Someone who has influenced me the most with competent communication is one of my student teachers, Mrs. Garner. She was my kindergarten co-op teacher and taught me so many communication techniques. First of all, as soon as you are in her presence you feel at ease. She has that warm, cozy feeling like a grandmother and was always ready to give hugs to everyone, whether it was one of her students or me. When speaking with her students, she always bent down so she was at their eye level in order to make them feel more comfortable to speak with her about something or to calm them down when they were frustrated and lowered her voice. She looked at them directly, never raised her voice, and showed them the same about of respect she expected from them.

One of my favorite things I learned from her, was how she never, ever, called a child bad, even when we had some pretty frustrating days with some of our students. Her classroom was in center city Reading, PA which is known to be a tough area, so some of the students don’t have the best family backgrounds and sometimes certain negative qualities followed them into the classroom from home. When a student was acting particularly naughty, she would always ask them, “are you feeling mischievous?” or if she had to speak with a parent at the end of the day, she would always start her conversation with them saying something positive about them or that they did today before letting them know that the child had a “mischievous day”. It was a way to communicate with the parent that the child wasn’t listening, but was not in a negative tone that neither the child nor parent felt threatened by the report. In the classroom, the students learned that when Mrs. Garner said she saw someone feeling mischievous, they knew that they needed to calm down.

I try to model her techniques in my own classroom every day. I saw how effective they were in her classroom, and wanted to implement them myself. Every time I think about when I want to get frustrated with how a child is acting, I remember how Mrs. Garner would handle the situation calmly. She showed me how to teach the children respect as individuals and communicate to them the importance of listening and working together. I think about how she was always calm and able to explain how their behavior was unacceptable without condemning them or making the situation worse. Her communication skills were definitely effective and I’m proud to emulate her.

One hope that I have when I think about working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds is that both parents and my students can see that I truly care about them, their welfare, and their culture. I want my words and actions to have the right meanings, and my classroom to be a welcoming and judgement-free zone where families of all diversities are respected.

One goal that I would like to set for the early childhood field related to issues of diversity, equity, and social justice is to make sure that my own personal biases are identified by myself before speaking with parents and making assumptions about the culture that I may not know. I want to make sure that do my own research first on the culture of future families, but still make the time to get to know the parents and families. It is important to remember to be professional and show empathy for all.

Lastly, I would like to thank my colleagues for all of your insight, comments and responses to my blog or discussion boards, and especially for being open and honest in some of our discussions as well. Some of these topics had us take a real close look at our personal biases or times in our lives where we witnessed or were the recipient of a microaggression or other -ism of the world. I know sometimes it is hard to admit these things, but I think by being so open about it we can get the encouragement we need or acknowledgement that we may not be along in what we have/will experience in our personal lives or classrooms. Good luck everyone, on our continued journey towards our Master’s goals!

For this post, I just received notice that we will be getting the child of a family who recently immigrated from Russia. As a culturally responsive educator, these are the steps that I would take to prepare myself for them and ensure that the family and child would feel safe and welcomed in my classroom/program.

1. First, I would need to make sure that I know the language or dialect they speak. While one would assume that the family spoke Russian, I would have to find out if that is true or not. Depending on where in Russia they live, they may related languages; Russian or Slavic (I believe). It would also be important to find out if the child or parents know any English at all. How should I be able to communicate? Will I need a translator? Most importantly, I should learn one or more polite greeting in order to show that I am making an attempt to be able to greet & communicate with them and make them feel at ease entering (or exiting) my classroom. Having some pictures around the room with their home language could make the family and child feel more included and accepted in the classroom.

2. Along with identifying the language spoken and being able to greet them, an important factor to know would be the exact (or proper) pronunciation of the child’s full name. I would not want the child’s social identity taken away by the feeling like they are not important enough for their name to be recalled or used properly. Some cultures the last name is said first and then the last name; would this be the case for Russia?

3. Third, it would be important to learn about Russia’s culture. What values, traditions, beliefs or customs could this family be a part of? By having that general idea already before the family arrives could allow me to understand possible actions that could occur during our meeting or child’s learning experience.

4. I would make sure that once I have a general understanding about some of the traditions or holidays that our new student or family could observe, I would begin to discuss with my students what we may expect. It would be important for them to have an idea what the student could look like, how they may dress, or speak so that while the children may still be curious, they wouldn’t look or point or accidentally seem rude to the child when they first join. We would discuss how to be respectful, a good friend, and try to say “hello” in Russian together. Once the family gets comfortable in the classroom, I could also see if the parent would want to come in and speak with the kids about their culture or special holiday.

