Cultural Diversity

Do you find yourself communicating differently with people from different groups and cultures?

Yes, I do find myself communicating differently with people from different groups and cultures I am more comfortable communicating with my family and friends where I used slang and speak in a more relaxed casual tone. When I am communicating with different groups and cultures I speak in a more professional tone and try to be aware of the cultural differences so that I do not offend anyone.

 

Based on what I have learned this week three strategies I could use to help me communicate more effectively with people from different groups and culture would be to try to withhold judgment long enough to gain a deeper understanding than first impressions allows, by doing this it allows me a chance to understand what is actually expected of me as well the what I am expected to offer my students and their families. Next applying appropriate emotions when communicating try to provide a welcoming and inviting pose being sensitive to the issues and needs of the community. Lastly recognizing that unwritten cultural rules of nonverbal communication takes time and patience.

Gonzalez-Mena, J. (2010). 50 strategies for communicating and working with diverse families. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

• "Understanding and Appreciating Cultural Differences" (pp. 36–38)

Communication! (Friend's television show)

(Sound turned off)

What do you think the characters' relationships are based on the ways in which they are communicating?


Having the sound turned if I thought the characters' relationships were friendly in different scene within the show I saw them smiling, laughing and comforting one of the characters who I assume was going through a break up.




What are they feeling and expressing based on the nonverbal behavior you are observing?

Based on the nonverbal behavior I observed one character seemed sad and/ or depressed, while the other characters seemed concerned and tried to comfort the sad character. 






(Sound turned on)


What do you think the characters' relationships are based on the ways in which they are communicating?


The characters' relationship based on how they are communicating I think have been friends for quite some time. The characters are comfortable with each and a lot of time together. One character is going through a break up several characters make light of the situation through sarcasm and jokes. 


What are they feeling and expressing based on the nonverbal behavior you are observing?


Based my observation the feelings and expression of the character show that the cast is familiar with one another they do not mind expressing their emotions to one another.

Professional Hopes and Goals

When I think about working with children and families who come from diverse background my hope is that they understand that everyone will not respect and understand their culture and the way they do things at home. However; my hope is that they continue to push forward with their careers and education and not allow barriers to hinder their success.

As I think about working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds the goal I would like to set for the early childhood field related to issues of diversity, equity and social justice is that we as professionals do our part to ensure that every child regardless of their ethnic background receive an adequate education. 

I want to thank my colleagues for all their input and insight throughout this course. I have greatly learned a lot from our professor and my colleagues. Learning about diversity, equity, and social justice has allowed me to look at myself as a professional and how I can improve the lives of all my students by addressing bias behavior, making my students culturally responsive, and helping them develop a level of tolerance for other people's differences.

Welcoming Families From Around the World

My families' Country: Mexico


5 way in which I would prepare to be  culturally responsive to this family:

• I would first brush up on my Spanish ensure that I know the fundamental of Spanish.
• Learn the families dynamics.
• Search way to integrate their cultural tradition into the classroom curriculum.
• Add classroom visuals reflecting their racial and ethnic diversity of the classroom.
• Prepare my other students

A brief statement describing in what ways you hope that these preparations will benefit both you and the family:

My hope is that the preparations I have made will benefit myself as well as the family would be to making learning fun. My hope it to get the family excited about the child learning because they feel included. I hope that my preparations help me become a teacher , and makes it easier to teach someone of a different culture than my own.

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

When I was a little girl I remember my grandmother telling me the story of Emmet Till, a young African American boy, who was murdered for flirting with a white woman. For my young mind the story bought up so many questions. Why did he have to die for flirting with a white woman? What is wrong with him liking white woman? What happen to the people that killed him? I remember my grandmother taking her time to explain to me how life was years ago. After several more questions I soon learned that years before I was born things were different, African Americans were not afford the privileges that whites had. The murderers of Emmet Till were acquitted because they were white.

