Professional Hopes and Goals

            I hope to work with children and their families from diverse backgrounds to celebrate the richness of their cultures and seek ways and means by which the local, state, and federal governments can help early childhood development programs have access to the implementation of quality education. I also want to create hope and make everyone come together as one and not to judge ourselves because of age, size, class, and color.

            As an educator, I would like diversity to be celebrated, to help each child have an equal opportunity for their values and beliefs to be acknowledged. When we teach and have activities of diversity among children this will help them eliminate the biases of discrimination and marginalization which they have experienced.  So we as educators need to reflect on our biases, behaviors, values, beliefs and attitudes to sort out how these affect the ways we interact with others.

            As we conclude this course I want to thank all my colleagues for sharing their inspirations with me, it is a great opportunity and I appreciate it. This course has opened my eyes to see my biases and know more about myself to see ways I can be better to help others. I have also learned from all your experiences and understand that we all have biases that we are working on resolving and it is a journey. Diversity helps us to understand ourselves and the world. I hope to see you in the future and I wish you all the best.  

Welcoming Families from Around the World

I am a director of a child care center and a family from Ivory Coast just migrated to the United States and would like their young children to be registered in my program. I will find out more about the family and their culture because I have the information that they do not speak English, they only speak French.

                I would prepare myself to be culturally responsive to this family by:

         (I)                Gathering all the enrollment paper works to a translator who can help me translate them to French and I would make sure that we (myself and staff) learn some French words to help the family and their children.

         (II)               Finding out on the internet or the library about the family’s cultural traditions, their values, beliefs, food, their ways of communicating (greetings) and also the cultural events they celebrate.

(III)             Having an interpreter come to the school on the day of their registration to interpret and give them a tour of the school.

(IV)             Finding out a local Ivory Coast organization to help the family adjust and have someone call and speak to them about their new environment and how to go about getting some necessary things (resources) they need to survive.

(V)               Helping the children adjust to the new school through combined effort of my staff and I in learning more of their language with flash card, so that we can bring the home and school together to help their children adjust to their new school.  The use of relevant books, pictures, and television programs in French would enhance our collective success.

My hope and aim is to help the new family and my staff to make the change an easy task on their parts. Every family would appreciate and understand that we always adjust to take care of families’ needs knowing that people’s rich culture is hard to part with. With our help, every family would understand that their cultural diversity is part of their identity and we are here to help them believe in and preserve what they know.

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

In what way(s) did the specific prejudice and/or oppression in that incident diminish equity?

            When I came to the United States and was eager to finish up my University undergraduate education that I started in my country someone people recommended a particular school to my parents and they decided for me to be part of that school. The school was predominantly white (90%) and few minority (10%) students. Some white students approached me during one of the school days, we engaged in friendly conversations and they were asking me many questions like; what is the capital of Africa?, is it true that you people live on trees?, and how did you come to the States? I wondered how they do not know that Africa is a continent and not a country and it is made up of regions and countries with their respective capitals. I know that Africans are not animals to live on trees. By what means did they think we came to the States, did we swim or paddle through across the oceans?. I do not know how people can still think like that in this modern 21^st century. I responded by explaining that Africa is a continent with countries, and that we have buildings built with blocks just like the ones in the United States and we flew from my country to the States. I was polite in responding to their questions but I felt belittled and degraded by their questioning. They did not show me how their questions affected me.

What feelings did this incident bring up for you?

If it were today I would have responded the same way, explaining and educating them on what Africa is about

What and/or who will change in order to turn this incident into an opportunity for greater equity?

My classmates should have educated themselves about Africa and its resources to enable them correct their views of degrading and emotionally challenging someone or African to react negatively.