Welcoming a Family: Thailand

The population for children in different countries continues to grow rapidly in the U.S. For that reason, there is no surprise that I will be involved with diverse students during my journey as an early childhood professional.

I am going to imagine that I am a worker in the early childhood setting who has been notified that I will be working with a child who is from another country. The classroom is the early childhood setting I have chosen to work for and Thailand is the family's country. Here are the five ways I will prepare myself to be culturally responsive towards this family:

* Research the family's country. Learn the language they speak and how they communicate, activities they engage in, and the types of food they eat.
* Ask other professionals for their opinions and experiences about teaching diverse children. Find out their challenges and what strategies worked for them.
*Revisit personal biases. By doing so, this will allow me to provide the family with fair opportunities.
*Include pictures and activities in the classroom that are related to the family's country. This will bring comfort to the child and also awareness to the child's classmates.
*Set an appointment to speak with the family before hand. Understand what their goals are for their child.

I can only hope that this preparation can bring peace to myself and the family. I want them to feel comfortable, respected, and included. If the family feels comfortable, they may be motivated to communicate with me about anything and be involved in their child's education. I also hope that I can establish trust and a great relationship with the child and family. If the preparation shows to be successful, I will share them with professionals and other workers who work in an early childhood setting.

Prejudice

I have witnessed one of my friends as a target of prejudice. While enrolled in a graduate school in Missouri, I met a wonderful person by the name of Samantha. Samantha is Caucasian and is a very kind person. Whenever I needed help or guidance, she was always there to lend her support. One night, Samantha and I decided to go to a party. Once we were inside the party, I saw some of my classmates on the dance floor having a good time. As Samantha and I were walking towards them, I noticed they began to whisper and rolled their eyes. I pulled one of my classmates to the side and the conversation went as followed;

Me: What's wrong?
Kasey: Why did you bring her to this party? All of the white people in this town are racist and arrogant.
Me: No. She is very nice and so is her family.
Kasey: Well I don't like her and she looks stuck up anyway, but I guess you guys can hand around us.

After they continued to have a negative attitude towards her, we decided to leave and headed back to our dorm rooms. Fairness was indeed diminished in this incident.They formed an opinion about her without knowing who she really was. They did not try to get to know Samantha and judged her based off her appearance and skin color. They assumed that all white people were the same.

This incident brought a great deal of sadness to me. I could tell that Samantha was embarrassed and upset by the way my classmates treated her. We never really addressed the issue but at this point, I feel that we should have. In order for this incident to have changed into an opportunity for greater equity, my classmates would need a different mindset. They would have to change the way they think of others race and not judge others based on their skin color.

Question:

Do you think we did the right thing by leaving the party? Or should we have stayed and ignored the attitudes?

Racism

Racism, unfortunately, is an ongoing issue and continues to affect everyone around the world. No matter what your ethnic background or skin color consist of, anyone can be a victim of racism.

My experience

 About two weeks ago, my boyfriend and I went out to eat at a local restaurant where we often visit. The food is delicious and the restaurant owners and workers are always nice to everyone. We are usually the only blacks to come and sit in the restaurant. As we walked passed a Caucasian male and female's table to pay our dinner, I heard the man say quickly, "move your purse, you know they like to steal," she instantly moved it. I was shocked and offended by the comment. The comments were intentional and invalidated my identity based on my skin color. The hidden message to me was that the people of my race are criminals. I was a little angry but saddened when I realized I was a target. I noticed several other people walked by their table and she never once grabbed her purse at those times. 

After experiencing this, I felt marginalized and became aware of the fact that discrimination, prejudice, and stereotypes can affect anyone. I am also beginning to feel that I do not desire to return to the restaurant but I'm sure I will eventually. I have found that this can leave an individual or group feeling belittled and not worthy. I believe that it is unfair and unnecessary to stereotype and discriminate anyone. 

To my Colleagues;

Would you have confronted the customer about the comments or just walked away from it like I did? Does confronting someone or explaining to someone about the hurt they have caused resolves anything?

Perspectives on Culture and Diversity

How do others define culture and diversity?

Three of my friends shared their definitions of diversity and culture.

1. Mr. Lopez defines culture as a family's lifestyle and diversity is the different ethnic backgrounds in families.

2. Jason stated that culture is something that everyone is born into and is accustomed to. Diversity consist of people who have different ideas and cultures.

3. Leroy defines culture as a family's way of living. Cultures have their own belief system and what they believe should be valued in life. Diversity can be identified when you are surrounded by people or groups who are different from you.

