Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

I was in the grocery store waiting in line to be served. I noticed the cashier acknowledge the person that was in front of me with a warming hello and smile and asked her if she found everything she needed and then asked her if she needed any assistance with her bag.  The cashier then proceeded to ring up my items without stating hello or acknowledging my presence or asking me if I found everything I needed. She stated my total and I then elected to pay with cash. She gave an interesting facial expression when I asked for her to me a receipt. I explained to her that I need a receipt because I was purchasing items for my child care center as I was the Center Director. Her body language changed and she smiled. I told her to have a bless day and she then looks at me pleasantly surprised and stated thank you and then told me to have a great day. I believe that I was a target of invisible microaggression. The cashier didn’t even take the time to acknowledge me or greet me or extend the same curiosity to me as she did the previous customers that were from the dominate race. I partially find that her actions were unintentional because she appeared to be oblivious to the fact that she had treated me different from all the other customers she had served in front of me.  I believe that discrimination is very much present in my area of the world it is just expressed in a less direct manner. I often believe the terms discrimination and prejudice still remain and are very much present in our society because of fear, the fear of being powerless, the fear of change, the fear of being uprooted, the fear of feeling invisible and feeling uncomfortable. It is never right to be prejudice, discriminatory or stereotypical, but I find that those are the reasons why many dominate individuals are.

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

I asked my mother to advise me of her personal definition of the term culture in general and she stated, “That the thoughts, foods, life style, customs, entertainment and goals of a particular group.” I further asked my mother to define the term diversity and she state, “diversity is a melting pot of various or different groups and each member comes from a different back group.” The definition of culture I receive from my husband is as follows. The term diversity is a group of people from various backgrounds and up brings. He further stated that the term culture should be defined as a way a group of people live. I spoke with my grandmother and she shared with me her definition of culture. She stated that culture is the pool of shared values, fashion, traditions, living arrangements, views and beliefs amongst a group of people. Consequently, my grandmother defined diversity as a mixture of various backgrounds, values, outlooks on life and customs.  

 Ms. Janet Gonzalez-Mena talks about the concepts of diversity and deep culture in the video “Culture and Diversity”. It is evident that some of the responses from my family members coincide with Ms. Janet Gonzale-Mena view on the terms culture and diversity. For example, I noticed a shared phrased with regards to defining culture, “how a group of people live.” I believe that culture has a lot to do with lifestyle and how a group of people operate with in the world.  Being able to hear the thoughts and perspectives of others in regards to defining the terms culture and diversity was a very enlightening experience. I honestly concur with each person’s definition of culture including Ms. Janet definition as well. I am actually glade that my family member where able to without hesitation share their thought on each of the terms. I believe that this assignment allowed me to learn about how the members in my culture view the terms culture and diversity.

References:

Laureate Education Inc, 2011 (DVD) Perspective on diversity and equity.                                                             

family cultures: dynamic interactions.

My Family Culture

The items that I would elect to take that would best represent my culture would be my bible, wallet size picture book and my journey and pen. I find that I would be able to explain the importance of each of the item mentioned above to the others without hesitation. The bible is a very important aspect of my culture. The bible is what I consider holy and it provides an abundance of wisdom, peace, love, comfort, guidance, grace, and the list goes on.  My family photo would remind me of the good times I had with my family and the photos would also remind me of the blessings that God allowed me to part take in. Likewise, the photos would offer me hope and faith that one day things would improve for me and my family, (although things may not be the same, things would ultimately improve). I believe that journaling is a big part of my culture like in others cultures, I find that it is necessary to dream, plan, reflect, and express myself freely without any fears of being judge or critic. In the event I was advised that had to give up two of the items mentioned below, I will admit my initial reaction would be a reaction of devastation.  Nevertheless I would choose my bible since I would have my immediate present with me.

I believe that this exercise has allowed me to share with my colleagues what I already knew about myself, but never really spelled it out in this fashion. It is also evident how just important my faith in God reading of God’s word is important to me. Similarly, I will admit when I read in the assignment that my immediate family would be present with me, I thought out loud, “well I’ll be good then if they are there with me”. This assignment has deepened my understanding of my personal value I hold as a result of my culture/ up bring.

When I Think of Research...

It is very difficult for me to explain just how much this class has further enhanced my ability to recognize and produce quality research in general. I have a deeper understanding of the types of research conducted with the early childhood education field.  I find that I also have a deeper understanding as to why research has been so very crucial to the field’s longevity with regards to its overall progression and impact. I will admit that I was completely unaware of all the various types of research design and how to decipher which method works best depending on the question being raised.

                I find that after being exposed to learning about the various design sectors of research, I will not look at research as only being completed in one single way/ method. I believe that this course provided to me the adequate equipment/ tool to be able to understand how to interpret and share collected data. During process of evaluating how to plan research, I found that there were some very prolific and essential key terms that I needed to reacquaint myself in order to fully understand how research was conducted in the field. The terms that I find to be very necessary in any type of research design are as follows: validity, objectivity, equity, sampling, independent and dependent variables etc.

                I found it challenging being able to fully understand and master each of the types of research with regards to identify which research design would best suit my research question. I believe that I was able to overcome this challenge by interacting with my classmates through discussion and reading the course textbook.

I honestly believe that my perception of the field of early childhood education has broadened significantly. I have a deeper understand how research play a significant role in the field and impact no only the lives of early childhood learns, but all other important stakeholders as well including parents.