Blog: Professional Hopes and Goals

One hope that I have when working with children and families who come from

diverse backgrounds is for programs to respect, value, and learn the practices and policies

of cultural for all children and families in their community. I also hope that they advocate

for local, state, and federal policies that support the ability of early childhood programs to

offer high quality, and diverse education for all children.

            One goal I would like to set for the early childhood field related to issues of

diversity, equity, and social justice is to commit to ongoing reflection of cultural

difference that makes a difference of the attitudes, beliefs, and practice in the classroom

in the early childhood education. I also hope to engage families, children, and to the

community. I also hope to informed and to respond to the social and cultural backgrounds

of children and families.

            To all my colleagues it has been a pleasure of working with all of you. I really

enjoyed these eight weeks of learning form your discussion board, comments, and

responses. I wish all my colleagues much success and I hope to see you again. Best

wishes to all of  you until we will meet you.

           

Blog:Welcoming Families Around the World

The name of my family's country origin is we all from the United States but we was born in
different states. My mother side of the family was born and raised in Durham N.C. and my father
was born in San Francisco California. My grandfather on my dad side was in the military and died when my dad was very young. They often travel in the military and they reside in California. My dad also had family from Durham, North Carolina and that is how our parents met.  Me and my brothers are born and raised in Durham, North Carolina at Duke hospital. The five ways that I will prepare myself to be culturally responsive towards my family is to continue and being active member of my church, studying my religion and praying together as a family, family tradition during when celebrating holidays and family trips, continuing my family reunions, and horning our roots and ancestors in our family. These preparations will benefit me and my families of respecting my family morals, values,
and family traditions. I love my family and we are the "family that prays we stay together".This will help my daughter to be connected with her family and the traditions that will carry on from generations to generations. This will help her to learn about her roots and ancestors of both side of the families. This is how it will benefit me and my families.

Blog: The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

An memory of an incident that I have experience is when I seen a prejudice incident when my mother was working on her job site. My mom was a head supervisor at the IBM cafeteria and I came there to have or eat lunch with her but at the time she could not have lunch me that day because three people had called out and she had to cover and do their jobs. So anyway she had to do the cashier jobs of ringing people food up. My mother greeting the customers asking how they day was going and being nice to the customer and everything. So this particular man she spoke to this man and everything and he was so rude to mother and gave a mean look and did not say anything to her so she continue to talk to him as  she was ranging up his food up and I was a witnessed to this and instead of putting in my mother's hand he slammed on the counter. My mom did say anything and took the money off the counter and I was like I am going to say something and my mother was like no "Shartarka please do not say anything cause he can make a complain and I can lose my job.". She was like I go through this all the time but it is ok and I was like mom it is not ok. I ask him does he do it to call the cashier and my mom was like "no"he does it to all the African America cashier not the white cashier because he is White. I could not believe that I witness that.

This incident made me feel hurt and to see my mom expression of how that man did her that way I was so mad. You know I was born in the 70's and to here the stories in the 50's and the 60's of what our parent, grandmother, and ancestors went through it makes you feel a certain way until witness and see it for yourself. I wanted to approach that man but I let it go. The feeling I felt made me angry like I wanted to tell him how would you feel if you was a cashier and somebody slam the money on the counter.

The man would had to change this incident into an opportunity for greater equity. Something in this man had to happen in his childhood, or his attitude to make him to do this  every time  he does it a African American cashier but not a White cashier.

Blog : Practicing Awarness of Microaggressions

The microaggressions that I have experience is when I seen a teacher that was Hispanic and she had a mixed group of children of  White, Hispanic, and African American  in the class room. She did not want to deal with the children that was White or African American she only wanted to deal with children that was  her culture Hispanic. It made me feel in this microaggressions  really bad because I felt  like as a teacher and a educator we need to treat and teach children all the same regardless of their culture. In the early childhood education I feel like that some people are meant to be teachers and some are not. Some teachers are not educated when it comes to culture because of how they was taught and brought up as a child. In my observation of perception of prejudice and stereotype is that you never know what a person goes through unless you walk in their shoes. In today's society people still go through a lot  of discrimination of their culture and not being respected. It help to see that people feeling, heart and pride are still hurt. As a mother, teacher, educator, and role model I will not be like other rude people. I will respect children and families in their culture and treat them as the same like other families. I would respect their moral, values,  family traditions, and the community. I want not only make a difference for my daughter, I want to make a difference for every child I teach that comes in my care. I love children all around the world.

Blog Assignment: Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

The one friend I pick that was different from my culture is a Hispanic woman that

is twenty-three years old with two children and she is divorced from her husband. The

religion she believe in is Catholic. The definition that she gave of culture is learning

about your background, respecting yourself and others, family traditions, and morals

and values. The definition of diversity is learning about people and children all around

the world.

            The aspects of culture and diversity that I have studied in this course is respecting

the cultural diversity of all children and families when it comes to practices and policies

in early childhood education. The aspects that have been omitted is not just focusing

on one culture. For example I am from the African American culture and that was the

only culture I ever knew. Until I work at the company at IBM and being a teacher in

in early childhood profession that is when I lean about culture and diversity. We have

to expose our self and learn from different cultures.

            Learning other people’s definitions of culture and diversity have influenced

me to respect and learn about their background, who they are, and learning their

morals, traditions, and values.

Week 8 Blog Assignment: When I Think of Research

The insights I have gained from learning about research is to analyze the different types of research and what do they mean. I did not realize that there was different types of research. My ideas about the nature of doing research has change is when you start off doing the research you have to have a topic and than from there you have to do the subtopic and  brainstorm the main points to form an outline. The
planning, designing and conducting the research in early childhood did I learn is respecting the justice and fairness in everyone regardless of their age, gender, and culture. I also learn to have a consent form in place of doing my research and keeping my personal bias to myself and do not let interfere with my research.  The challenges I have encountered was analyzing between the quantitative designs and the  qualitative designs. The ways did I meet them is doing the assignment and reading the different materials in the textbook to give me a better understanding of what they mean and examples of how to use them in a research. My perceptions has been modified as a result of this course is to analyze more better of my topic of doing my research, learning who is going to be in my research, learning about the independent and dependent variable. It made me think in deep thoughts and was very challenging.

I just want to say I really enjoyed everyone from these past eight weeks. To my colleagues and Dr. Todd I felt like I learned a lot from your comments and post on blackboard and the blogs from this course. I do not like to say good bye, I will say to all of you I will see you later, and I wish everyone much success and Happy Holidays to everyone!!!!

Blog Assignment: Research Around the World

The current international topic is supporting the best practice for the code of ethics in early childhood education Australia. The best practice they support are emotional foundations of learning, building trust and self esteem, communication,  the developing of the brain and everyday and learning play. The insight I gain of exploring with the international early childhood website is the Early Childhood Australia is the voice for young children since 1937 and they have been celebrating 75 years and they organization is the interests of young children, their families and those in early childhood field. The other information I found out about this website is that it supports research in practice series. The Research in Practice Series provides practical, easy-to-read resources for those involved in the early child field. They also have books to assists with those challenging issues which talks about the care and
education of young children, by offering effective new approaches.
The website is http://www.earlychilhoodaustralia.org.au/research_in_practice_series.html