Professional Hopes and Goals

Over the past eight weeks I have really been exposed to a variety of topics and experiences in diversity. Our society is definitely growing in diversity so working as an educator in early childhood education will continue to bring new faces and cultures into my work with young children and their families. As I continue through my professional career in education, I hope to take with me my new awareness of how culture and diversity can affect people within a dominant culture different then their own. Looking at the community where I live, I do consider myself a member of the dominantly white area, but as I see more and more families enter our school. I think it's important to be opened minded about others and even though I may not fully understand every culture different than my own, I do want to continue to learn about how I can best work with individuals, taking into consideration their personal needs.
One goal that I would wish for the early childhood field in relation to diversity and equity would be that as we become more exposed to new cultures that our early childhood curricula standards also become more diverse to allow children to experience different cultures. I think that a positive exposure to diverse curriculum would help children to consider our society's differences in a positive light and hopefully learn to value and respect the differences we can share with each other as a culture.
Thank you to all my colleagues and Professor Kien for providing comments, responses, stories, and suggestions throughout the course. Best of luck to all!
Caitlin

Welcoming Families from Around the World

If I were working in an early childhood care facility and a family was immigrating to the United States from China and will be enrolling their young daughter at the facility, I would definitely need to prepare myself to learn about their family's culture and how to best welcome this young girl into a new environment.
In order to become more familiar with the Chinese culture, I would begin by taking time to read about the country through professional resources free of any biases, prejudices, or oppressive opinions. How families live, any traditional customs, and any other important factors about this country. I think that as a teacher to this young girl I would want to better understand how the education system and teacher-student relationships are conducted in China and incorporate those factors into my relationship with her. According to Chinese Culture, Social Work Education and Research the teacher-student relationship is hierarchically determined which makes learning and knowledge building more difficult, often times students do not receive adequate respect for their creativity or innovations, and because teachers are expected to have experience and wisdom, it is difficult for them to accept students’ ideas when they contradict their own (Chan & Chan, 2005). Experience is valued much more than creativity in China's education system, which is very different than what I have learned in the U.S. educational field (Chan & Chan, 2005). As a way of preparing the environment, I would bring in books and items for the other children in the class and myself to read together about her family's culture. One method of introducing this new student's culture into the classroom might be having her bring in just a few items from home that belong to her to share with the class. Although this is a hypothetical scenario, if language barriers come into play it would benefit both myself, the young student, and her family if I were to study about the Chinese language so that I could more adequately communicate with her and her family. One other stride I might take to help welcome this family would be to meet with them and talk about their expectations and needs for their daughter and provide any appropriate resources for their use at home to make their daughter's transition to the school smoother.
As we have discussed throughout this course, understanding diversity with respect to early childhood development can have so many beneficial aspects for growing children and their families. By becoming more culturally responsive in preparation for a young child moving from a different and unfamiliar culture would allow for more positive experiences for the child entering a new environment, more adequate communication between myself, the student, and the family, and would help to eliminate any preconceived biases or untrue assumptions about a new culture.
References
Chan, K.L. & Chan, C.L.W. (2005). Chinese Culture, Social Work Education and Research. International Social Work 48(4): 381–389. Retrieved using the Walden University Library SAGE Publications database.

Personal Experience with Bias, Prejudice, or Oppression

When I read through the blog assignment this week, one story that came to mind was one told to me and experienced by my husband's mother (my mother-in-law) who began an early childhood school 50 years ago, the same school that I work in today. Fifty years ago, she was working in the local public school district and saw that there were no facilities available for children to attend before the first grade level. She wanted to create a place for children to come during their early childhood years to help prepare students for their grammar school experiences as well as provide care for parents and families for their young children, being a single mother and widow in her mid-thirties. Although her intentions to open an early childhood school were more than admirable she was confronted and approached with criticism by some of the local public saying that she was stepping outside of the boundaries meant for women and providing a new method for women to leave the home and step into the workforce. All of the comments and disgust she received came from the male members of the community who, at the time, were biased against women working in a "man's" position, a time when the oppression of women was the dominant culture of society. Despite the confrontations she dealt with during the beginnings of her private school, she pursued her dream and developed a high quality and the most well known early childhood program in the area 50 years later. In this particular scenario, those people that would have to change would be those male members of the community who felt that women should remain as housewives rather than members of the workforce. Obviously times have changed dramatically as women have entered the workforce, opening business, and pursuing their personal employment goals.
Mentally placing myself in her shoes at that time, I can only imagine how difficult it would have been to follow a goal that it being outright put-down and frowned upon by other members of the community, her peers and colleagues. I think I would have felt suppression of my personal goals and desires to make a change in local education for the better. I can only hope that I'd find the same courage to step past the norm to do something that would bring a new idea and benefit to society. 