5. Along with the culture, knowing the favored foods or how things are prepared could be important. Will this child eat, enjoy, or even try anything that doesn’t look like what they are used to? Do they prefer heavily spiced foods that we don’t serve at the school? It would also be important to know what religion (if any) they practice and what holidays they observe.

I hope that all of these things would help prepare me for what to expect and also help place both the family and child at ease when first meeting me and the classroom. Becoming culturally responsive can be a daunting task because it does mean a lot of research first and foremost, but it also involves a self-assessment of sorts. I need to make sure that I would have no prejudices or personal biases before meeting the family and would need to make sure no assumptions are made, and possibly turned into a situation where microagressions could unintentionally occur. Preparing myself for this will also help me create developmentally rich and inclusive learning practices that would hopefully promote the inclusion and acceptance of my linguistically, racially, and culturally diverse students and families. If I take the time to prepare myself and be ready, hopefully the family would see how important their comfort and culture is to me and allow them to feel respected and supported in a culturally responsive early childhood classroom setting.

I think that most days I can see I feel prejudice by being labeled “just” a prek teacher, but lately I have felt so much more oppression because of it and this COVID-19 virus, although interestingly enough, for opposite reasons.

We have mentioned in in our discussion boards before, but so many times people make assumptions about us a early educators and what we do. We are labeled as having an “easy” job and “just” playing with kids all day or stating that we “don’t have a ‘real’ job” even though a lot or most of the early childhood educators have or in some cases, must have at least an associates or bachelors degree to teach. It takes WORK to teach children as we all know as educators, but it is super frustrating when people make those ignorant comments to or about us. Their preconceived notion is that teaching is easy, because why can’t every child understand how to count or recognize all of their letters and sounds. All kids are the same, right? And they’re *just kids* right? How hard can it be to sit and play with them and sing songs and learn the ABCs?

While most people/parents are quickly coming to the realization that “just teaching preschool” is NOT as easy as they thought or wanted to assume it was, there are still people who want to continue to make those assumptions. I had someone comment on one of my facebook post about being upset about schools being closed for the rest of the year in Pennsylvania. They replied that “how can you be so cruel to want to be at school during this time when so many other people, like doctors and nurses are on the front lines trying to beat this disease. Why would you want to go back to the school and get everyone sick” I was completely appalled at this response, first of all that it seemed to be an accusation that I wanted to spread the virus and second that they made it seem like I thought I was better than the healthcare professionals, which I certainly do not! I was upset for my students who didn’t get a proper goodbye from me or their friends, for my kiddos moving up to kindergarten and missing that graduation, for my parents who don’t get to buy those special cap and gown photos. For my brand new student who was just finally starting to open up to myself and my co-teacher and her friends.

People also made the comment that “must be nice to be getting paid to be at home” and “you’re lucky you don’t have to be at school” as if that should make me feel better. Teachers had no control over the situation and we ALL would rather still be teaching in our classrooms face to face than sitting in front of a computer screen talking to only some of your students because the majority of them don’t have a computer or internet to be able to do so, or the one they have is being used by their parents to try to work from home as well so you can’t even see ALL of your kids. I know I am certainly doing more trying to watch my very active niece and nephew while still trying to talk to parents and students of my own and send activities or worksheets for them to be doing, making videos of me doing read-alouds and complete online grad school work as well. I’m not getting paid to “sit at home” and I’m even more stressed now during this time than I was at my own apartment where I had supplies to do the things I wanted for my classroom and students. Yes, I am thankfully getting paid, but that’s because I am working my butt off trying to talk to parents semi-daily and interact with my students. I record things I’m doing with my own niece to show what they can be doing in their own homes and try to use things that are in all of our houses. I am not just “sitting around” and collecting a paycheck and the assumption that I would be happy to do that was also an insult. Especially as this person knew that I was not even at my own house, but am staying with my sister to watch her kids while her and my brother-in-law still need to work!

Although that was one personal instance of someone still thinking negatively against teachers, I do sincerely hope that once this virus goes away, people will give the respect teachers truly deserve. A lot of parents are already admitting or reposting memes about how hard it is to be a teacher, when they are only attempting to homeschool their OWN child(ren) and it’s not 18-25 kids of all different learning levels and families! And while most of us teachers are not doing this job for the money, it certainly would be nice if the government recognized the hard work we do every day with an increase of pay as most of these parents are not understanding and demanding for us 😉 For most teachers/districts, we were all already putting long distance education into place before the government said to do so and that was the “best policy during this time”. If the government and those higher ups actually ASKED and listened to what teachers wanted and put into place our ideas instead of placing impractical demands and expectations on us, they might see how well the school system could be. Otherwise, I think teachers will never get the same equity and respect that other jobs have. Once again, all other jobs would not be possible had a teacher not taught that person first, and it all starts with the early childhood educators who gt that ball rolling.

