Goals

When I think about working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds I think about wanting to give them the best learning experience possible and to have a sense of being comfortable. I want to learn new ways to become better prepared to serve those from diverse backgrounds. I want to make sure that I meet the needs of my students as well as their families. We can make it a fun and learning experience between the teacher and the families. We will learn from each other as well as giving others in the classroom a chance to learn about another culture. I want to make sure that I keep an open door policy for all of those that I serve. We are a team that is learning together in giving our children a chance to succeed in life. My goals would be to make sure that I am prepared to serve those from diverse backgrounds and that I accept that students are differ in capabilities and take these differences as the starting point for teaching and learning. I want to also find ways to make sure that I active involvement from parents because learning and growth of their children is crucial. I want to make sure that I am properly trained and others who may work around me are trained to learn more about diversity, equity, and social justice. I will find trainings that will help me along the way to become more knowledge in these areas so that I can share it with others. I want to give the best so that I can serve those around me. I want to wish all of my classmates the best of luck. Remember we are in the field of early childhood education because we want to make the difference in the lives of those we serve and we also serve the families as well. You can only be truly accomplished at something you love. Don't make money the goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and do them so well that people can't take their eyes off you. All the other tangible rewards will come as a result. -Maya Angelou

India

I choose the country of India because we have had a few children enrolled in our Headstart program from India. It is interesting when you have a family come into your school that is from ay different country than your own. You do have to prepare yourself in many ways in order to help the child and the family to adapt to their new environment. I guess you can say that you as a teacher and the family will be learning alot from each other. In preparing myself for a family coming from a different culture I would want to research everything I can about their culture. I would want to meet with family along with family service worker from school and get to know each other. I would want to talk with them about what they expect their child to learn in school and their preferneces about language, foods and etc. I would want to make sure they understand that I have an open-door policy and that we are working together to give their child the best learning experience possible. I would also look for outside resources to help me in the classroom but to also help the family in the home if they should ask for help. I would make sure that they are felt welcomed. If parents could not speak English I would want to make sure I have someone who could speak the language for me when meeting with parents and also have ways to type letters in their English that are sent home. I would invite the parents to share things from their culutre with the class. We once had a family from another country and we let them come in a prepare a meal with a varitey of foods from their culture and they even wore the clothes from the other culture to school that day. The children loved being apart of this and it was such a great learning experience for them. I hope that by preparing myself that I will be able to help their child learn to the best of their ability and that we will become a team. I will learn from them as well as they will learn from me. I want to make sure that we have a way to communicate because giving their child the best learning experience possible will be important to me. I want them to feel comfortable and know that by the things I do that I care and want to be there for them.

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

Thinking about the personal side of bias and predjudice brings my mind back to the racial outbreak that happen in my small town community back in the 1980's. The reason for the outbreak has never really made any sense to me. It was because two races couldn't get along. We had many things to happen, alot of fights, alot of threats made to everyone and even extreme violence broke out. Yes, it was a white/black situation for whatever reason I still don't understand. I have never seen anyone as different because we are all in this world to live together. During this time I witnessed many harsh things being said among people and saw many violent acts among each other. I plainly remember the day we were called from our classroom to report to the office because our parents were picking us up due to a bomb threat that had been made among the school. Our community was on the news everytime you turned the tv on or picked up the newspaper. This racial outbreak lasted for a couple of weeks but did eventually die down. I forgot to mentioned yes, there were people that served jail time for the acts that were committed during this time. As the years have gone by the memeories still remain here in this communinty of this day but the way we live is together. It does seem like that day back in the 80's actually made us a stronger community who have come together and united as one. That is the way we are all suppose to be. As we all live in this world we are always going to have people or groups who pinpoint out certain things about people and who don't like the way they live or do things but we have to remember that we are all on this planent together as one. I hope and pray that one day we will all be living together in harmony instead of against each other.