Welcoming Families From Around the World

In this week's scenario I have been tasked with writing about how I would handle a family from a foreign country arriving at my child care center and I am responsible for welcoming them.

Because of an interest in Indian culture, I have chosen to imagine my family coming from India. With my history of working at a very multicultural center, I can tell you my first stop is always Google. While, as scholars, we all have to be wary of internet resources, there are still many legit sites that can help any person begin to navigate cultural responsiveness. Next, I would contact my local university and see if there is an Indian studies department, or any sort of program at the University that could help me. Third, I would seek out any families in my current program who are from India and see what kind of information they could give me. Fourth, I would speak directly with the family's new classroom teachers, and prepare them with the knowledge and information I have gathered.

I think the most important step in preparing myself to be culturally responsive would be to speak directly with the family. While speaking with scholars, googling, talking with other families is helpful, without getting to know this specific family I am potentially setting myself up to be even more culturally unprepared.

All five of these ways will help prepare me and my child care center to welcome a new family in to our  family. By gathering bits of information, and preparing teachers we are able to welcome a child that is possibly right off of a plane, in a new country, where a new language is spoken. By speaking to the parents and gathering information from them, it will help to make that transition go as smoothly as possible.

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

I've written about this before, but I will do so again to address the real side of bias, prejudice and oppression this week. A month into my new position at a child care center I experienced an extreme act of aggression, prejudice and hatred. On a fairly normal Sunday afternoon a man chose to come to my place of work and open fire in the parking lot of our building. He hurt several people, and killed two innocent people. This man specifically came to the building because of his bias towards the Jewish faith. The choices that he made hurt the entire community, and changed the lives of several families in an instant.

This man spewed hateful words as he committed this hate crime, and let his pure prejudice towards Jews be openly known.

This specific incident really opened my eyes to the topic of bias, prejudice and oppression, because before this I had not really experienced much in my lifetime. I became very aware of the hatred some people have for specific religions.

Many women have experienced some sort of bias by their 30s, I have chosen a field that really embraces women, and opens HUGE doors for them, so I have not had to deal with oppression related to my gender. However, that doesn't mean that I'm not aware of it. Many friends of mine have been turned down positions because of their gender--only to be passed up for male applicants who are less educated and less qualified. It is very hard for them, and me, to understand this inequality. With this specific case, in order to turn it into  an opportunity for greater equity, I thin that there need to be stricter guidelines for equal opportunity employment. I see "EOE" on many job postings, but I wonder who monitors this?

Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

I was on the hunt this week...the hunt for micro aggressions. At first, I thought, wow this is going to be hard, but it only took one evening of television watching for me to see an instance.

It happened on the season premier of Survivor. The tribe is sitting around the fire getting ready to vote someone off, and one of the people makes a comment about how one of the guys (a gay man) is trusted more because he is "just one of the girls". The host of Survivor interjected and asked if that was because he was gay..

Now, I can only assume that the person didn't mean malice or harm by her uninformed comment, or maybe the bright lights of the Survivor jungle were making her nervous. Regardless, she made a statement that could cause harm (albeit unintended harm) to the other person. A typical definition of micro aggression.

In this day and age I think that as a society we take our whit, humor and sarcastic nature too far. What can be seen as a "joke" can be truly offensive to someone else, and cause them harm. As a whole, I think we all should take a moment and think before we speak and look at the unintended consequences of our words.

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

This week I took time to call and speak with three different people in my life to get their opinion and question them about culture and diversity. I spoke with my mom, a colleague who is the director at another center, and parent at my school.  These three women represent diversity in my life, from age, to religion, to geographical location.

Becky (mom):
What is your definition of culture: Culture, for me, is the network of beliefs and aesthetics and values that each of us builds around ourselves and our family.
What is your definition of diversity: Diversity is all the networks that each of us builds, each different and unique.

Elsie (colleague):
What is your definition of culture: Culture is a specific way of living/being typically in a group. Most times in a specific culture (I'm thinking of religion here), people tend to think their way is the best way, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but does narrow people's views on outside ideas and views.
What is your definition of diversity: Diversity is a group of people from different backgrounds, including race, sex, and religion. Personally, I feel diversity is how society survives, without change and people of different backgrounds coming together we would be in a stagnate way of life without excitement or adding growth to our life.

Stefanie (parent):
What is your definition of culture: I define culture as the base of family values and traditions. The culture of a person is determined by their individual beliefs, heritage, religion, etc.
What is your definition of diversity: Diversity is what makes each of us different, yet brings differences together.

The three women that I spoke to are all educated, but represent diversity and culture in their own ways. Their definitions are similar to what we have been studying in our course this week. We have learned that culture is unconscious, sometimes invisible, and is a part of every person. Each person I interviewed had a similar definition, but it reflected their individuality. I would have to say that I agree with each of their definitions, and respect what each of them had to say.