After hearing the story of Emmet Till I felt powerless, and angry, how could people simply dislike you because of the color of your skin? I felt as if the government failed to protect and seek justice for Emmet and his family. I remember feeling sad and scared, that if I acted in a way that was not suitable to “White America” I could be next. The world would have to change in order to turn this incident into an opportunity for greater equity.  

Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

This week I was required to attend a week long training for my job while, there a middle aged white woman ran her fingers through my hair and said "oh wow that's all your hair" the context of this microaggression was racial, I believe that the woman was expecting my hair not to be real, although she did not exactly say that, however she was surprised to find out that an African American was capable of having long hair without it being extensions. I felt comfortable about how to respond to this woman I had only met two days prior, so I simply said yes and continued my day. The ways in which this experience this week affected my perception of the effects of stereotypes on people, is that people still believe in to them without considering that not all people are the same regardless of there background or culture.

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

For this blog assignment for this week we are required to interview three people (one whom as to be of a different culture, ethnicity, or background) and ask them what's their definition of culture and diversity these are the responses I received.

Friend:I'd say culture is the way of life for a particular group and how that lifestyle shapes them.. environment, traditions.. diversity is what makes something different than the next.. diversity kinda makes culture.

Sibling:Definition of culture a person environment what shapes them . Diversity : different backgrounds for  example this neighborhood is diverse meaning different types of people  from different ethnicities, races, and backgrounds live here.

Some one of a different race: my definition of culture means traditions passed along from generation to generation that are still practiced today, along with how you environment effects these traditions. How I would define diversity is by identifying someone culture and determining the differences.

The aspects of culture and diversity that I have studied in this course that are included in the answers I received is that diversity can be defined in many different way no one person has the same definition. The aspect I would omit is the stereotypes when it comes to culture that based on how someone looks you assume what culture they belong to. For example if I was to see an Indian person I can assume she is buddhist or Hindu. When think about other people's definition of culture and diversity it has influenced my thinking because it allows me to look deeper in to what the world believes to be culture and how I would be define culture or diversity.

My Family Culture

My Family Culture

If I were among surviving citizen and the emergency government decided it will best serve me to evacuate to another country whose culture was completely different from my own. The three items I would take to represent my culture would be a bible for religious purposes, a recipe book with recipes of soul food dishes, and my family scrap book with pictures and captions.  If there were questions as to what these articles mean to me I would be open and honest about them and allow for question, how I would explain the importance of the bible would be to explain Christianity and how the bible relates to it, the recipe book is important to me because I want to reserve African- American cuisine, and having my family scrap would help me explain my culture and how my life was before having to move. If upon arrival I was told could only keep one personal item and have to give up the other two items I brought with me I would be completely sadden. I would feel as if my families’ culture would be soon forgotten. Insight I gained about myself as a result of this exercise is that reserving my culture is very important to me, and it helps support my self-identity.

When I Think of Research

While taking this eight week course on Building research competency the insight what I have gained about research is that it takes time and dedication as well as discipline. Research requires for one to take his or her self out of the equation in order for the results to be valid. The lesson that I learned about planning, designing and conducting research in early childhood is that it all must be done in an orderly and timely fashion. Some of the challenges I encountered what trying to stick to the facts and not going off my opinion when conducting research, how I met this challenge was staying true to my findings and seeking evidence to back that up. Ways in which my perception of an early childhood professional have been modified as a result of this course has only strengthen my level of respect these professional.  I can only hope to be labeled as a early childhood professional later in my career.

Research Around the World

What are some of the current international research topics?

·         Improving the quality of childcare through parenting enrichment and training of trainers: The Eritrean Model

·         Leadership skills training for Administration and Parent support Training for Caregivers

·         A Guide for Effective schools and Parent Collabration in support of Early Childhood Development Program in Tanzania

What surprising facts/insights/new ideas about early childhood did you gain from exploring this international early childhood website?

