Professional Hopes and Goals

When I think about working with children and families who come from diverse background, I hope I will always be able to respect each party’s diversity. Realizing how possible I will unconsciously and with no intention at all do the microaggressions towards others, I really have to be aware of it. Sue (2011) states that we are not immune from inheriting the racial bias of our forebears. It means each human inherits his or her own cultures that may affect our way to see others, and this may lead us to have a feeling of prejudice to others different from us. The very obvious diversity in my community is the poverty that may lead me or others to act classism. Learning through this course reminds me of the microaggressions, and to think of ways or solutions should I see an act of microaggression towards the children and their families. I may also think of programs or activities which will avoid microaggressions.

Poverty is the biggest issue in my country. Learning about diversity, equity and social justice, I realize how important it is to understand children and their families' diversities and fight for their just world. They are poor, but their children deserve better education. People here do not see early childhood programs that important, but more as a place to make their children busy, and this is only done by the wealthy families who can afford EC programs, while middle class families prefer to save the budget for elementary school, and the poor families cannot even think about it. The government has been trying to support the growth of playgroups and kindergartens in small cities and towns, but it is still a long way to go. Since I cannot change the nation, I have a goal to change my community’s mindset about the importance of sending their children to playgroups and kindergartens so the children will have a better future.

We have come to the end of this course about diversity, equity and social justice. I have indeed learned a lot from all colleagues. Through our blogs and discussions, we share our childhood stories and experiences which have been a support to the theories we are learning. Although microaggressions are not serious issues in my country, your thoughts have given me new insights about treating others fairly. Thank you, and may your passion in early childhood field remains forever, and never give up!!

Laureate Media (2011). “Microaggressions in Everyday Life”. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_3397499_1%26url%3D

 

Welcoming Families from Around the World

Pretending that I am working at a daycare, and there will be a new child coming from Bangladesh, a place or country that I only know the name or I have heard the name, but I even have no idea where its location in the globe, and moreover the child and his or her families’ culture and tradition.

As a professional in early childhood field, I really have to know each of my child’s culture and respect it in the way the school try to adapt the class activities with each child’s uniqueness and needs. For a successful plan to welcome and include this new child into the class environment, I will do five kinds of preparation:

1. I will first try to find where Bangladesh’s location is in the globe. Where it is close from or how far it is from my country. From this location, I will get to know about its seasons and weather.

2. I will study from some resources about the religion(s) exist in the country, because to some religions, they have rules or restrictions, for example the Moslem people cannot eat pork or the Hindus  cannot eat beef, etc.

3. I will learn about the celebrations or feast they usually celebrate annually. Celebrations are very close related to culture. From the characteristic of a celebration a race or country has, we can learn about what they like, and what we should or should not do.

4. Not least important is to learn about the family system whether they often have extended family or just a nuclear family. Understanding this aspect will help me decide how to involve the child’s family.

5. After getting deeper understanding about Bangladesh and its people’s characteristics, I will implicitly introduce about this place to the other children during lesson before the new child comes, for example show pictures of a girl or boy from Bangladesh wearing their traditional clothes or dancing their traditional dance, etc. I will then repeat or review on it after the new child comes. The first one to have all students get familiar with Bangladesh, and the second discussion is to have the new child feel comfortable, welcome and included. If possible, I challenge the other children to know the information from the new child directly.

6. I will put some decoration related to Bangladesh so that the child will feel more at home in the classroom. 

7. Once the child arrives, I will prepare some questions that I want to know about the child’s habits at home from his/her mother and/or things that the parents expect from me and the school. I will file the information for my reference.

Coming to a new place and adjusting with its surroundings will not be an easy thing for some people and especially children, because they have to struggle to become part of the new host culture while retaining their self-identity (Smidt, 2006). Therefore, it is going to be helpful for the host to prepare to welcome in order to help the child and family experience a smooth and pleasant adjustment. Preparation will not only make things look better, and may avoid mistakes, but it will also make the teacher feel more confident when he/she knows what and how to do so. 

Reference

Smidt, S. (2006). The developing child in the 21^st century. Chapter 6, “The Child in Culture” (p. 79).

The Personal Bias, Prejudice and Oppression

 

A couple of months ago, there was an accident at the school I work at when seven children students were playing. It was just a normal common game children usually play during a recess, but this time it was quite fatal that caused one student named Ruben (not his real name) fell down and got a concussion. The school directly brought the child to the hospital. Among these seven students, there was one named Randy (not his real name). He was a very big and fat boy, around tripled in size compared to other boys at his age. Within a couple of days, rumor spread through bbm (blackberry broadcast messenger) among parents of the students that blamed Randy to be the person who caused this incident. It went worse by days because parents of other students of the same grade who were not in the incident put comments and it became a serious issue. The funny thing, the parents of the child who was hospitalized did not feel bad about this and understood this incident as childlike game. I knew this because I met them at the hospital. The situation was getting ‘hotter’ and those parents wanted to have a meeting with me. At the meeting attended by eleven mothers, they intentionally accused Randy, and wanted the school to take the responsibility for letting such fat boy existed in the school which they believed had harmed other students. They mentioned some other day-to-day incidents at school which were not significant to make their statements stronger.  Worse, Randy was bullied by his classmates to be the person who caused their friend hospitalized.

It indeed diminished equity. All children have the same right to play and study no matter how big or small, weak or strong, smart or not smart he/she is. The way those parents blamed Randy was not reasonable, and was just based on their bias, prejudice and dislikes. They arrogantly accused Randy without witnessing, but by asking the children who were playing at the time and witnessed the incident.  Their act of gathering inputs or comments among each other and put these as the reasons to make the school think it was not right to let Randy study in the school together with their kids, I think, was really a cruel action. They judged and tried to not only diminish but eliminate Randy’s right as any child deserves to have.

My heart cried. I could not believe how those parents dared to do such thing to a child. They made a collusion to make others and their own children believe that Randy was a real ‘trouble maker’ in the school.  I just could not understand and imagine if Randy had been my son. I l could not understand why those parents did not even think of how Randy and his parents felt about it. Randy and his parents visited Ruben in hospital and met Ruben’s parents. The other parents did not even consider this, but had too much prejudice against Randy and illogically assume that what had happened to Ruben may also happen to their kids someday.

Those parents should have been more sympathetic by not spreading assumption and asking for a clarification only from the children, but also involving the school. The school in this case, should put their position to bridge the communication among the parents and children. That was what we did. We asked the children to do the reconstruction of the incident, and helped those children to analyze how and why it happened. This reconstruction helped a lot. They just followed the way each child re-played what they did during the game, and finally they realized that it was just an accident, no one to blame, and we asked all of those seven children and Randy’s classmates to forgive each other.  Since then, they stopped bullying Randy, the parents did not have other words to say, and they go to play again as common children usually do. This incident has taught all parties to be open, not to have prejudice against someone’s identity, but to treat everybody equally.

 

 

While we try to teach our children all about life,
Our children teach us what life is all about.
~Angela Schwindt