Professional Hopes and Goals

I hope that when I work with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds, I will be better able to just listen. I want to know about children and families to understand their uniqueness. I do not want to make the families that I come in contact with to feel in any way invisible, marginalized and not respected. I will do my best to learn about their culture and incorporate what I can into the classroom including home language  bridging the gap between home and school eliminating discontinuity. I will be an advocate for children and families by creating equity and social justice.

I would like to set one goal for the early childhood field related to issues of diversity, equity and social justice. The field needs to continue the journey. Diversity, equity and social justice have come far but there is so much more work to be done. All children and families need to be respected. Diversity needs to be seen as a wonderful part of all of our lives.

I would first like to thank Dr. Myers for continually challenging us to think and to grow. I would like to thank my colleagues for sharing their stories and experiences as they have added so much to our conversations and learning. 

Welcoming Families From Around The World

The family coming into my classroom is from Spain.

In order to prepare myself to be culturally responsive towards this family

·         I will have to do research to learn about the culture of Spain. I will have to learn key words in Spanish. As there are many people in my school that speak Spanish and we do teach Spanish to our children. We have a Spanish specialist that comes into our classroom 2x every week. I probably already know some key words but I have resources within my school as I have colleagues that speak Spanish. I will make sure that I have help to converse with the parents. I will make sure that all important information in my classroom will be in English and in Spanish. I will allow the child to feel free to use Spanish in the classroom while learning English at the same time.

·         I will be culturally responsive by including pictures, posters, books and other items that are representative of his culture. I will include photographs of the child’s family in our classroom in order for the child to feel included.

·         I will make sure that my classroom library contains books both fiction and nonfiction that depict families from Spain.

·         As I understand that there is more to culture than just what is on the surface, I will have conversations with the family in order to find out what is important to them. I will be respectful of the family culture and include any aspects of the culture that the family feels comfortable sharing with us. I will invite the family into my classroom to introduce their culture to the classroom if that is something the family is comfortable doing.

·         I will have a map, photographs and information about Spain to include in my lesson planning when the child starts so that the children in the classroom will have a wonderful opportunity to learn about a place they may have never learned about before.

I would hope that these preparations will begin a strong relationship between the family and me. I want to make this family feel respected, welcomed and included. I would want this family to feel visible. As I know that coming to a brand new country must be so scary. I want to bridge the gap between home and school. These preparations would benefit me because I would be prepared to welcome this family into our school family and hopefully help them in some small way to make their transition to a brand new country a bit easier just knowing that their child is in a warm, nurturing, loving and inclusive environment. I would build trust and help their entire family. 

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice and Oppression

There is one experience that I remember that happened to a family at the preschool where I work. I know this happens all of the time.  I heard it from a family in my classroom. While having a conversation with one of the two moms in this same sex relationship, she shared with me that it is obvious that they are targets of oppression. Lesbian and gay couples are not represented in any application forms and school paperwork. The paperwork asks you to fill in information regarding mom and dad. What if there are two dads or two moms? What if the family makeup is not the norm? It may seem like a small thing but it does show bias, prejudice and oppression.  

This specific incident diminished equity for lesbian and gay families as they are the victims of invisibility. It makes families feel not included and not recognized. They are not being respected and not being seen. The paperwork makes the assumption that all families consist of a mom and a dad. It sends a negative message to any family that does not fall into the norm.

Before this incident, it would have never occurred to me. It is part of a much larger problem. It made me feel sad that any family would feel discriminated against. I felt empathy for this family as I know that there are so many issues that same sex couples have to deal with that heterosexual couples do not even have to think about. There are so many diverse and unique families. It is not just about ethnicity, language, income level and religion. It is also about family makeup. All families want and should feel included and not made to feel invisible.

In this situation, in order to make a change that would be equitable, the school enrollment forms and paperwork would have to reflect a growing and diverse population. In this case, what would need to happen is that the school administration would have to be willing to reflect a changing population by saying Parent One and Parent Two. The school would need to make an effort to include all families.