A major catastrophe has almost completely devastated the infrastructure of your country. The emergency government has decided that the surviving citizens will be best served if they are evacuated to other countries willing to take refugees. You and your immediate family are among the survivors of this catastrophic event. However, you have absolutely no input into the final destination or in any other evacuation details. You are told that your host country’s culture is completely different from your own, and that you might have to stay there permanently. You are further told that, in addition to one change of clothes, you can only take 3 small items with you. You decide to take three items that you hold dear and that represent your family culture.

This is a tough blog to write this week! Thinking about completely being displaced into a new environment is a scary thought. The items that I would take that would appropriately represent my family culture would be: 

• A family photo--depicting my entire family at our last vacation to New Mexico
• My Grandmother's engagement ring
• My families' genealogy

Explaining to others what these items mean to me and my culture would be relatively simple. The family photo speaks for itself. It would be a representation of those that I have with me, and those that have potentially been displaced into other parts of the world. My Grandmother's engagement ring is a family heirloom that means so much to me, and would be more of a keepsake and remembrance of her. My genealogy and family history would be important to me moving forward, and might help me and future generations to understand our background regardless of where we ended up. I would be able to explain to others what my background is--which is quite diverse. 

Giving up two items--in the case that I wouldn't be able to keep all 3--would be devastating! With only 3 items to keep my families' history alive it would be very hard to let any of them go. 

This exercise has really made me think about what is important to me, and my family, and I think has exposed that history and memories are what drive my family culture. 

This situation is less than ideal, however, has happened many times in history. From the Holocaust to the relocation camps of Japanese Americans, many families have been displaced and forced to leave their homes, family's and culture behind. 

When I Think of Research....

....I think--whew, I made it!

To be completely honest, the thought of doing a research based course scared the bejeebies out of me. My interest in early childhood education is based off of my passion for working with young children and their families. I have been a Director at various Early Education Centers for almost 10 years, and I have had no greater joy than seeing children that I knew as infants graduate from Pre-K. In my mind, this had nothing to do with research, and dealt more with a natural, and emotional way of studying children.

However, through this course I've come to realize that maybe all along I did believe in research, I just didn't know enough about it. Research doesn't have to be children pressing buttons behind a glass mirror while researchers in lab coats take notes. It can be so much more, and can help every aspect of early childhood subsequently. The biggest insight I gained from this course is that research takes many forms, and is conducted by many different people. Every study has a different hypothesis, research question, and method of acquiring data.

I learned that planning, designing, and conducting research is a long task, but in the end is very purposeful. Creating my research simulation over the last 8 weeks has challenged how I think about certain aspects of my professional life, and also helped to keep me organized. The direct way that the simulation was set up really made me think, and taught me how helpful research actually is to my chosen profession.

Some people in early childhood education have a very research oriented mind, and I applaud those people. The biggest challenge I met was trying to turn my mind in a research direction. Writing a research simulation requires a very formal way of writing, and if you can't tell, I'm more of a free thought kind of writer. Over the last 4 weeks especially I have done a lot of editing, re-writing, and over thinking before turning in my papers. In the end, I think that I was able to really commit to producing quality work that met the requirements.

Overall, this research course has opened my eyes a little to how research can really benefit early childhood programs. I even found myself looking for scholarly articles to articulate different points with the children and families I work with! My perceptions about research have been changed thanks to this course, and I'm grateful for that.

Now, on to the next course! We are all doing so well, and I'm glad to have the support of my colleagues who are treading through with me. We've got about a year left! Let's go!

Research Around the World

This week I looked towards Australia for information on what Aussie's are looking at in the world of early childhood research. "Early Childhood Australia advocates to ensure quality, social justice and equity in all issues relating to the education and care of children from birth to eight years" (Early Childhood Australia, 2014). Early Childhood Australia is the equivalent of NAEYC for the United States.

A quick review of their website shows that some of their most current research is on quality in early childhood, information on intentional self-harm and suicidal behaviors in children and providing quality and affordable early childhood education (Early Childhood Australia, 2014).

I find it very interesting that the state of early childhood education in Australia is quite similar to that of the United States. In Australia they are looking to provide high quality, affordable early childhood education to all children, which is something that the early childhood community in America is trying to move towards as well.

I was also intrigued by the Research in Practice Series that Early Childhood Australia has published for educators. The series "provides practical, easy-to-read resources for those involved in the early childhood field" (Early Childhood Australia, 2014). These books are available to educators so that they can further their knowledge and stay up to date with the most recent trends and research in early childhood. I also found that their "Learning Hub" section is a technologically advanced area where educators can get more information on their profession, and communicate with other educators. That is a really amazing offer for teachers, administrators and families.

I will look to the Early Childhood Australia website for more information as I navigate our research course. It's always helpful to see where the rest of the world stands on the subject of early childhood education.




Reference
Early Childhood Australia. (2014) Retrieved from http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au