Microaggression

Although I had a harder time thinking of specific examples of microaggression that I've witnessed this week, but many times I have seen acts of microaggression between children in the classroom, similar to the examples seen in the readings from Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010). I remember one time in our small full day Kindergarten classroom when two girls wanted to play "house" in the dramatic play center. When one of the young boys also wanted to join in with them in their play, the other boys in the class said "Oh, Rosbin wants to play with the girls!" You could see in his face that their comments triggered a concern in his mind as he made a defensive comment like "I'm not a girl!", but he continued his play with them and didn't seem to mind what the boys thought. Thinking back to that scenario now I can't help but wonder how this experience is effecting his opinions of himself within his group of peers and the identity he is forming. In the same classroom, 9 of the children were white and only one had come to the country recently from Guatemala and spoke Spanish as his primary language. He was a very eager student, willing to learn, especially the English language, and very interested in showing his abilities and interests to his teachers and classmates. He always wanted to be seen and part of the group, often making up stories about having siblings or pets at home to feel welcomed by his peers. I think after a while the other children caught on to his elaborate storytelling and began to seclude him from play, didn't want him to sit with them at lunch, and didn't want to include him on the playground. Now, Rosbin's personality accounts for a great many factors, including his family culture and dynamics. The other children in the class might not be specifically targeting his cultural background when they criticize his character traits, but they are creating a negative barrier between themselves and Rosbin that has and will continue to effect his development in many ways.
I once recall being a target of microaggression when our ice cream supplier delivered to our location one hot afternoon last summer and, although we had never met before, I happened to be the only person nearby to open the snack bar and sign for the delivery, so I introduced myself as the director and offered to help. He didn't like that. He immediately asked for my husband, who he had previously been in contact with, and when I said he wasn't available he was extremely standoffish and rather rude that I was the person he had to deal with at the time. I felt as if my being a woman was extremely displeasing to him and that he was offended and annoyed to have to work with a lesser person because of my gender. Overall my emotions were surprised, offended, confused, and building up to defensive against his behavior.  
Both of these experiences have shown me that discrimination, prejudices, and stereotypes can place a huge affect on individuals and groups of people who are targets of either intentional or unintentional microaggression. Although I was rather startled by this delivery man questioning my capabilities, I can only imagine that having to deal with forms of microaggressions on a daily basis would become exhausting physically, mentally, and emotionally.
References 
Derman-Sparks, L., & Edwards, J.O. (2010). Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves.Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Culture & Diversity from Three Perspectives

The first person I asked to give me a personal definition of culture and diversity stated that culture is a combination of ones family, beliefs, history, and race, and diversity is the differences that people bring together to make up our society. A second person I spoke with focused their definition of culture and diversity specifically toward ethnicity and racial differences between various groups of people, and traditional values that people portray within a set group. Another person mentioned that culture was largely made up of relationships and the social environment that a person is raised and lives. They summarized diversity as the social variety of the differences that individuals and families possess and share as a whole.
These three perspectives on culture and diversity have some similarities as well as some different viewpoints on the topic. The first and third definition provided a more broad definition of the words, listing multiple characteristics such as race, beliefs, history, relationships, etc, and how these characteristics make our society a diverse people. Many of these cultural characteristics were shared by Gonzelaz-Mena as the melting pot of life aspects that make up who we are as a person (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011). I tend to agree with this idea that culture is so personal, so independent, but that's also what gives our society its diversity. The second definition was a bit more focused on the ethnic aspect of cultural identity and how our vast races make our society to diverse. After just having spoken with three individuals that I know, it's become more clear that culture and diversity is personal and is thought of very personally as well. Our opinions are defined by our own culture and experiences, which will in turn also affect how we view others. I feel that we should always be open minded about our neighbors and willing to learn more about the various cultures that make our world so diverse.
References
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). Culture and Diversity (2011) [DVD] Perspectives on Diversity and Equity. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Ngo, B. (2008). Beyond “culture clash”: Understanding of immigrant experiences. Theory into Practice, 47(1), 4–11.
Retrieved from the Walden Library using the Education Research Complete database.

