Welcoming Families Around the world

For this assignment, I decided to choose the country of the Philippines.
                                               

As teachers, we have to be mindful that our first meeting or conference with our families is necessary and important because we will find out not only where they are from and all about the surface culture from their place of origin but also build a start of partnership so it will help us explore and learn about their deep culture as well. If I had to come up with five things on how to get ready well I would start by

• Getting to know the family and child 
• As they meet me for the first time, I want to make them feel comfortable being able to talk to me and assure them how all this benefits their child.
• Get to know about their family itself, in order words their surface culture.
• As for the child with very English language, is very important to have pictures and labels in the classroom. Picture cues and classroom schedule is helpful for them to tell you what they need and just gave a sense about their class.
• It is also helpful to learn couple of familiar words which can be helpful when communicating
• Place a world map and talk about the different places children from your class come from, including the teachers 
• Invite the parents to share something they practice in their family.
• Have children bring pictures of their family and make an activity of it. 

There are many ways to make a child and family feel comfortable and welcomed in our centers. The most important one is to show respect and acceptance for who they are. Having a trustworthy conversation with them is valuable. Is all about our personality, is all about our approach, is all about how we come across others, therefore we have to be mindful and revisit who we are and what we want as teachers.
                                                 

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice and Oppression

          There are many personal stories I can relate to but I chose to tell one I have witnessed. Couple weeks ago my friend got hurt at work therefore had to fill some LNI paperwork. My friend's primary language is Spanish but is becoming more fluent in English. When she called to talk to the HR office about her case, the lady told her she had a very strong accent and she could not understand her therefore she had to call back later because she had to find an interpreter. My friend felt offended by her words. When she tried to call back to talk to the lady, her calls were being ignored, she did not get any calls back neither. Last week, I offered to help her so we went over to the HR office, the lady was talking to us like we did not understand English, her tone was slow. She told my friend, to write what had happened to see if they consider to pay for her injuries. I don;t quite understand what and how it works when you get hurt at work nor what are your rights, but I know I will informed myself so my friend gets the help she deserves.

This experience is making me feel very marginalized in some way and my friend felt discriminated because of her accent. It raised many questions of why would this people treat us like that, instead of helping us understand the process of what happens when an employee gets hurt at the job?I also asked my self does this happen to everybody or is there some type of discrimination going on towards my friend? There can be many assumptions but deep inside of me, I felt the drive to help my friend until she gets what she deserves.

It is unfortunate cases like these happen day in and day out, when will it stop? We don't know. I know something which I believe is true: One person at a time.

                                            

Practicing Awareness of Microagressions

Now, that I am aware of microagressions and how they can easily develop but go undetected, there are so many I have experienced and witness throughout. One of them is back in high school, there was this particular spot where all the Latino students which were not many back in the days, would get together between classes hang out and chat.  I remember walking with my friend who is Caucasian and she said: "Oh that is the Mexican spot, don't go there because then people will think you are like them". I remember not saying nothing to that comment other than, ok and walking away. At first I thought maybe I should really not relate to them since I am not Mexican and I want to have her as a friends but it did not work out that way. Things started changing once I became friends with many of the girls in that group, that girl stopped talking to me. It felt very comfortable for me hanging out with them not only because they were good friends but also I was able to speak in Spanish.
This week's topic has been such an eye opener and increase my knowledge and awareness even more. I have done some searching around microaggressions on the web and you will be amazed on how many stories there are in regards to the topic.
                                                 

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

What is Diversity to you?
What is Culture to you?

These are the questions asked to three acquaintances and here are their following responses:

The first person said that culture for her was the food, traditions, music, values, beliefs from her place of origin. She defined diversity as differences among people. 

The second person referred to culture as something every individual or family has. Families have their own culture within a culture. Diversity was referred to as group of people with different backgrounds.

The third person referred to culture and diversity together saying that when she came over to the US, she found herself in a not much diverse place, in other words there were not many like her therefore she felt as an outsider. She brought her culture with her meaning her traditions, values, morals, beliefs and language. For her that was her representation of  culture.

