Is this the end?

The title of my blog entry this week happens to be the name of a song by my most favorite musical group ever-New Edition. And as I use the title Is This The End, I think of how the group’s name is so appropro to the answer-which is that, no this is not the end. It’s simply a new edition.

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

     I hope that the passion I have and the sincerity and the level of compassion that I have carries over to other educational professionals and that they have the same (if not more) sincerity when working with our families. With so many lower-income families in our district that need the support, I hope that I can serve to teach my team and guide them on how to be empathetic, sympathetic and understanding.

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

    One goal I would like to set for the early childhood field related to diversity, equity and social justice is the equal supply of high quality educational resources and facilities for all. To establish a national standard that all educational facilities must follow, with regards to physical environment, supplies (technology and otherwise) and staff requirements will help to ensure that all children have access to the best resources and that they are available to all.

• A brief note of thanks to your colleagues

     To my colleagues, I thank you for your insight, for your comments and your discussions. As we prepare for one last class before we move onto our specializations, I hope that one day we can all meet face to face. It’s always nice to put a face and person to the name and pictures on our blogs. Good luck in the rest of your program!

 

I see London, I see France…

The country of origin for my visiting family is France. In order to prepare for their visit, I would take the time to learn about their culture by researching the following and putting different methods into practice:

• Learn about their family culture and what traditions are valued
• Learn and practice saying common phrases in their language (hello, goodbye, what is wrong, etc)
• Reach out to the parents and introduce myself in a variety of ways, allowing them to feel comfortable leaving their child with me
• Assign different buddies each day so the student can become familiar with routines and other classmates. This will also ease them into their new environment, as opposed to trying to adjust all at once to a new classroom, unfamiliar territory and other classmates and teachers
• Finally, I would make sure that their country is well represented in the classroom literature, even if it’s something as small as hanging their flag. Creating that sense of positive relations and interactions will help them to feel at ease and that their culture is respected

These practices will prove to build a positive rapport between me, as educator, and the family thus providing a supportive environment in which they can trust that I will do the best for their child and subsequently, for them.

 

Recognizing Bias, Prejudice and Oppression

You want to believe that everyone has a kind heart, that everyone is aware of how their words or forms of expression may hurt others, that everyone is on the same page and wants to be on equal terms. But that is not always the case. Sometimes people do things intentionally and as much as you don’t want to believe it, the truth is that there are some hurtful people in this society who don’t like others simply based on something as simple as their background or color of their skin.

It would be so easy to complete this assignment on the pink elephant in the room-the current Presidential election and the fact that since Barack Obama started his campaign, he has been beleaguered by offenses based on his race and not his record. But, because that is too easy, I’m choosing to focus instead on an incident that happened at my job this week.

A non-profit organization came into the school this week to do a beautifying project and part of this project was to paint murals on the walls of the cafeteria, depicting our neighborhood, our students’ own artwork and the culture of our school. One of the murals that one of the artists painted was that of the number 7 train in Queens and depicted the neighborhood in that manner next to a picture of animals (giraffes, lions, monkeys, etc) with a caption underneath that, which read Africa. Underneath both pictures was the word JUNGLES and another subtitle that said “Exploring the different jungles of the world”. Sure, it’s easy to argue that the artist meant no ill will or harm to anyone, but as an African-American looking at that mural, I couldn’t help but to feel uneasy. And if I felt uneasy, how could I expect my African-American students to feel, as well? How could I expect my African-American staff to feel? The ironic part is that this was brought to my atention by a White coworker. I had to make an executive decision and my decision was to have the artist paint over the mural.

I can’t continue to go through my life, professional or personal, believing that someone meant no harm because there will inevitably be a time when there was intent and by allowing it to happen or continue, I am acknowledging that they feel dominant over me, for whatever reason (African-American, female, etc). I have to speak up because there are others who may not and if by speaking up, I learn that it was not intentional, it was not done maliciously, at least I know I have fostered and developed a small investigation into the other person’s acknowledgement of privilege in this society.