Professional Hopes and Goals

One hope that you have when you think about working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds (any format and any length)  

My hope when I think about working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds is that I can continue to do what I love, working with and for children from across the world. I hope that we as a society will one day come together and treat all children and their families with respect and love. Show no bias because of who they are, where they may have come from. We need to think before we speak, because we were once children too.

One goal you would like to set for the early childhood field related to issues of diversity, equity, and social justice (any format and any length)

My goal is to spread the word. I need to let others in the early childhood field know more about being bias and how we should treat our children from diverse backgrounds. I did not know how much some things bother me and I had to do some inner cleansing. I know how to treat others and give the respect, but I found out through this class I was not right within myself. If I can get out and let others know what I have learned, so much could change for the better in diversity, equity and social justice for us all.

What can I say but thank you for all the words of wisdom that you have passed on to me though my discussions and here in my blog. I thank each of you for all of the resources that you have made available for me to use in my studies as I continue to work for our children. I have shared with you my feelings and parts of my life that I would not tell to strangers. You are all my friends. Keep in touch.  Hope to hear from you all. Just my thoughts and opinion, no really it is.

Sandra McNair

Welcoming Families From Around the World

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

I chose the country Korea.

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

I am working in a high quality program. There is not much to do, as I get ready to meet the new child and her parents from Korea. The classroom is already set up to meet the needs of any child regardless of who they are, where they are from or what handicap they may have. My preparation would be to ask some of her new classmates to work with her (the child’s name is Kim Sun) and show her around the room. The child and her family will meet the staff at the front office. I will show them the kitchen and let them meet the cook and his/her staff. They will meet the head custodian so if they need help with something they know he is part of our staff too. The parents will get to see the outside playground area where the children get to play when they go outside. I feel the biggest goal is to make them feel welcome and comfortable. I have to establish a relationship that is pleasant and warm. I want the parents to see that I have respect for them and their language, culture and their ways of living.

A brief statement describing in what ways you hope that these preparations will benefit both you and the family. The goal is for my coworkers and I to offer the social, emotional, cognitive, and physical (both fine and gross motor) skills that will foster healthy growth and development for Kim Sun.

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

I watch this movie called Band of Angels a few days ago. Think back 1957, slavery, plantations, plantation owner, and the Civil War.Civil War Civil War The movie has a great cast: Raoul Walsh. Clark Gable, Yvonne De Carlo, Sidney Poitier, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr, Patric Knowles. The movie begins with a little girl (Amantha "Manty" Starr) sitting at the foot of her mother’s grave. The grave is close to the main house. She questions her father (a kindly plantation owner Aaron Starr) about it and he tells her your mother likes it here. Manty wants to know but why not on the hill with the others, in which he tells her never you mind. She is getting ready to go to finishing school. Fast-forward… Manty is home because of the death of her father. She wants to know why is is grave on the hill and not down there with her mother’s? Raoul Walsh. Clark Gable, Yvonne De Carlo, Sidney Poitier, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr, Patric Knowles During the funeral, she finds out that her mother was one of her father’s slaves and her father was in debt, in which she is now a slave and to be sold to pay off that debt.

This woman was devastated to find out that she was no longer white, but a slave with nothing. How did I feel when she found out she was a slave? I felt sorry for her. She had been living the life of a norm. She was in finishing school. People respected her, and treated nice, kind and equal. Within a blink of the eye, she become a Negro, with no respect, no nice and kind treatment. She was pushed and shoved just like the other slaves. Her father name meant nothing to anyone.

 

This movie shows us how we can be one thing today and another tomorrow. If her father had told her the truth about her mother when she was a little girl, she would have never gone to school and lived as the whites did. She did get to see firsthand how it feels to lose it all.

It would be nice to have some of the ancestors who still believe it should be that way, have all of their live pull out from in front of them and have to live the opposite for a while. I do not thing they would last a day. These are my thoughts, just my opinion.

Sandra

Reference

Warner Bros. 1957   Band of Angels, Jul 10, 1957 Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. United States