small town without it being the next morning’s coffee shop talk. I grew up in a low income family and we were seen as such. We did not have money like most families in the town and as a teenager it affected me more so. I did have to work hard and build my own reputation. This started off when I was working as a waitress. I had a good job and made my tips from a lot of local customers that knew me and my family. One time I had a family that refused to sit at a table when they realized I was the waitress. They went to another part of the restaurant where my good friend was waiting on those tables. She was from a more prominent family and we had grown up together. She received a big tip that evening and she shared that tip with me. The bias I received as a waitress from that family made me feel unworthy and incompetent as a waitress. I was regarded as unworthy to serve them based on who I was and who my family was. My friend told me that she wanted to share the tip with me because they were seated in my section and they were my patrons to wait on. This story represents two separate representations of who people are and the choices they make. The family chose to move and have me not wait on them and my friend chose to share a tip that she felt I should have had the opportunity to earn. I learned more from my friend that evening than I did from the family. The family was prejudice against me and showed me true bias behavior. My friend taught me that even though they were that way, she knew it was wrong. At 16 my friend showed more maturity and un-bias behavior than a couple in their 40’s. Bias isn’t age based its moral and ethically based. I learned that we can stand up for what we feel is right at any age and I want to bring that to my classroom and instill that into my own children and the children in my classroom.