What I Have Learned

One hope I have when I think about working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds is I as an Early Childhood Educator can embrace all cultures and ways of living. I also want to teach children about different ways of life and how each of us have our differences and similarities.

One goal I would like to set for the early childhood field related to issues of diversity, equity, and social justice is to foster the development of the whole child by helping them understand themselves and the world. They need to have cognitive and social-emotional skills developed to question the world and make their way through it.

Thank you to all my colleagues who have supported me through this class with meaningful discussions and feedback. I wish you the best on your journey.

Start Seeing Diversity Blog: Creating Art

"We Don't Say Those Words in Class!"

A couple of months ago I was standing in line behind a woman and her child. In front of us was a woman who was missing a leg and had a prosthetic with crutches. The child said loudly, “That woman has no leg!” The mother looked mortified and her face turned red. She then leaned down to the child and whispered something in his ear. After that the child did not say anything else.

I think the message communicated by the adults response to the child was to not say another word and her facial expressions also let him know this was not an acceptable comment. Once the child saw his mother’s face and also heard his words he stopped talking and stood there quietly.

An anti-bias educator might have responded to support the child’s understanding by giving the child a respectful understanding of others. Young children need caring adults to help them construct a positive sense of self and respectful understanding of others. They need adults to help them begin to navigate and resist the harmful impact of prejudice and discrimination (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010 p.11).

References
Derman-Sparks, L., & Olsen Edwards, J. (2010). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves. Washington, DC: NAEYC.

Gender, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation

I began by looking around my own classroom. At Head Start we value diversity and different cultures. We even have policies in place to make sure we have books to include fathers, grandparents, and depict multi-racial families. When I look at all the books we have in regard to families all of them have a heterosexism undertone. Either the books are two parent families with a man and a woman, or a single parent family. I did find one book about adoption, but the family who adopted the child was a two parent family with a male and female. I have two children and have watched and looked at a multitude of media targeted for young children. I can’t think of one instance where a same sex partnership was displayed. Looking around at the walls of the elementary school we are located in there are not any signs of different family dynamics. The fifth grade actually had a family tree displayed earlier in the year, but there were still no signs of same sex partnerships.

When I think of early childhood centers avoiding the inclusion of books depicting gay or lesbian individuals such as same sex partnered families I think this is a wonderful idea. Especially if you have children in your center or classroom who have these family dynamics. We as educators want all children to feel welcome and a part of the classroom environment. Children thrive in school when families are involved. When a family is validated and included it makes them want to be a part of their child’s schooling. This helps children with their self-concept and the connection to their own family. The world is such a diverse place with all different types of people in it. I believe we should do whatever possible to help each child feel included.

Team Development

In my own personal experience it is most difficult to say goodbye to groups which are high-performing. I think about this in regard to the team I work with. We are very high-performing. We always get very high CLASS scores and our classroom functions extremely smooth. We have had other teaching teams come in to observe our class and use us as a model. We work very closely together through the year. In my team there are three teachers. I am the Lead Teacher along with a Family Support and Teacher Aid. We have very established norms in place where we each know how we should act in situations and with each other. We all have roles in our workplace and the part we play in our team. When the end of the school year comes we do not know if we will be in the same team again in the next school year or switched around. We put in our requests and hope for the best. I have been lucky enough to be in my current team for four years now. When summer comes it is a hard goodbye. We pack up our room and get all our personal belongings ready to go home. We then take all of our files to the main office and turn them in. This has been our closing ritual each year. It is hard when the group is high functioning because you work together to to achieve your goals through the year.
In the past courses when working on my master’s degree it is a strange feeling when you leave a class and your colleagues. You start off the class figuring out the expectations and navigating the coursework with the other students support. You also start to form relationships through the discussions and learn about others viewpoints. Adjourning is an essential stage of teamwork because the group will have finished the task and need to move on to new things bringing the experience they have learned.

Personal Conflict

I recently had a disagreement at work about responsibilities assigned in the classroom. We share a classroom with an AM and PM class. We work in teams. I have an assistant and then the afternoon has an assistant. We share a teacher aide who sets up our meals. This can be very difficult because the children in the two classes have different interests and we are constantly using materials to support their needs. This means constant collaboration between the two teaching teams. We were having issues with the cleaning of the classroom and who was responsible for each duty. We are required to have a meeting with each team every other Wednesday to discuss classroom business. This is nice because we already have a scheduled meeting where we have to sit down for an allotted amount of time. The two strategies which worked in this meeting were first writing everything down. This worked well because you could see who was responsible for what on paper. This was effective because it was very clear how many responsibilities each person had. It also was a written record to follow if the task actually got done. The other strategy on a personal level was compromising and volunteering to do a portion of the tasks which needed to get done. I think it worked well because others also started to compromise and take initiative.

I did use some of the principles of Nonviolent communication because we were all listening to the needs of each other and working toward peace in our workplace and coming to terms with a common goal. Through the practice of NVC, we can learn to clarify what we are observing, what emotions we are feeling, what values we want to live by, and what we want to ask of ourselves and others. We will no longer need to use the language of blame, judgment or domination. We can experience the deep pleasure of contributing to each others' well being.

NVC creates a path for healing and reconciliation in its many applications, ranging from intimate relationships, work settings, health care, social services, police, prison staff and inmates, to governments, schools and social change organizations ("The center for," 2010).

References
The center for nonviolent communication. (2010, 01 25). Retrieved from http://www.cnvc.org/learn/nvc-foundations

Who Am I as a Communicator?

I chose my husband and one of my coworkers to evaluate me this week.  The one thing that surprised me most is my evaluations matched up with the results from the other two questionnaires.  I have made it very well known to my husband and my friend who I have worked with for four years that I have anxiety when speaking in large crowds.  I figured I would rate myself differently than they would just because I see myself from a completely different vantage point.  It did make my goals related to communication very clear.  The aspects I chose to work on are also seen by others I am close to.  One of the other interesting outcomes this week was in regard to my Listening Styles Profile.  I fell into group 1 which is considered people-oriented.  It states I am empathetic and concerned with the emotions of others.  This listening style helps you to build relationships, but can interfere with proper judgement because you tend to be very trusting of others.  This was very profound because I can see myself in this description.  I am going to start analyzing myself at work and in my relationships and take notice of when I portray these attributes.  There may be times where I need to be more clear-to-the-point, or business like.  I really enjoyed learning more about my communication style this week and thinking about goals which will help me improve on a personal level.