A Great Communicator

When thinking of someone who is a competent communicator, Maya Angelou was the first person who popped into my head. There are many contexts in which someone can be a competent communicator; Maya Angelou is effective both as a writer and as a speaker.

Maya Angelou not only has powerful writing/poetry, but she is a wonderful speaker. I had the honor of attending an event at which she spoke at and was amazed at her eloquence, confidence, and the beauty of her words.  I think that Maya Angelou is an effective communicator because she understands and uses the power of words, choosing them carefully to send her messages. At the same time, she speaks clearly and confidently; listening to her is amazing.

I am a shy and quiet person, I often fumble trying to find the right word and dread speaking in front of a lot of people… I would love to have the confidence and grace that Maya Angelou does when communicating with others!

Professional Hopes and Goals

When I think about working with children and families from diverse backgrounds, the main hope that I have is that my colleagues and I will be able to build a strong relationship with every family and help all the children we work with reach their full developmental potential. I hope that I will continue to grow as a teacher and practice anti-bias education to help build a strong foundation that will help children embrace diversity and develop positive self-identities.

One goal that I would like to set forth for the early childhood field is for us as educators to continue to grow and work towards bettering ourselves and our field. I would love to see more trainings available, especially ones that focus on diversity issues such as equity and social justice; these topics are so relevant in today’s society and deserve more attention!

I would also like to say thank you to my colleagues for sharing their insights and perspectives, providing support, and helping me grow personally and professionally; I have learned so much from you and am looking forward to continuing this journey and learning more with you! Thank you!

Welcoming Families From Around the World

If I were to welcome a family to my preschool from Iceland, a country that I know nothing about, I would first need to prepare myself and my students so that we could be more receptive and culturally responsive. To do this, I would:

1. Research: I would find out more general information about Iceland, the people living there, the housing, food, religion, and languages spoken to get an idea of what I might expect. I would have to keep in mind that this family may not follow any of these generalities so I cannot make assumptions. However, I think that learning more about the country would give me some background knowledge and sharing what I have learned with my students would be a great way to help them learn more about another country and see that people around the world do things differently and that that’s ok. In addition to this, I would do some research on the deep culture of Iceland, such as the typical gender roles, roles of the child, school system, relationships, and interactions. It would be important for me to keep in mind that the family joining my program may not fit what I read and so I would have to make sure that I didn’t make any preemptive assumptions about them and their ways, beliefs, and values.

2. Learn: I would learn a few essential and basic Icelandic words, such as hello, toilet, hungry, etc. and practice them with my students. Showing the new student and her family that we want to communicate with them and are interested in learning about their language can help get us off to a good start. Learning these words would also help me communicate with the child and better meet her needs.

3. Ask Questions: I would like to set up a conference with the parent(s) to find out more about them, their family, their child, their needs, and their goals for the child. At this point, I could also ask them any questions that I had about their child or culture so that I could better my understanding. Emailing them before they start the preschool could serve as a welcome as well as a way for me to ask them questions and for them to ask me questions and address any concerns.

4. Find Materials: I would try and find some Icelandic children’s music and play it in the classroom for the students to listen to. I would also try to find some books in Icelandic and incorporate them into the classroom library. This could also help the student feel more welcome and give her something familiar as well as something fun for all of the students to learn from and engage in.

5. Use Resources: I know nothing about Iceland nor do I know anyone from Iceland or with any connection to it. However, I would try to locate a local Icelandic group in the community (if there is one) and ask them questions to help better my understanding. Having someone as a resource could help provide me with more information about the deep culture of Iceland and this group/person could also be a resource that I could pass on to the family. 

Ultimately, to be culturally responsive, I must be willing to be flexible and adapt my practices. The child and family may do things completely opposite from what I am used to but doing the above five things can help prepare me or at least open my mind to new ideas and possibilities. Hopefully my effort will make the family feel welcome and willing to share aspects of their culture with me and the class. Being willing to work with the family, learn from them, and incorporate what I have learned into the classroom will not only help them feel valued but will help the child feel welcomed and safe.   

Side Note: After thinking about this assignment and realizing that I know absolutely nothing about Iceland, I was actually curious to find out more about the Icelandic culture and I ended up learning some interesting things after skimming through some information on Iceland.

