Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 1

The World Forum Radio is the audio podcast for the early childhood leaders’ community. The podcast promotes the exchange of ideas between people and cultures on all topics related to young children. I elected to review the podcast which features the interview with Ms. Susan Lyon. I discovered that Ms. Susan Lyon was intrigued by a small child’s conception of the word “city”, and began pondering how children think. She eventually visited Reggio Emilia in Italy and decided to bring the “100 Languages of Children” exhibit to the San Francisco Bay area on two occasions. She initiated the Innovative Teacher Project, and began working with the Presidio Child Care Center and the San Francisco public schools. Currently she is working with an Italian architect to rehab a San Francisco structure into the first Italian immersion preschool.

The podcast with Susan highlighted the importance of children and their families having access to supportive resources in order to gain quality educational services. Ms. Susan also revealed how important is for early childhood professionals to learn the perceptions of the children they serve. As mentioned, Ms. Susan worked with a young boy who has a spelling ellipsis and needed assistance with learning the word city. According to Ms. Susan, the boy state that he believed that the term city was such a small word for such a big place. I find that it is very important that we as early childhood professionals realize that those children who live in poverty may not perceive their life styles as any different to those children who are not in poverty until someone tells them so or they grew to gain that understanding for themselves.    

References

http://www.worldforumfoundation.org/wf/radio.php

Sharing Web Resources

Healthy Beginnings is a resource to help caregivers nurture the tremendous potential for learning and growth that every child has… that every child is born with. Specifically designed for caregivers of infants and toddlers from birth through age three, Healthy Beginnings gives you knowledge and support around child care and child development, while our Activity Planner provides you with fun, developmentally appropriate activities that build young children’s skills and promote all kinds of learning.

The Healthy Beginnings website highlights the importance of socializing children and exposing children as early as infancy to other culture group through “play dates”. Healthy Beginnings reveals the benefits of parents and their infants participating in and host a play date with other moms and babies. For example, parents should set up some soft toys; establish a safe area on the floor for the babies to explore together. Stay close by the action, using words and simple sign language to talk about what is happening. The term “play date” is a demographic culturally based term used to define the arranged time established between parents and/or caregivers that children have with other children within their community.

An interesting factor shared on the Health Beginnings website under the caregiver’s tab is the ideas the being culturally sensitive and well diverse is understanding how other cultural groups process/ learn in general.

Getting Ready—E stablishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

I had the pleasure of e-mail several of the professionals out lines on the website below.
http://www.naeyc.org/resources/partnership/globalalliance. I have sent out an e-mail to 3 of my former Professors. I am very optimistic that I will obtain at least two responses.

I decided to review the State of Maryland Health Beginning Website listed below  http://www.marylandhealthybeginnings.org/. This week I was able to review the developmental chart posted on the website for caregiver and parents. I find the website very easy to navigate. I was referred to this website my former teacher of mines. I am very impressed with the developmental chart model that is posted. I am looking forward to exploring their activity planner for educators and parents.

Professional Hopes and Goals

The aspiration that I have for myself as an early childhood professional is to offer my children, their parents and staff the opportunity to immerse themselves in other cultures besides their own. Celebrating diversity is something that I would love to promote as an early child care professional. A goal that I would like to set for the early childhood field would consist of establishing a date of the year that all early childhood professionals make an effort to promote social justice, equity and diversity on a level that children at various ages could interpret and benefit from.

I would like to thank each member of this cohort for sharing your thoughts, experiences and interpretation of the areas of social justice, diversity and equity. I believe that this course has offered me the opportunity to deepened my understanding of the area of diversity and how it relates to the field of early childhood education in general.

Welcoming Families From Around the World

After imaging myself preparing for a family from China with a preschool aged child, I find that I would make an effort to prepare myself to be culturally responsive towards the family by completing the following task: (1) Research information about the Chinese culture, specific to their background/culture, (2) Research how the USA school system may differ from the schools in China, (3) Interview with the parents in order to gain insight about their desires/expectations of their child’s educational experience, (4) Staff the information I receive from the family with the child’s teacher, (5) Make an effort to learn a few phrases  in their language.

I believed that preparing myself to be culturally responsive towards this family will only further enhance my ability to establish a healthy and meaningful relationship with the family and their child. I also believe that making an earnest effort to understand the family’s culture will assist me as a Child Care Director in understanding the importance of being culturally sensitive to the families I work with in general.

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

In the world renowned novel and letter movie The Color Purple.  I recall the character Celie Johnson played by Whoopi Goldberg had experienced a great deal of oppression from her husband, Albert, played by Danny Glover. In the same film the character, Sophia played by Oprah Winfrey expressed both act of racism and prejudice and oppression by the White women and men in the town. The film reveals that during the 1900s in the south the type of oppression Blacks expressed towards each other and received from the White people in the town’s film.  The film highlighted how women were viewed and treated as second class citizen.  I was afraid for the character Celie as she was physical abused and raped by her father and then married off to a much older man who also abused her repeatedly both verbal and physically. In order for the women to be treated fairly and equally the mindset of the men in the story would have to changed and be open to viewing women as equals. Similar racial equality would have to take precedent in order for the Black family culture to be restored and strengthen. There would be less tearing of each other down within the race if social pressures weren’t so dominate.