“Among others, Landers (1992) and Evans (1998) greatly acknowledge and advocate for the family’s role as a major force in the development and provision of ECD. They perceive the family’s involvement as an indispensable ingredient for sustaining the accomplishments of early childhood programs” I always thought of parent to be an important part of the success the early childhood program after reading the text the term use to describe family involvement was a “indispensable ingredient” which caught my eye because it very rarely used in relation to the early childhood field.  To be an indispensable ingredient means that you are essential to the process without it all things lack.

What other noteworthy information did you find on this website?

I noteworthy information I found on this website is that although it is not advertise in the media, Africa is taking stride to move their early childhood programs to a quality level through research, education, and training.

 

Reference:

Early Childhood Development Virtual University (ECDVU) Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA): Developed and maintained by the University of Victoria, Canada, this virtual university is the international gateway for early childhood research worldwide. Through the link below, you can access ECDVU’s Sub-Saharan Africa portal. The second link takes you to a list of current early childhood research conducted by students in Sub-Saharan Africa.

http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/index.php

http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/major_reports.php

Research that Benefits Children and Families—Uplifting Stories

While completing research for this week's blog about the benefits of research in regards to families and children.  I found an article titled "New Study On Homosexual Parents Tops All Previous Research" by Peter Spriggs. This article raises questions as to whether or not children who are raised by same sex parent are affected negatively in compassion to children who are raised by married mother and father. This topic has often been discussed amongst my colleagues and myself however there was no proof that either side was correct. While reading this article and identifying the conclusion of the research the article stated that "The myths that children of homosexual parents are "no different" from other children and suffer "no harm" from being raised by homosexual parents have been shattered forever." I find this to be a positive research article because it verifies children do not suffer from having same sex parents. Children deserve to be love whether it is in a traditional home or homosexual parent. If we are putting the children first as a child advocate if there is not harm done to the children having homosexual parent then it is our responsibility to promote love.

 

Reference:

New Study On Homosexual Parents Tops All Previous Research (2015) by Peter Spriggs

http://www.frc.org/issuebrief/new-study-on-homosexual-parents-tops-all-previous-research

My Personal Research Journey

The topic I chose was to learn more about is curriculum and assessment guidelines as it relates to early childhood education programs. Why I chose this topic is because not every early childhood education program has the same curriculum and are assessed the same, which cause me to want to research in depth to find out why and what is being done to insure that all children are being assessed accordingly and have a curriculum that is conductive to their success as an early learner. Emphasis is most often times placed on how teachers teach, while is still feel this is an important piece to receiving a quality education, we as advocate for children must not forget what we are teaching our children. Standardized test have been apart of assessing children for years, I am now pleased to see that steps are being made to performance-based assessments that more accurately reflect children's learning. Based on the research of ECLKC (1992):

 National organizations call for schooling to place greater emphasis on:

• Active, hands-on learning
• Conceptual learning that leads to understanding along with acquisition of basic skills
• Meaningful, relevant learning experiences
• Interactive teaching and cooperative learning
• A broad range of relevant content, integrated across traditional subject matter divisions

Curriculum development should take into account the many sources of curriculum:

• Child development knowledge
• Individual characteristics of children
• Knowledge base of various disciplines
• Values of our culture
• Parents' desires
• Knowledge children need to function competently in our society (Spodek, 1988; 1977; in press)

I found these suggestions and practices to be very helpful when building an appropriate curriculum of quality, as well as an effective approach to assessing children. While researching this topic I see their I more to learn and if my colleagues have more insight regarding this topic please feel free to share.

Research:

 

 

What Does Research Say About Early Childhood Education (1992)

http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/tta-system/teaching/eecd/Curriculum/Planning/edudev_art_00421_081806.html

Final Blog Assignment

Throughout this course I have learned a great deal through my research and the research of my colleagues about the early childhood field internationally. Unfortunately I was not about to make any contacts with professionals internationally, however I was able to review several podcast and review my colleagues findings. Although there were several consequences of learning about international early childhood field there were three that stood out to me. I have a new respect for American’s that go oversea to help educate, the effect poverty has on young children, and also develop a deeper understanding of the importance of equity in early childhood education.

