Professional Hopes and Goals

Through the course of Perspective Diversity and Equity I have learned soooo much on the subject that I feel like I can love, appreciate and respect more cultures and support all of our equality.

One hope that I have as I continue my work with children and their families who come from diverse backgrounds is that I do not want to unintentionally insult them. I want to respect and validate them. I want to get to know them better. I find the differences better. In the past, while I liked the past, I would unintentionally make comments or try to correct things that I saw them doing that was different. Now I want to embrace that, encourage it, and validate the differences. Just because a family's culture is different from the dominant culture does not mean I can not support them/that. I want them to know that we all matter.

A goal that I have set for the early childhood field that is related to the issue of diversity, equity, and social justice is to validate all cultures. We matter. I want to spread to others what I have learned about Diversity through this class so that other colleagues who did not have the opportunity to take this course still have the opportunity to be educated and not unintentionally insult another person who is not like ourselves and finally and probably most important, identify our own social identities. We must first know who we are before we can tackle someone else, especially children and their families.

Finally, I want to thank all of my colleagues and fellow classmates who have helped me grow through this process. I have really learned a lot about diversity, equity, social justice, and myself. Your input and feedback was valuable. I know that I am not in this journey alone, so again I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Good luck to us all.! :)

Welcoming Families From Around the World

I am one of the managers at a child development center serving our military families. A new family has just arrived and is inquiring about putting their child into our program. However, they are from India. First I will give them a tour of our facility and tell them about what we do hear and what our goals and what our mission statement is.

I plan to be culturally responsive to them by using:

1.   I plan to first and foremost hear and listen to any concerns that they may have with their child in our program.
2.   I will be observant (but not judgmental) to their ways and behaviors.
3.  I will not judge and tell them what the dominant culture does as oppose to what I see them doing.
4. I will ask if there are any ways for us to incorporate their culture into our program to help with their child’s transition and for us to gain a better understanding of them. Our goal is to know them as a whole family better.
5. I will speak to them slowly and clearly, because I have a tendency to speak fast so many do not understand what I am saying.

By doing all these things I am hoping that our family feels welcomed. I want to take away the barriers as much as possible between the center/teachers and the family. I want the family at any time they have a problem, concerns, or even praise to come to any of staff or leadership. If the family wants to stop in and watch or participate, I want them to do so without any conflicts. I want them to feel as a integral part of their child’s learning and development. It is my goal that we do this as a team (the parents and program) when it comes to raising this/any child.

The Personal side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

I would love to say that I have never experienced bias, prejudice or oppression, however I live in reality and in America. I am an Ethnic female living in predominant white male America; so I have experienced one to all the above actions. By now, as much as I have experienced these incidents it is almost like second nature and at times things that I shrug off. While that is terrible to think of I have learned that you have to choose your battles. And many times this is not one of them. These happen to much that I cannot say that these types of behaviors will ever stop.

An incident that hurt me most but I had to move on if I were to ever be better, was at work. I had a boss who turned to me for everything and appreciated that I was great at my job, however when it came to promotion and moving up, they over looked me and hired someone else for the job. Not only that but asked me to train that person, everything I knew. It did come up that the new person could not do the job as well as I did and never did I get the credit I deserve and when things went wrong, I was the one, they called to clean it up. I had to leave because I was never appreciated and felt like I was only kept at the bottom. This was done in a small town. I was not from that town and I was treated like that. The small town was in Idaho, mostly made up of farmers, etc. I am an ethnic minority not from Idaho and was only brought there because of my husband’s career. I was treated like a second-class citizen. It hurt and I could not continue on. So, in the end, I left. I loved my job, but I did not fit in so I left and moved on to better things.

        With this particular incident there was no equity. They was a clear action of favoritism. I cannot say that it is something that is new to me. I have seen it time and time again. It is not what you know that shines through but who you know that outweighs anything else. In comparison on standards, if I and the new lady stood side by side just on qualifications alone, she would not compare. All she had going for her is that she was from the small town and graduated from the school years previously. I on the other hand had college education, and experience in the job, but we saw who won. A true testament to inequality.

        I learned a lot from this experience. I loved my job and have had to take a break from teaching but it is still in my heart. I am not as hurt as I was in the beginning only because I don’t like to hold on to things because I know that the only person this hurts is me. I can probably guess 100% that my old boss sleeps well at night and is not thinking about me. In the end I don’t like to hold grudges I need to be free from things so that I can have blessings in my life.

        Because of the small town mentality, I don’t forsee and equality happening here. But if there was, that mind-frame has to change. We need to offer opportunities to those that deserve based on qualifications. When promises are made, things need to be honored.