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice and Oppression

My parents are not religious and did not take me and my siblings to church but encouraged us to decide for ourselves what we believed in. However, I grew up in a predominately Catholic community and almost all of my friends attended church and religious events. As a child, I just thought that I was different because I did not go to these things with them and did not give it much thought. This changed when I was around 5 and one of my best friends began telling me some of the things that her and her family believed in, such as Heaven and Hell. I told her that I did not know about this and she was surprised but we kept playing. The next day when I knocked on her door, her mom answered and said that she could not play with me. She then stepped outside and told me that my family and I were going to burn in Hell unless we started attending church. I was scared and could not say anything back. She looked at me one last time and said, “My child cannot play with a sinner like you,” walked inside and closed the door. At the time, being so young, I did not really understand what she was saying or what she meant but I was terrified. I did not want my family to burn, I did not want to be a sinner, and I wanted to play with my friend. Unfortunately, this was not the last time that I had a negative experience when someone found out that I am agnostic.

The main feeling that I had when I experienced this as a child was confusion; I did not understand how someone could be so mean to me and tell me that my family would burn in Hell. As I grew older, I was sad when people would make assumptions about me when they found out that I was not religious. Most of the time it is easy to not discuss my religious beliefs and a lot of times this is not an issue for me. I respect other people’s religions; I bow my head when others pray, I smile when people say “God bless you,” but I do sometimes feel as though I am on the outside and am offended when people try to push their religions on me. When I was pregnant, a lady on the street stopped me and after talking to her for a few minutes about my pregnancy, she asked me if she could pray with me. I told her no thank you and she grabbed my hand and asked why I didn’t want to pray for my baby. I told her I am not religious and she quickly grabbed me, put her hands on my stomach and began to pray that my baby could be saved from my sins, then told me that I should change my sinful ways and save my child. While this may seem harmless, it was very offensive and demeaning to me; nobody should be told that their way of living is wrong and needs to be changed just because they are different.

Incidents such as these diminish equity because nobody deserves to be thought of as less of a person because they do not share the same views as somebody else. I have accepted the fact that I live in a society where my religious views are not the norm and that my calendar is organized around this, but I do not accept people trying to push their views on me. To me, this is demeaning because I am not less of a person than anyone else is because of my private, religious beliefs. In order for greater equity to occur, people need to be more tolerant and accepting of other’s religious views; it saddens me when I hear about people targeted for their religious beliefs and that violence that occurs over differences in religion. My experiences with people's biases and prejudices against my religious views have taught me to be more open minded about others; because of this I have friends from many different religions and love that we all have different ways of looking at life. I believe that religion is something personal and individual so we cannot make broad assumptions about people based on what they do or do not believe in-nor should we think of them as anything less if their views differ than our own. Learning about others, accepting that people all have different beliefs, values, and opinions, and not only tolerating this but respecting it as well is the only way that we can work to achieve equity. Hopefully teaching this to the children that we work with will help shape the next generation to be more accepting and respectful of everyone.

Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

Over this past week, I have kept an open ear out for microaggressions. Unfortunately, I heard more than I had guessed I would and often times had to stop and think “did that person really just say that?!” The microaggressions I heard covered a wide range of things: race, gender, sexuality, and religion. The one that I would like to share here happened this week at the center I work at.

My colleagues and I had walked the children over to the playground and as soon as we got there they began to run excitedly over to the play structure. The janitor happened to be standing nearby and remarked to the (Hispanic) mother who had just walked up “hey is your kid legal?” the mother replied “sorry?” and he said “you know, is she a citizen…this is how they run down at the border. I would bet that half of these guys are illegals and yours looks like she’s had a lot of recent practice…maybe that’s how she came to school today!” The janitor laughed at his “joke” and walked away; the mother stood there, seemingly unsure of what to say.

This scenario is an example of a microassualt and microinsult. The janitor not only questioned the child’s citizenship based on her ethnicity but racially stereotyped her family. Although he was “joking” and thought that his comment was funny, the mother of the child appeared to be hurt and unsure of what to say; fortunately, the child appeared to not have heard the comment.

Living so close to the international border between the US and Mexico (less than 10 miles north), a lot of the microaggressions I heard had a lot to do with ethnicity and citizenship. One thing that I noticed was that microassaults occurred even between people of the same ethnicity (mainly over issues of citizenship and immigration status); I even heard people of the same ethnicity using derogatory racial/immigration slurs to each other. In the above scenario, the janitor and the mother were both Hispanic but he held power over her as he was able to question her family’s citizenship and immigration status.

When I heard this microaggression, I was uncomfortable and did not really know how to react. On the one hand, it could seem easy to pretend as if I had never heard it; but not only would that make me uncomfortable, that is just perpetuating the cycle and I want the mother and child to feel welcome at the center and know that we do not share the same beliefs and stereotypes that the janitor insinuated. On the other hand, knowing the janitor, I feel that if he was confronted he would dismiss his comment as a joke, and even possibly feel that it was ok to say it because they are of the same ethnicity, therefore engaging in a microinvalidation. My solution was to approach the mother and apologize for his insensitive comment and later approach my director to remark on what had happened.  