Some of my colleagues were able to connect with educators from around the world and shared with us their experiences teaching abroad. These teacher are dedicated to providing children with the quality education they deserve, despite their working conditions and lack of resources. Educators must meet the requirement for the area in which they are teaching in. These educators must deal with the daily challenges of living and working in an unfamiliar environment, while trying to improve the lives of young children.

For many years poverty has been a growing issue, I have only recently studied the effect poverty has on young children. The first eight years of the child’s life is vital to their overall mental and physical wellbeing.  Children growing up in poverty experience, staving, malnutrition, and often lack of medical care. Poverty is the leading cause of death in most countries. With poverty being the leading cause of death, I often wonder how countries will ever get out of poverty. We must educate our youth by providing young children with quality education to insure their future is brighter than that which they live in today. Children living in poverty often display poor cognitive skill, social skills, and have behavioral problems, it is our duty has advocate of education to provide quality service to our youth.

Lastly, equity in early childhood education is not so equal, children living in lower class community, minorities, and children with disabilities of lack the necessary needed in order to be successful. In many countries woman and young girls are not allow to go to school. Law makers believe that only man and young boys should seek proper education. I have found organizations around the world that are seeking to make education available to all.

My goal is to go oversea and change lives, give children whom would have never been available to have quality education a chance to be successful in life. I want to world with improvised families break through poverty. My goal is to use all that I have learnt and share it with those less fortunate  

 

 

 

 

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 3

After exploring the site thoroughly there were many insightful ideas internationally as it related to  early childhood education and my professional goals, starting with the UNESCO which is expected to implement a stronger and better targeted strategy to build peace, eradicate poverty, and achieve inclusive sustainable development by improving the quality, equity and relevance of education.(UNESCO 2009-2014), by eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, and achieving gender equality in education by 2015, with a focus on ensuring girls’ full and equal access to and achievement in basic education of good quality. The UNESCO are making strides to expand learning opportunities particular for girls and woman, which I believe as an early childhood professional is an goal to achieve, girls and woman around the world deserve to have access to quality education. What a joy it is to know that there are others around the world that have the same interested in bettering the lives of young girls and woman. Ensuring that by 2015 all children, particularly girls, children in difficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to, and complete, free and compulsory primary education of good quality. Gender-based discrimination in education has both cause and sequentially will continue to cause poverty. Given the opportunity for girls and woman to advance academically allows everyone around the world to raise out of poverty. Gender must therefore be integrated at all levels of education, from early childhood to higher education, in formal and non-formal settings and from planning infrastructure to training teachers. Countries often promote alternative services for poor children with limited or no access to mainstream early childhood services which can be cost-effective and pedagogically innovative, but often raise concerns about sustainability and quality, this information I find every insightful, how countries believe that because it is cost-effective it is efficient, if these children are not exposed to high quality education how will they come out of the poverty in which they were born into.  

 

Reference:

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sharing web resources

While searching outside links I was lead to an article titled " Report: U.S. should focus on equity in education" which suggests that  Identifying and publicly reporting the teaching staff, programs and services needed to provide a meaningful educational opportunity to all students of every race and income level, including English-language learners and students with disabilities, based on evidence of effective education practices. Adopt and implement a school finance system that will provide equitable and sufficient funding for all students to achieve state content and performance standards.To ensure meaningful and fair evaluations, evidence of student learning should not rely solely on standardized tests. 

This newsletter contains several pieces of important information. And adds to my understanding of equity and excellence in early care and education, for example  Equitable resources may in some cases mean more than equal investment; as is often the case in other advanced nations, it includes the provision of additional resources to address the academic and other needs of low-income students, students with disabilities and English language learners, and for districts and schools serving large concentrations of low-income students and those in remote areas. 

