Professional Hopes and Goals

One hope that you have when you think about working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds.

When I think about working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds, I hope that will continue to remember and apply all that I have learned throughout this course. I hope that I will continue to make children and families feel welcomed. I hope I provide an environment that incorporates culture from all backgrounds and I provide a program environment where everyone feels as though they belong.

One goal you would like to set for the early childhood field related to issues of diversity, equity, and social justice.

My goal that I have set for myself is to take what I have learned and share it to my staff and childcare directors that work for me. This course has made a strong impact on me and taking what I have learned and bringing it back to my staff and my programs will have a huge impact on my community as a whole.

 A brief note of thanks to your colleagues

I have learned a lot from this course from the readings and resource videos, but especially from the discussion posts and interactions with my colleagues. I truly appreciate everyone’s opinion, ideas, questions, thoughts and advice. Without my colleagues, this course would not have been such a success, so thank you all for everything!

Welcoming Families From Around the World

Growing up in a small town in the Midwest, I was not too familiar with other cultures and I never knew any immigrants. Then I moved to southern California and was amazed how little I was exposed to when growing up in my small town. I met so many new people from various countries and cultures. Many of the people I have met are immigrants from Mexico. We have a lot of Mexican children in our child care programs. In order to be culturally responsive to these families I had to be able to relate to them and understand their culture.

Iprepared to make all participants in my programs feel welcomed by first speaking to one if my really good friends who is also from Mexico. She told me about the different cities in Mexico and how different each city is. She told me about different beliefs and family traditions as well. Secondly, I took the time to research the areas in Mexico, the different traditions, beliefs and cultures. Third, I hired staff who spoke Spanish and English so that they could relate to the children. I also hired a couple people who were from Mexico as well. Next, I had my staff make sure to set the classroom up so that all children would feel welcome. The staff posted signs that were written in both Spanish and English. They created newsletters and snack calendars in both languages. They incorporated aspects of their culture into their curriculum and snack options. My staff spoke with the children often asking them for suggestions on what they would like to incorporate into the programs as well. After all that I had a big family event. We had a potluck where each family brought a food item that represented their culture and traditions. The parents and children loved it. We now have monthly family potlucks.

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

What memory do you have of an incident when you experienced bias, prejudice, and/or oppression, or witnessed someone else as the target of bias, prejudice, and/or oppression?

It was a bit difficult for me to think of an experience at first and then I realized that I have actually witnessed people treat me a bit differently because I am a single “young” mother.  I wrote “young” because I look young so people assume that I am a lot younger than I actually am and when my son was a couple years old, I got braces on my teeth so I looked even younger. I have had people make comments to me regarding being a young mom and ask me if the dad is still in the picture or if my parents help out. When this first happened I was extremely embarrassed and I started wearing a “wedding ring” so that people would stop asking me questions and staring at me when I went anywhere with my son. I am actually in my thirties and have seen parents who are older than me be awful parents to their children so I think age of a mother or father shouldn’t be anyone else’s concern especially when they are judging them on the age rather than their parenting ability.  The way have been treated made me feel like a lot of people have issues with young, single mothers which upset me because these strangers don’t know how old I am, if my sons father passed away, if I am divorced, or whatever. In order to change this incident into opportunity for great equality I do what I know best, be a great, hard working mother. I prove to those people that they can judge a book by the cover.