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.