Effective Communicators

The person that I can communicate effectively in pretty much any given situation was one of my old supervisors at an preschool that I used to work at. I mean this woman can keep her composure and you would never know that she was really upset or disgruntled. She would make clear and direct eye contact and her body language showed no signs of distressed. She would speak in a calm voice and she would effectively state her purpose and the reason behind her message. I have always admired her for being an effective communicator. As an early childhood professional, I would definitely like to take a few pointers from her. I think that the first thing that I would like to take from her is her ability to hold her composure. I think for me, I can sometimes let my emotions show as I communicate with others. However, it really depends on the situation. The second thing is that I would like to be able to effectively communicate with others in a way that the receiver can immediately get the message that I am sending in a positive way. I would want to model some of her ways so that I can effectively communicate with the children and families that I serve as well as with my colleagues. Being able to communicate in a manner that is respectful to all is very important to me, because I want to be able to help them and the only way that I can help the families is by being an effective communicator. Communicating effectively will help me to understand how to help meet the needs of the child and the family.

Professional Hopes and Goals

After participating in such an intriguing course about diversity, equity, and social justice, I think that my main hope is that I am always striving to put my best effort forward as I work with children and families and all through-out my early childhood career. Reflecting on the knowledge that was gained during this course, I hope that I will never forget to be fair and just in all that I do on the for the children and their families. This means addressing my own biases first, before embarking on the task of teaching others. Sharing what I know  about diversity with others is equally important in my work. Having a genuine love and passion for the people that I work with and for is another hope for my work.

One goal that I have for the early childhood field is to make it a mandate for all early childhood teachers to incorporate the Anti- Bias curriculum in their programs. As I have been learning through my course work, the earlier a child is taught about anti-bias behaviors, diversity, and equity then they are more likely to develop pro-active behaviors that supports acceptance of all.

Last but not least I would like to thank each of my colleagues for contributing to my growth in this course. Reading your blog postings, discussion responses, and your comments has really helped to expand my thinking as it relates to the topics that we have covered in this course. It has also been a pleasure reading about each of your different experiences with diversity, inequities, and culture.

Welcoming Families from Around the World

My blog for this week is based on an imaginary scenario:

 I have just been told by the director of my program that a young child from Indonesia. Since I do not have any experience in working with families from other countries, I have decided to rely on some of the ideas that I have been learning about in my diversity class to help me prepare for the families arrival. So the first thing that I decided to do to was to familiarize my self with the country of Indonesia and it's culture. I used the internet to access this information. The second thing that I did was talked with my director to see if she could get pictures of the child her family so that I could post her picture along with the other children's family pictures and I also labeled a cubby with her name on it. The third thing that I did was talked to the children about our new friend that would be coming to play with us soon. I did this in an effort to help them prepare for our new friend to come. I read books about the country of Indonesia. Even though the classroom already has plenty of pictures representing diversity and abilities, I decided to add pictures that were related directly to the child's specific culture. I also asked the director to see if she could obtain a list of words that would help me to communicate with the child. These words were the words that the parents used to communicate specific needs such as when she is hungry, sleepy, and needs to toilet. I downloaded an app that teaches me the correct pronunciation of each word as well as other words. I also made sure that my music collection included Indonesian music. I also printed off the classroom news letter in the families home language and make sure that the information on the parent board was also printed in the language of the family.

As I prepared for this families arrival, I couldn't help but to think of the ways that the both the family and I would benefit. When the family finally comes to the program, it is my deepest and my sincere hope that they will feel welcomed and wanted. As I prepared for their arrival, I couldn't help, but to think about how I would feel if I was in their shoes. This is an scary and uncertain ordeal having to leave everything that is familiar to have to travel to an unknown land where nothing is familiar. I hope that as I interact with this family that I will learn about their culture and that I can partner with them to help the other families learn to embrace diversity. Including the children in the preparation process, I hope to broaden their understanding about  cultures, other than theirs. Most of all, I hope that I will be able to model acceptable and positive interactions with all of the families that I serve and that all the families feel welcome and accepted each and everyday they enter into my classroom.

Bias, Prejudices, and Oppression

For this blog post, I asked to tell of an incident where I or someone else were the victim of prejudice, bias, or oppression. Well for this blog I decided to go with a character from a movie called Radio. In this particular movie, a young black man with developmental issues was oppressed by students and individuals from the community. This went on til one of the coaches decided to befriend Radio. The coach took an interest in Radio and tried to include Radio in the everyday events of the school and community. He fought for radio to be included in the school setting and in the community. This coach treated Radio with respect, even as the others tried to ridicule and demean radio by calling him names such as retard. However, in the end Radio became a valued member of the community and won over the students as he learned to function as a productive member of society.

In this movie, the way that Radio was treated by others violated his human rights. He was not treated with equity as he was disregarded and constantly taunted by others because of is disability. He was not given the same educational rights as others and this was obvious because he was not allowed at first to attend the school with the normal children. He was stereotyped by teachers, community, and the students. This was evident as the principle made remarks about Radio possibly harming the other students. I can remember watching this movie for the first time, I felt bad for the way that Radio was treated by members of the football team as they trapped in the storage and threw footballs at the door. This really frightened Radio and he felt unsafe. I felt feelings of empathy and sadness for the way that he was treated. I also felt sad and sorry for the teens that did this to him, because ignorance in my eyes is just like a disability. This whole situation began to change for Radio as he was befriended by the coach. The coach worked hard to help the boys treat Radio with kindness and actually at the end the ringleader of the football incident that occurred earlier in the movie also befriended Radio. He began to see that Radio was really a cool person. He just needed people to see pass his disability.