Welcoming Families From Around the World

For this assignment, imagine the following scenario:

You are working in an early childhood setting of your choice—a hospital, a child care center, a social service agency. You receive word that the child of a family who has recently emigrated from a country you know nothing about will join your group soon. You want to prepare yourself to welcome the child and her family. Luckily, you are enrolled in a course about diversity and have learned that in order to support families who have immigrated you need to know more than surface facts about their country of origin.

The name of “your” family’s country of origin: India

At least five ways in which you will prepare yourself to be culturally responsive towards this family:

1.      I will learn some of their customs to help them feel welcome. For example, when Indian people greet each other they place their hands together and say ‘Namaste’. 

2.      I will incorporate some of India’s music into my program. The unique sound of India's music is often created with an Indian instrument called a sitar.  This instrument looks similar to a guitar, except that it has a very long neck.

3.      I would learn more about what types of food and drink they like. Many of India's people are vegetarians, meaning they don't eat meat.   Hindus believe that the cow is a sacred animal and never eat beef.

4.      I would learn about their holidays and celebrations, like Diwali. Diwali is a joyous celebration that takes place on the last day of the last month in the lunar calendar.  This is usually at the end of October.  During this five day holiday, people light oil lamps and set off fireworks.

5.      I will learn about family structures and how they are the same and/or different then family structures in America.

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

Taking the time to learn about the family and their culture will help them feel welcome and be the building blocks to the positive relationships needed to help the children learn and grow to the best of their ability. It will benefit me because I will be learning how to incorporate new family’s from diverse backgrounds into my classroom.

Brandie

References

Zimmerman, K. A. (2015). Indian Culture: Traditions and Customs of India. Retrieved from http://www.livescience.com/28634-indian-culture.html

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

• What memory do you have of an incident when you experienced bias, prejudice, and/or oppression, or witnessed someone else as the target of bias, prejudice, and/or oppression? Keep in mind that one can encounter such incidents in real contexts, including online environments, as well as in fictional ones, such as movies, books, television shows, and the like.

I do not have any personal incidents when I personally experienced bias, prejudice, and/or oppression. When I think of those things the movie that springs straight to mind is Forrest Gump, one of my all time favorite movies. All throughout the movie Forrest is overcoming bias, prejudice and oppression because of who he is. In the beginning of the movie his mom is being told he can't go to public school because his IQ test he scored just under the norm. He was picked on and bullied but still accomplished great things in his life because he never gave up.

• In what way(s) did the specific bias, prejudice and/or oppression in that incident diminish equity?

Equity was diminished in the movie because every time you turned around Forest was being treated as if he was not good enough. Every person deserves the right to an education and to be treated with respect. 

• What feelings did this incident bring up for you?

This movie mad me angry whenever Forrest wasn't being treated fairly. It made me want to be in the movie so that I could let him sit on the bus next to me! No person should be made to feel less than another.

• What and/or who would have to change in order to turn this incident into an opportunity for greater equity?

I would have educated the teachers and students that different does not equal wrong. 

Brandie

Microaggression

         This week we have been learning about microagressions, most of the time unintended insults.  For this weeks blog assignment we need to be conscience of what was going on around us. My sister-in-law and I sell LuLaRoe. It is a newer direct sales clothing boutique that makes stylish but super comfortable clothes in sizes 2 T to 3 XL and the softest leggings you will ever wear (shameless plug:o)). We were at an event and a wife had stopped in to look at the clothes and fell in love with a shirt. She pulled it out a couple of times and talked about how she loved the colors. We talked for a bit and she walked to check out the next vendor booth. About 20 minutes later she comes back with her husband to show him the shirt she really liked. She was a heavier lady, He looked at her and then the shirt and said, "That shirt will never fit your arms." Her face fell. He looked clueless. He did not even realize his comment had hurt is wife. I felt so bad for her. She kinda nodded and walked away and he soon followed.

         This weeks observations has affected my perceptions of the effects of discrimination, prejudice and stereotypes on people. It showed me that we really need to think before we speak. That we unconsciously can really hurt a person with what we say. I think that the saying is true, that physical hurts can heal and go away over time but words always stay with us. We might not think we are prejudice, discriminate or perpetuate stereotypes but we are with the unconscious comments we all make sometimes.

Brandie

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

I ask three people their definition of culture and diversity:

1.       Culture is a group of people who believe in and have the same values and ideals.

             Diversity is everyone’s different sets of values and beliefs.

2.      Culture is the language we speak, the food we eat, how we interact with others.

Diversity is everyone’s uniqueness. Things that make us different from one another.

3.      Culture is a person’s traditions, language we speak, religious beliefs. Culture is the things we share with others.

Diversity is a person’s gender, sexual orientation, religion, and beliefs. They are the things that make us different.

