Professinal Hopes and Goals

Living among so many diverse people is an experience of a lifetime.  I could not imagine living among the same type of people and not be able to experience other cultures and traditions.  Taking this class has just confirmed that working together with my colleagues and the families will ensure a confident and well-rounded child.  I just hope to continue working side by side with the wonderful colleagues that believe in the same mission that we live by in my cooperation. 

 I will continue with my ongoing goal for my position in the EC field is to accumulate more experiences in the early childhood education field involving cultural differences to become a better consultant with this subject among my diverse community.  I set goals in my profession each year and continuously meet them with the assistance from my team.  I am only as successful as my weakest team member.  I say that not in a bad way but I want to push my whole professional team to another level when it comes to assisting our families.

I would like to give special thanks to Dr. Parrish and my colleagues for asking those questions that sparked my curiosity for the EC field.  It is always a pleasure to share and receive from other professionals in the EC field and taking what I have learned from others to assist in my profession.  I hope to see everyone in the next classes ahead of us.  I wish everyone the best of LUCK!

Welcoming Families from Around the World

Working in a country that has a population with so much diversity can be challenging.  Especially with it involving individuals and families from 150 different countries.  I can only speak from experience, so I am choosing the setting to be at a child care center.  Hearing that a family that has recently emigrated from their country Egypt to the U.S. and will be joining my center is exciting, but research is going to be completed to ensure that this family is comfortable and supported during their child’s time with us.

Egyptians, are very patriarchal, the male in the dominant role (AFSUSA); this means that we will have to be very sensitive and not judgmental when it comes to their family dynamics.  Speaking to the family in a whole will be important but making eye contact with the father would be a practice that I will probably do more of.  Because it is not common for someone other than family to take care of your children it will be difficult for the family to leave their child with our program.  To ensure their safety and the quality; asking them to come and complete some observations along with completing a director/teacher conference.  It is imperative for the family to know our expectations but it is also important for us to know the families expectations of us.  Knowing that the dominant religious belief in Egypt is Muslim, it will be important to know of any dietary needs for the child so that I can ensure that there are substitutes for each meal.  Depending on the child’s age it would be great to let the child share some traditions with the classroom.  The children love learning about each other and this assists with the children learning diversity. 

Preparing for any child that is joining our program can be a challenge.  But with the help from my team and constant in the know of other cultures is the reason we have been so successful with our families.  Both our families and the program benefit from preparing and the stress level is hardly visible. 

 

http://www.afsusa.org/host-family/our-students/countries/egypt/

 

 

 

 

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

 

 

Working in a diverse military community, we see incidences of bias.  Recently we have had children in our program that are still being breast fed past the age of 12 months.  As a mother and professional in a man’s world this practice can be viewed as inappropriate or gross.  Mothers that breastfeed their children are already scrutinized for feeding their babies, and to see this practice being taken further in to the pretoddler age group has added a bias with these women.  I have to admit that seeing breastfeeding being completed with the children after 12 months was a shock, but after observing the process and reading about the amount of serious allergies our children are suffering from it makes sense to continue breastfeeding.  But because of ignorance and lack of experience with the wellbeing of children society has shun the breastfeeding community.  Cultural differences have played a part in the continuing of breastfeeding children after infancy.  For most African and Hispanic cultures this is a norm practice.  Living in the U.S. has brought about these cultural differences and have put a spotlight on the subject. 

Discrimination is not visible but the equity of these women is visible.  Opinions are heard among the community and it is disturbing to hear them.  The benefits from breastfeeding outweigh any type of ignorant comment.  My feelings on this subject are very one sided.  As a mother that breast fed her children up until 6 months and not by choice; I feel that I would have breastfed up until 12 months. To change this bias against women who breast feed their children will take lots of educating the public.  Showing the benefits of breastfeeding will assist with this.  As an administrator it is my job to insure that my early childhood educators are aware of cultural differences and the amount of benefits that come with breastfeeding after 12 months of age.  Having those conversations and having training sessions to help educate our staff to ensure that they understand how to support our families that are struggling to keep their children healthy with the practice of breastfeeding.