Professional Hopes and Goals

          One hope that I have when I think about working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds is to increase my  ability to empower others to identify and accept diversity. Another hope that I have is to understand the depth of diversity. Human diversity begins at conception, when egg and sperm unite, the sex of the new life is determined, and the embryo begins to interact in unique ways with a unique prenatal environment. One goal I would like to set for the early childhood field related to the issues of diversity, equity, and social justice is to is to increase my  ability to recognize micro aggressions and to avoid them in my communication with others. I have learned so much throughout this course and I have truly gained a better understanding of how deep diversity is. I would like to thank my classmates and professor for sharing their experiences, advice, and suggestions on all of these important topics. I feel all professionals working in the early childhood field should have a deeper understanding of diversity to decrease bias, discrimination, prejudice, etc. This was a wonderful class and I enjoyed being apart of it.

Welcoming Families From Around the World

The country my “new family” is coming from is Morocco. I know absolutely nothing about this country, other than the fact that it is a country in Africa. One of the first things I would do to prepare for a family who is coming from Morocco is to research the country and find out about the countries customs, beliefs, traditions, language of origin, culture, and education. These would be aspects I would love to learn more about prior to the family coming into the center. Once they arrived, I would of course ask the parent/parents these questions to know specifically what their culture does, rather than generalize. A second way I would prepare myself to be culturally responsive is to inform the staff and children of the new family coming to our center. I would educate them as much as possible so they are not unfamiliar with the new culture and allow them to ask any questions they had. A fourth way I would prepare myself to be culturally responsive is by planning a “Getting to Know You” meeting with the family and make any modifications to food menu’s, classroom curriculum, etc. The final way I would prepare myself is getting my staff enrolled into diversity trainings so they learn to embrace and implement diversity into my child care center.

I hope that all of these preparations will benefit myself and the family by increasing self-awareness of level of intercultural sensitivity for each individual. I would hope also that these preparations would help serve as a teaching point to assist with a way to avoid cultural differences by denying the existence of differences, by using defenses against difference, or by minimizing the importance of difference.

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

A memory I have when I experienced prejudice happened a few years ago. I went out to eat with one of my best friend’s and some of our co-workers to a restaurant across the river. We were the only two minorities in the group, but we never saw this coming. We were seated promptly and when it was time to place our drink orders, everyone at the table had their order taken except for my best friend and I. We thought it was a little odd considering we had all sat down together. We figured she was going to the back to get the others and would come back out and get our drink orders. Well she went to the back and grabbed the rest of the table’s drinks, but not once did she ask us what we wanted. In a professional manner, my best friend questioned her as to why she had not taken our drink orders. She gave a “b.s.” excuse that she didn’t think we were ready to order yet because we were still looking over the menu. She got our drink orders and brought them to us 10 minutes later. When she came back to get our food order, she had a nasty attitude and so we all decided not to stay. On the way out, our group expressed our discontent to the manager on duty and told him we would never return. The manger was just as nasty as she was and it frustrated me to not react unprofessionally.

          This incident diminished equity in that my best friend and I were treated unfairly in comparison to our co-workers all because we were minorities. The object of equity is to be equal and fair. In this case, we were not treated fairly, and as a result left the restaurant unsatisfied. I never thought that racism still existed as much, but boy was I wrong. It has been 3 years, and I have not gone back to that restaurant. I also discourage anyone I know who may be talking about going there and I explain to them what happened. I would never wish that type of treatment on my worst enemy. I felt betrayed, infuriated, pissed, sad, embarrassed, disrespected and disgusted all at the same time. I had a whirlwind of emotions stirring inside of me, so naturally when I got home I cried a little and then I got over it. This was definitely my first experience of blatant prejudice that involved me and I hope I never have to experience that again. The people within the restaurant would need to change and be more accepting of other races being served in their restaurant in order for this incident to be turned into an opportunity for greater equity.