This assignment was fun, it was interesting to learn about different people’s definition of culture and diversity. There seemed to be a common theme in the definitions. Culture was things we had in common and diversity were things that were the same.  These definitions follow what we have been learning about culture and diversity these last couple of weeks.

This was a fun and interesting assignment. Learning about other people’s definition on culture and diversity made me think about my own definitions. Diversity is the things that make each of us unique. It is vital to accept and respect these differences. The languages we speak, the holidays we celebrate, how we dress, what we eat, all of these things and more go into diversity. Our cultures are the unspoken rules we live by that influence our daily lives without conscience thought, our beliefs, morals, and values.

Brandie

My Family Culture

Imagine the following:

A major catastrophe has almost completely devastated the infrastructure of your country. The emergency government has decided that the surviving citizens will be best served if they are evacuated to other countries willing to take refugees. You and your immediate family are among the survivors of this catastrophic event. However, you have absolutely no input into the final destination or in any other evacuation details. You are told that your host country’s culture is completely different from your own, and that you might have to stay there permanently. You are further told that, in addition to one change of clothes, you can only take 3 small items with you. You decide to take three items that you hold dear and that represent your family culture...

If a major catastrophe had almost completely devastated the infrastructure of the United States and me and my immediate family had to evacuate I would not be worried about taking anything with me, all I would need is my family. In my family, family is crucial. Things are just that things, they really don't mean anything. 

I would explain to others that within my family culture that our families are what is essential to us not things. It is vital to spend and celebrate life together, the little and the big moments. What I hope to pass down to my children is what my parents passed down to me,  that your family will always be there for you and they are important. That things are just things and there will be things in life that we value and treasure but nothing should be more important than family. 

An insight that I gained about my self and my family culture is that, I believe sadly, not all families feel this way. Many people joke that my family is intimidating at first. We are a loud, loving, crazy family. We fight but we always forgive. We celebrate the good and help pick up the pieces when it is bad. I realized with this assignment that who cares what I could bring or couldn't bring with me as long as my family was together. 

Brandie 

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Reflection

When I started this course I was so worried, I cringed at the idea of research and all that goes into it. I have gained many insights about research from taking this course. For one research is not cringe worthy at all. There is a lot of work that goes into research, that is still true, but when you are intrinsically motivated to find the answers to your question it does not feel like work at all. It was fun to learn all about research with the research simulation application project. Each week adding more and more to the simulation was an easier way to learn about all of the different aspects that go into research projects.

Research helps us “understand, explain and make sense of life experiences” (Mac Naughton, Rolfe, & Siraji-Blatchford, 2010, p. 6). Through this course I have learned that there are some basic principles that show up across the board when it comes to quality research. “Quality research is always ethical, purposeful, well designed, transparent, contextualized, credible, careful, imaginative and equitable” (Mac Naughton et al., 2010, p. 10). It is vital to conduct quality research to establish validity.

A challenge I encountered was figuring out the difference between qualitative and quantitative approaches and keeping them straight in my head. I have learned that qualitative approach involves the collection of non-numerical data and are used by researchers that seek understanding rather than explanation. Quantitative approach deals with numerical data and is used by researchers to determine and/or explain relationships (Mac Naughton et al., 2010). I enjoyed this course more than I thought I would. I really enjoyed reading the blogs and discussions of my fellow classmates. They were very informative and I learn a plethora of vital information from them. I will you luck in your continued educational journey for your Master’s degree and hope to see you all in future courses.

Brandie

References

Mac Naughton, G., Rolfe, S. A., & Siraji-Blatchford, I. (2010). Doing early childhood research (2nd ed.). Missouri: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

Research Around the Word

          For this blog assignment we needed to research some of the current international research topics. It was a fun and interesting assignment. I visited many different websites and explored the different topics being researched around the world. Here are some of the research topics I found from the UNICEF website http://www.unicef-irc.org/ "Research supported by UNICEF – whether undertaken with partners or independently – takes place across a range of geographic, social and economic settings and needs to respond to different thematic priorities and accommodate different levels of research capacity" 

I found a wonderful publication from UNICEF that is called The Best of UNICEF Research, this publication  presents the top 12 studies. It is an annual publication "that promotes the sharing and recognition of quality research for children". 

https://flipflashpages.uniflip.com/3/97869/342422/pub/html5.html#page/1

One of the studies was about a recent research study by UNICEF in East Asia and the Pacific. This research "has broken new ground by gathering data on child maltreatment from every country in the region and by developing a model from which the minimum economic associated costs can be established" (p. 7)

Another study was Water Sanitation and hygiene in Bolivian schools; Empowering girls through WASH. (WASH: WAter, Sanitation, and Hygiene)

The Best of UNICEF Research was a wonderful read and I learned so much about the many research projects around the world. I recommend if you get a chance to check it out.

Brandie Madrid

Resource

https://flipflashpages.uniflip.com/3/97869/342422/pub/html5.html#page/1

http://www.unicef-irc.org/