Professional Hopes and Goals

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       Working with diverse families can be challenging because not knowing the unknown without hurting the other person's feeling or the family. A goal to be set as an early childhood professional would be have a family from a different culture bring one of their favorite dish to share with the other families. Another one is have a big paper tree be placed in each classroom have the families add one thing about their culture that no one does not know. Each family would do that so something new is added to the tree. This will let the children know, everyone is different, but we all are the same. It starts from the family with diversity and continues with the providers.  All good teaching begins with a respect for children, their innate curiosity and capacity to learn.  Curriculum should be rooted in children’s needs and experiences.

Another 8 weeks with supportive colleagues and a professor. I wish you all the best in your endeavors. I hope to see some of you in the next following classes.  Thank you for all the comments, criticisms, and support. 

  Dr. Horton,

  Thank you for another 8 weeks. I appreciate the support, comments and criticisms to help me grow as a writer and individual. I hope to have you again as a professor in my future classes. 

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Families From Around the World...

In every day life you hear the different ethnicity around the world, but never knew much about their cultures and living status. I have always been interested in the Filipino culture and the people. 

I am a director of a small social service agency and I had a family of six coming from the Philippines.  I was unaware of their status and especially their culture. I always heard the Filipino was similar to Hispanic families, but if they were from their homeland, they would be more traditional. I started on my research about the Filipino culture and their people and this is what I have learned.

1. The family is the center of the social structure including, the immediate family, aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, godparents, sponsors and close family friends.

2. They must live up to the standards and if they fail, they will shame not only themselves, but the family too.

3. The family will not eat until the hostess invites them to eat. When eating they are often served family-style. 

4. Their official language spoken is Tagalog.

5.  A handshake with a welcoming smile is a standard greet. 

6. English is generally used for education, governmental, and commercial purposes. 

Five ways to be culturally responsive:

1. Being committed to knowing the family and their culture.

2. Being more sensitive to how they deal with conflicts.

3. Be alert of my own biases.

4. Ask questions.

5. Work with the family to develop a sense of trust.

Being prepared to meeting a new culture and family is much more than just research. Hoping that the information I did gathered and research would help me part way with the family. Setting all my biases aside is the first major step to going forward with anything. Gaining the family trust is another major step, knowing everyone and having an understanding of how I would benefit the family. Every family is different and I could not base my information on books, internet or any resources because knowing the family at a personal level and business level means much more.

Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression...

     I don't recall having any negative situations or incidents I had to step in. I do remember having a positive prejudice when I use to work as a director in the biggest facility.  I had a mom who was Caucasian and adopted a Japanese girl from Japan. She was two years old when she started the daycare. When I was short a teacher, I stepped in the class and during circle time, we talked about different race and color of the skin. Her exact words was, Ms. M. I am white like my mommy huh?? Followed with a big smile on her face. I agreed with her and smiled. Then the whole class went on talking about it is okay to be the color you are and it is mean to call each other names. 

     It is a great feeling when you are a teacher and you are teaching children about being positive. Children are a sponge, they pick up the negatives to the positives of comments and reaction of adults. 

     The more I was more in the classroom full of preschoolers I made sure multicultural was more in the curriculum and letting the children learning more about each other. For example, I had an activity for homework for the child and parent to do together. The activity was to make a family quilt, pictures of their family members and words to describe their family. When they got to school, the child would share with the class. 

https://www.google.com/search?q=prejudice+quotes&safe=active&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=657&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiB9Nek9_jKAhVFxGMKHebwD90QsAQIIg&dpr=1#safe=active&tbm=isch&q=prejudice+with+children+quotes&imgrc=aOwkET0AZkoWtM%3A 

Awareness of Microaggressions

     As long as I can remember, I have always got, "are you sure you are Asian?" "You don't have an Asian name." "Are you sure you are not Mexican?" "Maria is a very common name for Mexican people." "It isn't a fake name is it cause all Asian people have their name then aka their American name." 
     
     At first, I would chuckle and laugh, but when people continue to pick at the question, it gets frustrating. Sometimes I feel like I have to make up an Asian name so they would feel better that my name is not Maria and I am not Mexican. 

