Thank you for all your support in this course

The hope that I have when I think of working with children and families from diverse background will be more resources available for them to use to support their home culture in a new culture, and children and colleagues will value diversity and equity as a natural thing in their lives too.

The goal that I would like to set up in early childhood education field is to make sure children from various cultural background have the equal rights and treatment in school environment regardless of their differences from the dominant culture.

Thank you for all my colleagues and the profession helping me through the course. I liked this course a lot, as I have learned many new things that can benefit myself and children in my class as well. Thank you for the comments that Professor Tammy made for my assignments, which inspired me doing a better work later on, and thank you for all the postings, interesting stories, and comments from my colleagues as well, you broaden my horizon of the knowledge and the world around me. I hope I can work with you all soon again.

Indian family

The family in my scenario are from India, and the setting is a child care center.

The first thing I will do is to make their culture to be seen or felt in the classroom. As a new child in a new environment, if he/she can find something that is related to his/her culture, he/she will feel safe and comfortable in the new school setting. The culture of India in the classroom can be some posters of their culture’s celebrations, dolls of their skin color, the language display, the story books of India or Indian folk tales. In this way, the child will feel that he/she is related or bound with the new environment to help the child settle in school. Meanwhile, it is a good sign for parents to know that their culture is respected in school, and their family is welcomed by school.

The second thing I would do is to get to know some knowledge of India and Indian culture about children. I want to find out if there is something special in Indian culture about children. In China, children will wear jade and a red string when it is their zodiac year, so I would like to know if there is something similar to that in India too. It helps me answer the questions from other kids about India and their culture as well.

The third thing that I would do is that I would like to reflect on myself to see if I have any bias or prejudice about people from India. I have to make sure that I treat this child equally.  Meanwhile, I am the model for other children to copy and follow as well. It is important for me to show my equity and justice to everyone.

The fourth thing will be cultural related activities. I hope my children in the class can be open minded and caring to people around them regardless of their skin colors, cultural backgrounds, or languages. As a teacher I will organize and plan some cultural related activities for children to engage in to get to know other cultures better, and to offer a chance for others to get to know the new comer.

The fifth thing that I would do is to get to know the family. Only knowing of the Indian culture is not good enough to help me understand the family better, as each family has their unique home culture. I would start and take the initiative to talk to parents to have some specific knowledge of this family to figure out the best way to support their home culture at school.

Doing the above five things I think is a win-win strategy. Family and the child can settle down in the new environment with my help, and they will feel comfortable to talk to me anything that they want to share with me. They will feel respected and valued at school. They also will know that their home culture is supported by school as well.Meanwhile, I build up a good relationship with the family, so I have their support to help the child to integrate into the new school setting. For me, I have a chance to practice and respect diversity in my classroom, and it helps me rich my teaching activities. I hope the five strategies work out, so I can have a general idea of what do to with new students from a different cultural background, and I can help the family out when they need my help. 

My own experience of bias and prejudices

I was interested in dancing when I was in 6 grade, so I volunteered to be a member of dancing club. When I was signed up, nobody said no to me or was upset about my presence. By the time, it was my school’s 60 years anniversary, so we were supposed to have 3 dances to be performed in that celebration. I was practicing and learning with all other children all the time for six weeks, and I knew the three dances by heart, and I was one of the best ones. Until one day, a teacher came, looked at us, and told the coach that I might not be able to perform at the celebration, as I am not tall enough! I admitted that I was the shortest one among the girls, but I was the best one among them as well. The teacher even did not have a look at my dance to make the decision to kick me out. I was working so hard on practicing for the whole 6 weeks. I was really sad and disappointed. 

The teacher had the bias to say all the dancers must be slim and tall, and if I was not as tall as others or I was the shortest one, I should not be even in the club at all. She even would not give me a chance to see how I danced to decide if I was qualified or not. She did not give me any chance to prove myself. I could not have my voice heard either, as she was the authority back then.

The incident made me feel really sad, upset, and angry. I felt I was treated differently and I was not even able to say anything for myself. Meanwhile, I felt like in the future I should be a person of sympathy, and I should respect and value others and give them the chance to prove who they are, and avoid having prejudgement and prejudice on people.

I think there were many things could be done to turn this incident into an opportunity for greater equity. For example, all the dances that we practiced were a group dance. Dancers should be of different height to make sure everyone could be seen by the audience. I could be easily arranged to be in the front row or somewhere that I would not block anyone behind me. Meanwhile, the layers of the dance makes the dance more beautiful. In this way, I think equity was shown, and I could tell people were trying to involve everyone to be in the community. 

That is to say, as long as people try to respect others and to be flexible, there will be more opportunities for them to turn prejudices, biases, or oppressions into equity.