Educational shenanigans

Fellow colleagues, it has been with great pleasure that I've been able to spend the last 8 wonderful weeks with you. As our journey continues throughout our educational, personal, and professional lives I wish you much success in all your endeavors. My hope when working with diverse families and children is to gain a better understanding and respect for their culture. I seek knowledge in all forms from them and I hope the would be receptive to me in that manner. My goal for the early childhood field in relation to equity, diversity, and social justice is to simply be aware and educate yourself. There has been a shift in all these areas and it's important in our field to stay up to date and to constantly educate ourselves. Without the knowledge for ourselves we're unable to help anyone else.

To prepare myself to be culturally responsive I will Do research about their cultural beliefs and ideas Travel to this country to understand their country Speak to people around me to gain a better understanding of their culture Take classes to learn their language Become familiar with their religion and their mannerisms. Certain salutes that we use in the US are consider offensive in the Chinese culture so I will need to be aware of those in order to not disrespect them.  I hope these preparations will help ease the transition for me and the new students. These preparations will help me learn more about the Chinese culture but it will allow me the opportunity to expand my knowledge and venture out to learn more about other cultures in the future.

What memory do you have of an incident when you experienced bias, prejudice, and/or oppression, or witnessed someone else as the target of bias, prejudice, and/or oppression?  I recall a time when I was younger and in school, there was a huge issue with lice in the school so the nurse was going around each classroom checking each person head. It was winter time and my mother usually kept my hair in braids. I recall the school nurse coming into the classroom and calling each child to the back of the classroom. It wasn't until that moment that I realized I was the only African American child in the classroom. The nurse finished calling everyone but she didn't call my name. The teacher went back there to ask her why I wasn't called and the nurse said it was because I was black and had braids in my hair. Being so young I didn't realize that there was a logical reason for me not to have my hair checked but I did feel insulted by the comment she made. The teacher still l...