     I have realized that no matter what you do, who you are, how you do things, what your name is, or your ethnicity, there will always be a racial, bias, or stereotypical remark towards you. With the new generations, many of these behaviors are learned behavior by the parents. Racial, stereotyping, bias, and discrimination cannot be controlled. Parents have control over what comes out of their child's mouth and the things they do. For example, I had a step-parent teaching his step son about calling Black individuals the "N" word and as long as his step son did it outside of school, it was okay for him to say or hurt them. The mom was unaware of what was said to her son, until I met with her in regards to his comment. 

"Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall overcome" (Park, Rosa., 2001-2016).

Parks, Rosa. (2001-2016). Racism Quotes. Retrieved from
     http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/racism.html

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture...

My best friend is turning 34 and is half Irish. Her definition of culture is family values and beliefs, customs, music and the literature. Diversity to her means the different nationalities that makes the world a better place. We are not the same nationality, but we have an understanding of each other.

My high school friend is Hispanic. Her definition of culture is family, religion, clothing and food. Diversity to her means having respect for others who are different from their own. She was raised as a Catholic and truly believes in it. I grew up with a Catholic family, but didn't follow into the religion.

A recent friend I became close to is Filipino. His definition of culture is family, food and values. His term of diversity is the different nationality around the world that makes everyone unique. We have our differences in other topics, but respect each other as individuals.

Everyone has their definition of culture and diversity. They have their ways of celebrating and teaching their children. With the differences we have makes us unique and learn more from each other. 

My Family Culture..

Being evacuated to another country with limited belongings would be hard to do. On the other hand, if I had the choice of taking the three items with me, it would be the traditional dress my mom made me, wear an extra pant, and a hair brush. The first arrival to the destination, I am afraid and lost in thoughts because I do not know how others would feel about my culture. I would cooperate with the dominant culture until they get an understanding of my culture. If the dominant culture want nothing to do with the culture, I would keep to myself and my family.

The traditional dress my mom was made by hand and each of the colorful piece was sewn on for the decoration. (This dress and outfit is off the web, but it is similar to the one my mom sewn for me.)

This is the full traditional outfit.

The dress I would take with me

With the hard work and effort put into this dress I would not leave it behind. If for some reason my mom did not make it through the changes, I would have something that would mean more to me than a picture.

An extra pant for the road because I do not know if there would be any jobs available to work so I can buy clothes.

A hair brush is a must. I would not want my hair nappy and knotted hair.

Honestly with the insights, I have appreciated my culture and other culture more, even when I know everyone is set in their ways of living and values, but I know we all learn from each other. Working as an early childhood provider, all bias has to be set aside and open the cover like it is a new book. The funny thing was when I was a preschool teacher, all the students who were head strong and always got into trouble were the ones put in my class. Yet they never gave me the trouble they gave the other teachers.

When I Think Research...

This class was not quite what I expected. There was more to it than just coming up with a hypothesis and collect data for the research topic. There are so many ways to find information about a topic. The question always came up, what is so important about research? Is it necessary? In elementary, you would come up with a simple hypothesis, for example, who likes the color red and who likes the color blue? You would tally up the numbers of classmates who likes what color. The purpose of research is to inform action. Research must always be high quality in order to produce knowledge that is applicable outside of the research setting that will go beyond the group of the participants of the research team. 

The challenges I encountered, there was many. The application assignments, I had a hard time with the reflection and the questions. Understanding the process was one thing, but to understand and finding the reasons behind it with the appropriate information for the topic. A perception that has been modified in the early childhood professional is the different ways they find answers to certain behaviors and ways to approach it. It makes me look at things at a different view.

I would like to wish everyone an amazing holiday with whoever you spend these special days with. Thank you for all comments and support throughout this course. I did not have much of comments because part of me just didn't know how to respond to the topic. I hope you all the best of your endeavors. I wish you all the best. I hope to see you all in the future courses. Take care and I hope to keep in touch with some of you. Thank you Dr. Todd for the support and understanding.