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.
Jazmine, I like the ideas that you've listed and how you would even go a step further and visit the country where your new family would be coming from. However, you mention that the U.S. are consider offensive in the Chinese culture, if you had to explain this to your staff how would? Considering many Chinese are already here apart of the U.S. with owned business and with Chinese-emergent schools in place. I agree with you that in order to have healthy relationships with families from other countries as our textbook shares "gaining this knowledge is a process that progresses in steps, building as it goes. In order to learn about the families, teachers must develop relationships with them. In order to build those relationships beyond superficial interactions, teachers need to understand something of each family's culture" (Derman-Sparks, 2010, p. 61).
ReplyDeleteReference:
Derman-Sparks, L. & Edwards, J. O. (2010). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).
I like the idea of traveling, it would make for a great preparation for a family. As the ECH professional it would be beneficial as it would allow for a first hand experience to a culture that is expected.
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