Reference
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/02/19/report-u-s-should-focus-on-equity-in-education/

Getting to Know Your International Contact

While exploring the Harvard University’s “Global Children’s Initiative” website the new ideas and insight I gained about early childhood system around the globe is that as much as we find early childhood education to be vital in the development for children many around the world are believing it to be true as well. Canada has developed a program that nurtures and protects early brain development in the first 1000 days of child’s life. Seeking to improve outcomes for children living in poverty. The program brings together mentors and experts in the fields of early childhood development, innovation systems, and learning communities.

Brazil is taking great strides to ensure that their young learners have life-long success. The NCPI Program is preparing leaders to leverage the science of healthy development in the design and implementation of innovative policies and programs that reduce preventable disparities and promote greater well-being for all Brazilian children and is Building a Brazilian scientific community around early childhood development. NCPI is committed to Building a unified science of child development to explain the early roots of lifelong health, learning, and behavior in Brazil.

Additional information about issues of equity and excellence I acquired from your international sources, is what we do or don't do as individuals, educators, and collectively as society can impede a child's success in learning. These national organizations call for schooling to place greater emphasis on: Active, hands-on learning Conceptual learning that leads to understanding along with acquisition of basic skill Meaningful, relevant learning experiences Interactive teaching and cooperative learning, A broad range of relevant content, integrated across traditional subject matter divisions At the same time, these national organizations unanimously criticize rote memorization, drill and practice on isolated academic skills, teacher lecture, and repetitive seatwork (S. Bredekamp, R.A. Knuth, L.G. Kunesh, and D.D. Shulman 1992) .

Reference:

Harvard University’s “Global Children’s Initiative” website (http://developingchild.harvard.edu/initiatives/global_initiative/),

http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/tta-system/teaching/eecd/Curriculum/Planning/edudev_art_00421_081806.html

Sharing Web Resources

While reading Financial Solutions for Sending and Keeping Children in School, I realized that it is relevant to my current professional development because it represents a sustained vision for the early childhood field and more specifically for the programs that prepare children for future success. The Article speaks about strategies to bring targeted financial services into the field of education. Opportunity international's goal is to impact the education of 2 million children in marginalized countries. The organization offers school improvement loans which made me think, if the organization is offering school loans to low-quality schools in order to improve the quality of education, how the school will pay back the money. The insight I gained is that the Early Childhood Education is a major issue in other countries and it sounds as though organizations are going to making major investments in Early Childhood Education. When understanding how economists, neurosciences, or politicians support the early childhood field the information I gather was that this organization does realize that it takes resources to fund such a huge project and use several unique strategies to fund and preserve funding.   New insights about issues and trends in the early childhood field I gained from exploring the website or e-newsletter, is that poverty and low quality education go hand in hand if we can invest in developing better quality schools, give our children an opportunity to rise against poverty.

Reference

http://issuu.com/opportunity/docs/financial-solutions-for-sending-and_0b7928fa2f90f8

Getting to Know international contacts

Bangui, Central Africa Republic

 

 

Is an area where one child out of five dies before reaching the age of five. Children's health and education is often neglected because families are forced to work long hours looking for diamonds. Bangui has the lowest school enrollment rate, while food prices continue to rise. Basic need and this poor children are suffering, often going without eating for more than 24 hours. After researching Bangui a little further I found out that there is a great amount of violence there, mainly children being targeted, due families faith. 