My Family Culture

If I were being moved to a foreign country after a catastrophic event, the first small, personal item I would bring with me that represent my family's culture would be a photograph of my family. One particular photograph that comes to mind was taken of my entire family at my wedding. I would explain to the people of the country I would be traveling to that this photograph is a physical reminder of my loved ones that helps me to keep them in my heart and my mind when I cannot be with them. Pictures and imagery are such a huge part of our culture, from old family photos to everyday digitals on Facebook. I know I enjoy keeping many memories through photo reminders. I would also bring one particular family heirloom that was handed down to me from my great-grandmother, a small Catholic Bible. I received this Bible from my great-uncle when she passed eight years ago and truly felt honored that she would want me to have something so dear of hers. This special heirloom handed down to me has significant meaning and an item that I hold very dear. The third item I would want to bring is a old tile mold that has the name of my grandfather engraved in the stone. He played a major role in building our current town and the local tileworks factory that is well-known in the Bucks County, PA area. This particular mold was used by my grandfather to mark his work and was given to my mother by the tileworks foundation as an heirloom when he passed.
If I was told that I could only keep one of the three items when arriving in this new country, I would absolutely feel torn as to which item I would bring, especially if I didn't know what would become of the other two items that are so important to me. Thinking about each one, I think I would end up choosing the Bible given to me by my great-grandmother. This Bible not only has strong reminders of her, but also of other family members and memories, not to mention they hold God's spiritual guidance to get me through such a trying time.
Overall, thinking about this hypothetical scenario has made me realize even more that culture is so much more than skin deep. It is a typical conception that culture is race, ethnicity, or where you come from, but culture is also about relationships, memories, and family values that you grow old with. 

Final Thoughts about Building Research Competency in ECE

Throughout the Building Competencies in Research course, I feel as if I have had an immense amount of exposure and guidance through research techniques, methods, considerations, preparations, ethics, conduct, and more. My previous exposure to any type of research had really only revolved around the scientific community and the structure used in science to develop and implement experimental studies. I was surprised by the qualities of educational research that are utilized in studies on young participants, such as child and parental consent, ethics of conducting study, methods and options for collecting data, etc.
My thoughts about conducting research were really confined by a different way of setting up an experiment. Although the structure of many of the articles we read throughout the course had similar structure, including an introduction, methods description, results, discussion, and conclusion, I was introduced to new concepts in research in the education field. For instance, the methods of collecting data, whether quantitative or qualitative, as well as the use of sources through triangulation were new concepts. I also found that the term interpretivist can play a significant role in studies, as it can become a challenge for researchers to divide their opinions, projections, and initial thoughts when collecting information through observation and, particularly, personal interviews. It is often difficult to divide our human nature to hold to personal opinions, speculations, predictions, and viewpoints when hypothesizing about a topic, however it is an important factor to maintain knowledge and regulation of throughout a study in order to obtain accurate results.
Over these 8 weeks, one of my first challenges was determining a topic that would make sense and theoretically work for this simulation study. As the course moved on however I felt as if the information, readings, and articles we were assigned provided a tremendous amount of background information regarding how studies are properly planned and executed when it comes to working with children in an educational, social, etc. environment. On a more personal note, unfortunately this semester also challenged me on time, but I feel like I was able to maintain management of assignments to the best of my ability.
I think that after taking this particular course, my exposure to early childhood has really opened to a new light of childhood studies through formal research. Their are definitely many factors to keep in mind when studying children that are vital, not only to the research aspect, but more importantly, to the children, parents, and families that are participating. The study examples that I have read about these last 8 weeks are much different than my previous experiences studying plants, animals, bacteria, viruses, etc. They deal with something much more fragile - real lives that are easily influenced and affected by outside sources. However, through the benefits I've already witnessed, research on early childhood education has an immense amount of benefits to the field that will continue to create positive environments, programs, and learning for young children.
Thank you to everyone who read and posted on my blog. I appreciate all your comments, thoughts, and suggestions for my future research in ECE!
Caitlin