So one example of microaggressions that I noticed this week during this social distancing & isolation time was actually an observation made by my dad. I had been reading the book The Berenstain Bears and the Mother’s Day Surprise to my niece. Papa Bear and the cubs wanted to make a special breakfast in bed for Mama and she overhears their plans. So assuming that they will make a mess in the kitchen and can’t properly make the special breakfast, she buys all the supplies for them too and even makes the comment that she knows they will make the biggest mess and she will actually be the one who needs to clean up after. As a I was reading aloud my dad commented, “You know, I really hate how they make Papa Bear out to be a bonehead who can’t do things in the kitchen and will just make a mess. Why is it that Papa Bear can’t cook or clean as good as Mama Bear?”

I finished reading the book to my niece but then pondered what my dad mentioned and realized that it was an example of genderism. He was right; the hidden message throughout the book is that Papa Bear *was* kind of a bonehead and couldn’t seem to do anything right. While he did end up making a giant mess in the kitchen and burnt the toast and special surprise when Mama Bear first came down (a seemingly typical assumption that men can’t do ” typical female” things like cook in the kitchen or will only create messes they won’t or can’t clean up) Papa Bear did clean up and the surprise was wonderful of course, but my dad was right to be annoyed with how the dad was being portrayed, and had he not mentioned it, it probably wouldn’t have been something I even thought about because I’m not a male. But it’s a shame how hidden messages and microaggressions aren’t just unintentional verbal messages, sometimes they are hidden within books, TV shows, and movies as well.

This week really has opened my eyes to the amount of microaggressions I can find throughout society. I am becoming much more aware of how I phrase things or thinking about the message I am sending and people’s reactions. While I’m pretty sure people would be able to understand that it was an unintentional message I might have sent as I am a nice person and truly, truly, do not mean any hard to anyone, like Dr. Parrish mentioned in our announcements, it still doesn’t make it ok that it happened and the impact I made on that person/group still occurred. It really is important to stop and think how people feel and may respond, especially if you want that same courtesy.

In trying to have a deeper understanding of culture and diversity, I contacted three friends; two of which are my colleagues from two different countries and a male parent who is bilingual for their views on culture and diversity. The following are the responses received to the definition of culture and diversity.

1. Dominican (female)

“Culture is what defines me, what makes me ME. That means where I am from, my country, race, food, music, and language. All of the things that can describe me and how became the person I am from how I grew up. It’s the things I will teach my children about themselves.”

“Diversity is a way of being different. For example, in my culture, when you call a person Latino, it does not mean just one set of people. Not all Latinos comes from the same country or do things the same way. We have some similarities, but its these differences that make us diverse and wonderful.”

2. Puerto Rican (female)

“Culture for me is the food I eat, celebrations I have and participate in, and even the way I speak. Culture is very family-oriented and revolves around my heritage and roots.”

“Diversity is the difference between two cultures. What makes one different from another is how we accept, understand, and respect each other’s cultures.”

3. African-American (male)

“Culture is someone’s beliefs and traditions that stem from their family and lifestyle”

“Diversity are the things that make people different. For me, it’s the ability to coexist with other cultures and beliefs and have that mutual understanding that even though we are different, neither of us is wrong in believing or acting as we do”

Insight

I realized that pretty much all of the responses to the definition of culture and diversity were fairly similar and not different from what I have learned or would have said myself. Although they used a varied choice of words, the idea about what culture and diversity are were expressed in their definitions. One thing I noticed between all three of them is when defining culture, each of them mentioned things relating to our “surface culture” we learned about this week from or video (Laureate Education, 2011); meaning those things that can immediately be seen or heard about a person such as their race, gender, language. I think this is a common definition, exactly because of that; it’s what we immediately can tell, and not necessarily those underling things that make us different and diverse. As Derman-Sparks & Edwards (2010) put it, “there are many different cultures in the world but how we respond to that experience will either limit or expand our understanding and acceptance of the idea that there are many ways to be human.”

                            References:

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.

Laureate Education (Producer). (2011). Culture and diversity [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

In light of the recent events going around with the Corona Virus, this blog assignment is really hitting home. I have been thinking on this all week (actually preparing mentally and physically in case we do have a national crisis) and honestly, it’s HARD to think of only three things to take with me. I sincerely hope that this event never occurs, however, I think the 3 things that I would take with me is my Bible, an album with a family photo, and my ipod.