Sharing Web Resources

American School Board Journal: http://www.asbj.com/TopicsArchive/ImmigrationandDiversity/Promoting-Diversity-in-Your-Schools.html

Title of Article Promoting Diversity in your School

This article caught my eye because all week we have been focusing on the importance of diversity and demographics. This article talks about what diversity is and why It should be promoted in our school. The articles definition of Diversity is a multidimensional, broadly inclusive concept that acknowledges and embraces the richness of human differences. It is vital that a school board define diversity with sufficient clarity, given the inherent ambiguity of the term and the frequently ill-informed debates that surround it.  Community involvement is key in this article stating "No serious discussion of diversity in our public schools can or should take place without community involvement. Practices at the school complement and reinforce the policy through curricular and extracurricular offerings and student services that acknowledge and celebrate student differences. steps to ensure that it is legally sustainable:

• Connect the use of race to educational goals, not just district demographics (which could result in an impermissible quota system).
• Review social science research that examines the interplay between racial diversity and academic achievement or other educational benefits, and apply that research to the district’s context.
• Clearly articulate how and when race is employed to assign students. Avoid using blunt categories that ignore important racial and ethnic nuances within a student population, reflecting “a limited notion of diversity” (e.g., “white” and “nonwhite”).
• Ensure the use of race or ethnicity in student assignment is necessary to realize a discernable effect on student assignment.
• Consider and, where appropriate, try race-neutral alternatives first

My Support

Factors within my daily environment that are supportive to me are my friends and family they provide support in my daily environment by being great cheerleaders in providing me with guidance as well, when it is needed. If my family and friends were not a part of my life I don't think I would not be the person I am today. Factors within my work environment that are supportive to me, is that my work environment is transparent with open communication. I feel that at work my feelings are valued, and we have a give and take system, we work as a team to get goals and tasks accomplished with strong team spirit, we praise each other for a good job and well done. I also find a great amount of support in my local church, my fellow church member encourage me to live out my purpose and to live according to my faith. 

A challenge that comes to mind when I think of support, is feeling like you have to live up to your supporters expectations and feeling as if you are a failure when those expectation are not meet. The benefits to having supports makes you feel as if someone is in your corner, providing praise and recognition for goals or tasks you have accomplished. If my supporters were not apart of my life I do not think I would have made it thus far. There has been time when I felt like giving up, and not finishing something I have started it was my supporters who encouraged me to with stand the course and continue on.

My Connections to Play

"The essence of childhood, of course, is play, which my friends and I did endlessly on the street that we reluctantly shared with traffic" -Bill Cosby 

 “Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.” - Fred Rogers

 people supported play when I was younger  by allowing us to play free, we made our own rules and handle differences without parental involvement. Playing was extremely important to me during my childhood, playing kickball, dodge ball, and yes even football was my all time favorite way to pass time. 

I feel play is extremely different now, children are not as active as they were when I was growing up. Technology has taken over instead of being outside enjoying nature many children prefer to play video games or use some sort of technology in place of active play. My hope for younger children now is that they get active and enjoy nature and all it has to offer. Even now as an adult I more enjoyable to be outside being active than I do spending hours watching television or engaged in some sort of technology.   

Relationship Reflection

Relationships are important to me because they provide a sense of identity, happiness and fulfillment





Several People I have positive relationships with:

My Best friend Zia Mose we met is my freshmen year of college. We have been friends for 6 years, she is a very positive figure in my life. I am able to be myself around her and confided in her. While having such a long close relationship the challenges we have faced has been obstacles that has taught me to listen more than I speak. Our relationship has lasted so long because we both realize our minor disagreements are not worth losing the love we have for each other. My relationship with Zia has impacted my work as an effective early childhood professional because she keeps me in good spirit just speaking with her on a daily bases keep me lifted. 

My sister Anita Alston-Ellis has always been an positive force in my life. She provide me with great insight and wisdom and leads by example. Having such an exceptional sister whom has accomplished so much in life has taught me to remain focus on my dreams and despite the obstacles that may come my way if I remain focused I will prevail. The challenges I face in our relationship is trying decipher whether the advice my sister gives me is her being a over protective sister or genuinely giving be advice she would take. My relationship with Anita has impacted my work as an effective early childhood professional because she contently reminds me to do my best and to keep striving for success. 

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