After listening carefully to what people are saying, the main thing that came to my mind was that sometimes microaggressions can be so subtle or brief that we may not even acknowledge them until it’s too late. I observed that in most cases the speaker was using a friendly, even joking, tone and continued on without even missing a beat. I am wondering how many microaggressions I may have missed; learning about microaggressions and their effects has taught me to think about how my questions and comments to others come across and to think about what the consequences may be. 

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

From asking one simple question “What is your definition of culture and diversity?” I received some really interesting answers from the people I asked. I chose people who differ from me in some aspects: age, ethnicity, religion, marital status, and class. Here are the answers that I received:

Elizabeth: “I think that culture is the traditions and customs of the people you are surrounded by do. For most people, that would mean the traditions and customs of their family but if you don’t grow up around your family then it would just be the people you are around. Diversity to me is the cultural differences between people, so it would be differences in traditions and customs.”

Bree: “Culture is the attitudes, customs, traditions, and beliefs that are widely held throughout a society or nation. Some things could be types of food, ways of dress, and common ideas. Diversity in regard to humanity would be when people from different cultures are grouped together in a single society. Instead of all members of a community or nation having the same culture, different cultures would live alongside one another.”

Allison: “I would say that culture is created by the shared experience of a group. The group could be connected to identity with a certain ethnicity, nationality, religion, social group, etc. Cultures usually center around certain traditions and values that all members of the group consider important. These may include symbols of unity through dress or common linguistic phrases. I would say that diversity is positive differences between people. These may come in the form of race, language, culture, ethnicity, nationality, religion, social class, gender, sexuality, background experience, and opinions.”

The people I asked included aspects of surface culture such as food, clothing, and customs and related their answers to family and society, leaving out some aspects of deep culture such as housing arrangements, intergenerational interactions, extended family relationships, roles, migration, and work . However, I was pleasantly surprised at the answers I received and I the people that I asked this question actually followed their responses with their thoughts on why diversity is important. Reflecting upon how others views diversity gave me some new insights into my understanding of culture and diversity as well, mainly that there are many ways to look at a single thing-everyone has his/her own unique perspectives based on their individual culture and experiences. Hearing different but similar answers for one question was a good illustration of diversity in itself; we are diverse in the ways that we think and the perspectives that we have, I liked how one of my respondents even included differences in opinion in her definition of diversity!

My Family Culture

Although imagining that a major catastrophe has devastated the infrastructure of my home country and my family and I must leave to a foreign country is almost unimaginable to me, this may be a reality for many families and children worldwide, including those who are seeking political asylum or are refugees. Imagining that I would have to live somewhere else for an unknown amount of time, possibly permanently, would raise many fears and uncertainties in me.

My son, Jack, sleeping
with my baby blanket (July 2011)

Imagining that on top of this I can only take three possessions with me is difficult.  After much thought I decided that I would take my mother’s recipe box, a family photo album, and my baby blanket. My mother’s recipe box contains recipes from her and both of my grandmothers; it is something that would allow me to preserve a part of my culture and family. Bringing a photo album of my family would help me keep my memories and show my son and future generations their relatives and images from my home country. My baby blanket holds sentimental value to me as my grandmother made it for me when I was born and it is something that I have kept over the years as a comfort and can now pass on to my son.

If after all this, I was told that I could only keep one item, I would be faced with a difficult decision. I do not know what I would choose because these three items all have different significance and meanings to me. The first item, the recipe box, is a way to maintain my culture and what I am familiar with; the second item, a family photo album, is a way to preserve memories and family; and the third item, my baby blanket, is a sentimental comfort item with ties to my family. Thinking about my possessions and what I would chose to bring made me realize that some of the most important things are not necessarily valuable or useful  objects but rather things that are sentimental and I feel connected to; many of my possessions could be replaced but these three could not. Leaving one or more behind would not only be sad but would feel like having to choose which part of me was the least important.

After imagining this scenario, I realize how fortunate I am to be in my home country with my family possessions and culture around me. I can’t imagine the choices that families have to make when moving to a new country along with the other difficulties they face (learning a new language and culture, finding their way around, etc.) all while trying to hold onto their culture/family culture  and succeed in the new country at the same time. One thing that came to mind was that even if I brought these things and tried to hold on to my culture, it may not be passed on if my son chose to assimilate and lose the language and values I have taught him. This made me realize how important it is for us to help respect and preserve the cultures that we see in our classrooms; teaching children to value their own background and family can help create a safe and welcoming space that embraces all the children and families we work with as well as helping preserve and honor their cultural ties and backgrounds.