My family is the absolute most important thing to me, so the fact that in this simulation, I would be able to be with my family was helpful in deciding what I could bring with me. However, the first thing I would still bring with me is a photo album filled with family photos and memories that I could take with me, especially if anything would happen and I would be split from my family. It is definitely true that a picture is worth a 1000 words. Those pictures would give me comfort and help me remember the various memories and fun times, as well as my extended family, like aunts, uncles, and cousins who wouldn’t be with me.

The second thing I would bring would be my Bible, for a dual purpose. One, because my relationship with Christ has gotten me through a lot of hard times, and doing my devotions has really helped calm me down. But also, because I love to read and being able to read through the Bible as well as hold on to my Christian heritage would get me through the hardships of being a refugee in another country. Reading is my favorite way to relax after a rough day of work, and having my both the Bible and a way of being able to read would give me something to smile about and not worry about what I can’t fix.

Finally, I would bring my ipod (assuming that I’d be able to bring a charger so it can play) Next to family, religion, and reading, music is another big part of me. When I’m stressed if I can’t read, I will sing to whatever my mood feels like. It’s another outlet of comfort and its something that I can control at any time. With my ipod I could have a great many different songs that could generate memories and feelings during hard times.

If I were told upon arrival I could only keep one of those personal items, I would be absolutely devastated to have to choose…. honestly It was hard enough narrowing down to three and why! Assuming that I would always be with my family, I would choose to keep my Bible which gives me both physical and emotional comfort.

This assignment really opened up my eyes and made me thing as to what is really important to me. One of the things I realized and kept coming back to, is the note in the assignment that it was “you and your immediate family”. As I sat (literally all weekend) thinking about what was so important to me to bring along, I realized nothing was important as my actual family. Being with them would help me immensely and together we would be able to handle the situation.

My research simulation topic was “To what extent do preschool teachers implement strategies in order to include culturally diverse parents in their classroom learning?” The purpose of the research simulation was to find out if parental involvement of cultural diverse family members increased when specific strategies were implemented into the classroom.

Diversity and parental involvement is an area that has been looked into by many researchers. Teachers in the field need to respect and accept all children and their families regardless of the background and should be aware of the specific cultures that are/will be included in their classroom. I think that my research simulation will be necessary for the early childhood field because it explores how teachers incorporate diversity and inclusion in their classroom that gets parents aware of and excited to become involved in the classroom. The simulation will reveal what strategies teachers have found to be most effective and why to their parents as well as what the parents thought was effective as well (their ideas may differ from the teachers based on cultural preference). The findings will help to create awareness on the importance of inclusive classroom environments, welcoming strategies, and an increase of parental involvement for culturally diverse families.

 If I were to conduct a simulation proposal, I think it will benefit other teachers, specifically the ones in my school, as that was where I said the simulation took place. Working in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, we are well known for being culturally diverse, so if this simulation would find specific strategies that the culturally diverse parents found effective, I would want to share them with all of the classrooms so we could be all inclusive at all times. 

Throughout this course, I learned that early childhood professionals are resourceful, patient, and more passionate about their job. I also realized how much thought and work goes into creating effective studies that we use in our classrooms every day. I am not shy to admit that I would much rather be given the results of a study that have already been proven effective than having to do it myself. It is A LOT of thought, time, work, and research that honestly, I never thought about before, nor cared about. However, as I completed each week, it slowly got a little bit easier to understand and complete (although I still don’t love doing research). I also realized how often I actually “do” research in my classroom that I didn’t realize was considered research— what I mean is that I am constantly making hypotheses and acting upon them every day in my room. If I change (this) about my room, will (this) happen? Well, let’s try it out. Often times we do this naturally, and I never thought of it as a type of research until now.

Finally, I would applaud all my colleagues for the great fight throughout this course. It was definitely TOUGH (at least for me) but through hard work and determination, we can all cross off another course in our Master’s journey! Thanks to all of you for your great comments and suggestions on my posts here and in the discussion boards; they were all very encouraging and supportive.

While all three of these suggested international early childhood websites were informative and really interesting, the one that I learned the most about was the one that interestingly, I felt I related to the least, which was Child Research Net (https://www.childresearch.net/) a nonprofit organization located in Japan. The website was well laid out with easy tabs to open to find out what projects they are working on, essays you could read, data from projects that have been completed, and events and publications.