By doing this assignment it was interesting to see the reactions to my questions of what they thought about culture and diversity were, as if I was asking something out of the ordinary. Reflecting in their answers , it just validates how superficial culture can be defined as. Whereas Diversity was also just generally referred as differences of people's ethnic backgrounds.

How interesting would it had been if the questions would be, What do you think about other cultures in general? I wonder what answers I would have received.

                                                
                                                     

My Family culture

If a catastrophe would strike my home, the three things I would take which would remind me of my culture would be: family pictures, folkloric music, a folkloric item.
I would take family pictures because it would remind me of who and what we did. Remember all the great times we had back in our home. Remember the places we went to.
I would take folkloric music  
because it will remind me of our beautiful music from my home. Music is something that I grew up with, I remember doing plays in school where we danced our music.
The third item I would take are folkloric item such as one like these 
 or something like these which is a Peruvian textile blanket. My reason would be because it would keep us warm wherever we went and will have a part of our culture with us.

If I am given the option to keep only one item, It would be a very hard decision to make but I would keep my blanket because it would be something representative about my culture. Our memories would always be kept in our minds and wherever we would be, we will make new ones.

By doing this exercise, it reminded me when I came to this country for the second time at the age of 16. I remember bringing a folkloric backpack and a hat in the plane and wearing them both. For me it was so significant and special. Up until now, whenever I get a chance I like to buy or order things from my country or ask my family who travels back and forth to bring me items I can put up in my home.

When I think of Research......

First and for most, I would like to thank my colleagues for all your feedback during this class course. I do appreciate every one of your comments and posts, for that I say to you:

                                             

• What insights have you gained about research from taking this course?
• There is so much I have learned throughout this course, as I had shared at the beginning, i felt pretty worried on how well I would do in a research class but as I look back it has been pretty rewarding for me professionally. I feel more competent and confident to not only understand research but perform one.  
• In what ways have your ideas about the nature of doing research changed?
• I have learned in order to do research in the early childhood field, we have to be very careful since this is a very delicate area. Research has to be carefully planned for it not to have risk factors or ethics problems.
• What lessons about planning, designing, and conducting research in early childhood did you learn?
• Every method has its own unique ways of finding the information looking for. I think it all depends on the topic of choice. To plan a good research takes time because there are so many factors such as what design you are using who you are targeting and where it will take place. 
• What were some of the challenges you encountered—and in what ways did you meet them?
• Some of the challenges I faced was to decide what design I was going to use in my research simulation. I all came together after reading and reflecting on what I was really wanting to do with the results.
• What are some of the ways your perceptions of an early childhood professional have been modified as a result of this course?
• As a teacher, I do observations every day with the purpose of getting to know my children better, individualized their learning and needs; therefore, by taking this class my perceptions as a early childhood professional has increased because it has taught me how careful we have to be with our bias and perceptions of gathered information. The field of early childhood is very revolving as it is often changing, research in the field is also a very delicate one but one of the most important as well.

Research Around the World

After much browsing the given websites for this assignment, I decided to look at Early Childhood Development Virtual University (ECDVU) Sub-Saharan Africa  (SSA)  http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/index.php  and http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/major_reports.php websites. I have always found interesting to learn about their developments concerning their early childhood education programs. Many of the studies and reports focus on the application on several tools implemented in early childhood classrooms, statuses on the administration and coordination of center in Ghana, parental involvement in the schools and the importance of male involvement. One thing I did notice is that the publication on the website was last updated on 2007. Many of the reports given where significantly old. Another point I gained from the several reports was the importance of how to implement an early childhood development focus in the region. Despite the lack of resources available, there are movements who focus on creating a better environment for the children. Another need with regards of early childhood is the lack of administration and coordinators educational backgrounds and policy procedures practices. Many of them are not following appropriate policy procedures giving their center poor quality. I found interesting, how hard they are working to integrate parent involvement and spread out the importance of it as well as their children's self stem outcomes; which is no different to what we are doing in this country as well. It is very interesting and exciting to see how early childhood education is getting more and more attention around the world.