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.