 The aspects of culture being a lifestyle and diversity is identified by being around others who are different from you is what I have learned thus far in this course. For instance, family's culture can be identified by their clothing styles, housing arrangements, and the types of food they eat. One example that comes to mind about diversity is when a disabled child is among peers who do not have a disability.

One thing my friends omitted is that people's thoughts about what is "right" and what is "wrong" is influenced by their cultures. For instance, some people believe worshiping God is wrong while others may think that this is the right thing to do. One aspect of diversity that was forgotten by my friends is that diversity can be found in family's languages. Thinking about other people's definitions about culture and diversity has indeed influenced my own thinking about these topics. It's amazing to me how my friend's definitions were worded differently but are actually the same. Also, communicating with my friends made me realize that culture and diversity is not a topic that we often discuss with each other or our families. I wonder how often do people converse with others about diversity and culture?

Colleagues, what are your thoughts?

Culture

"No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive" - Mahatma Gandhi

As an African American woman, culture is a big deal in my community. Thus, if a catastrophe occurred and my family and I were forced to leave the country, there are three small items that I would bring with me:

Hair is very important in the black community. We take pride in it because it is so difficult to manage and must be cared for daily. Going into another country, I may not have access to the type of comb that is needed for my particular hair. Wide tooth combs are the best choice for my coarse, thick hair.




Music is love in the black community. Rhythm and blues, hip hop, gospel, and contemporary are just a few of the categories that sparks our interest. During a cook out, you can guarantee that music and dancing will be the highlight of the day. Music is relaxing and eases stress.





Life is spiritual. In a black church, it is usually lively, as individuals will stand up and shout to praise God. Bringing this along with me will remind me of my culture and how it has influenced my life.

I would explain to others that each of these play a major role in my daily life. I listen to music and thank God each day for his many blessings. Also, I care for my hair daily because it is a part of my appearance and represents my ethnicity. In fact, I would be very depressed if I was told upon arrival that I could only bring one item. Having to relocate and losing majority of my items would be stressful enough. I would be devastated if I couldn't bring a few items that were important to me.

What I have learned from this exercise is that things we do in our daily lives represents our culture. For a long period of time, I wasn't aware that these things were considered cultural. Because I incorporate these items on a day to day basis, I assumed that everyone else did the same as well.

When I think of research....

When I think of research, I think of the word "investigation". Here are a few insights I have gained about research from taking course:

*credible sources are needed
*ethical concerns must be considered
*choose a topic that is of interest to you
*choose a research design that is beneficial for your study
*reading previous research on your topic is needed

My thoughts about doing research has indeed changed. I feel more comfortable with conducting research, as I have pondered on the benefits that it could bring to the field. I have learned that planning your research saves time. In addition, researchers should choose a design that will allow them to collect as much data as possible to have validity in their findings. When conducting research, researchers must follow proper procedures as ethical concerns must be considered and addressed.

At first, creating a literature review was difficult for me. I was not sure if I was writing it correctly and felt a little defeated. In order for me to understand the assignment better, I read the required resource for that week numerous of times. Another challenge I encountered was choosing a research design that worked for my study. After reading about the mixed method approach, I was relieved that I could use a mixture of designs to collect my data.

I have gained much more respect for professionals in the early childhood field. There is so much work and time that these professionals put towards their careers. They strive to make a difference in a child's life in so many ways and continue to change lives.

Taking this course was very beneficial. The insights I have gained will take me very far in this field. I also appreciate my colleagues for taking out their time to respond and give feedback on my blog and discussion post. I enjoyed each of you and wish you the best of luck on your future success.

Thanks,

Latasha

Early Childhood Development Virtual University......

The ECDVU is a training program that was established to address early childhood care and development. The website shares a variety of research reports that was done by students which include;

* Assessment of interaction and stimulation in single-mother low income families

* Curriculum development using community resources

* The status of coordination and supervision of early childhood education in Ghana

* Building community leadership for quality sustainability in Madrasa Preschools: The case of Madrasa Preschools post graduation support

* Pilot study of the adaptation of an established measure to assess the quality of child services in a selected orphanage in Zambia: The inclusive quality assessment (IQA) tool

What I find surprising is that there are numerous of programs in other countries that focus on the quality of life for children and their families. In fact, I have never heard of the different programs until I decided to further my education in the early childhood field. One fact that I was very interested in was ECDVU's aim to build capacity through identifying indigenous knowledge. The reason being is because I can recall choosing to define the word indigenous in my research chart :)

*Noteworthy information*

One piece of information that I wanted to share is that you have to be nominated by the early childhood development country committee in order to be accepted in the training program. Once accepted, students are required to complete six courses and must take on the duty to promote the program's capacity in their country and internationally.