There were a large assortment of current international research topics to click on, including Q&A about Children’s Health, Child Research Network Asia (CRNA), Data based discussion on education and children in Japan, ECEC Around the World, Declining birth rate and child-rearing in Japan, among others.

One of the surprising facts to learn about was the declining birth rate and child-rearing in Japan. Japan has become an aging low birth-rate society, facing rapid demographic change. Since countermeasures for the declining birth rate are urgently required, the website looks into the issues of marriage, pregnancy, childbirth and child-rearing in this section (Childresearch.net) One of the things they found was that while after giving birth and still being in the hospital, mothers will receive lots of support, but once they leave, there seems to be little places to find more information or help with child-rearing so families are seemingly stopping after one child in Japan. Problems that these mothers face with multiple child includes the high need for help “playing with the elder child,” “dropping off and picking up the elder child” and “staying at home when dropping off/picking up the elder child.” Newspapers increasingly cover the topic of postnatal support, but awareness in public is low. Some mothers will receive support from family and friends, but if they have their own children this also becomes difficult. Japan is now starting to put more projects in place to help these mothers (and fathers) in order to increase the birth rates and receive the help needed to keep a medium family afloat.

I chose this website, because while there have been Japanese students enrolled in my school, I have never had any in my classroom, although the prospect is there. I thought perusing this website would be most beneficial so that if/when I encounter these students and their families. Under the “papers and essays” tab I clicked on Multicultural Education which brought me to another page where I could narrow down my inquiries to find what I wanted more information on. I randomly chose to read about The Grandpals program that is set up in Japanese schools and I was hooked. The GrandPals program builds one-on-one friendships between elementary school children and seniors in their community. The pals meet weekly to discuss themes of interest across generations, share meals, or visit a museum. The program promotes empathy, the ability to understand another person who appears to be very different from themselves, which prevents prejudice. Although our children will become seniors one day, and may be working with seniors throughout their lives, few have close contacts with seniors during their formative years and understand what the lives and interests of seniors are like (Ritchie, 2018)

There were a lot of other great projects and articles to look through to learn more information about families, early childhood education, and projects that I greatly enjoyed looking through. This is definitely a website I will be keeping bookmarked for future reference!

References:

Child Research Net. (2020) https://www.childresearch.net/

Ritchie, Marlene. (2018). The Grandpals program promotes friendships between school kids and seniors through shared interests. Retrieved from https://www.childresearch.net/papers/school/2018_01.html

I chose to go with option 1 and share a positive example of the effects of research on children and families.

The importance of childcare in children’s early years has been debated for a long time. In Pennsylvania, schooling isn’t required until first grade. So since Kindergarten isn’t even mandatory, some parents think that child care before that (nursery school, pre-kindergarten, or even day care) isn’t worth the money or has any effect at all on the child(ren). Yet, many researchers have been interested in the effect of childcare and if in fact it does help physical and cognitive development.

I found an article titled, Childcare and it’s impact on children’s development by Ellen S. Peisner-Feinberg (2007). The researchers studied children age 3-5 years old and focused on these questions,

1. Is the level of child care quality in preschool related to children’s cognitive and social development?

2. How long are the influences of child care quality evident?
3. Are there differential effects of child care quality on developmental outcomes for children from different
   backgrounds?

They found that children who attend better quality child care during the preschool years
demonstrate better cognitive and social skills during this time period, and children who attended any child care, regardless of the differences in family or socioeconomic background characteristics still functioned better and had better cognitive and social development than children who attended no school at all (Peisner-Feinberg, 2007). Moreover, these results indicated that the influences of child care quality is important for children from all backgrounds. While some studies have found even stronger effects for children from less advantaged backgrounds (suggesting that this issue may be even more critical for children already at greater risk for school failure) the findings indicate that children from more advantaged backgrounds are also influenced by the quality of care.

What interested me the most about this article is that it mentioned that aside from this one, there have been several studies in other states and even countries have found positive associations between child care quality and children’s cognitive development and social competence during the preschool years. I have parents who come in doubting what their child can do and learn in school and are hesitant to put them in a classroom environment “before they are ready” (parent’s view, not my own) It’s my job as a teacher to prove to the parent how beneficial being in the school, learning how to problem-solve with peers, following directions, and social-emotional skills from just a single year, much less the two years children can have to complete our program if they come in at 3 years old. I fully agree and support this research on children because it is beneficial to both the children and their parents.

References:

Peisner-Feinberg, Ellen. (2007). Childcare and it’s impact on children’s development. Retrieved from http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/child-care-early-childhood-education-and-care/according-experts/child-care-and-its-impact-young-1