My professional Hopes and Goals.

When I think of diversity, equity and social justice what comes to my mind is creating a society that is free from biases, unfair treatments , a conducive place where all humans can get equal treatments’ irrespective of their race, gender, abilities, social economic statue, sexual orientation and culture.

One hope that I have when I think about working with children and families who come from diverse background is creating a society that will be able to tolerate every individual irrespective of their economic statue, race, sexual orientation abilities, age and culture. A responsive society that will include all in all aspects of life, respecting every individual’s differences and appreciating the qualities that exist among us

One goal I would like to set for the early childhood field related to issues of diversity, equity, and social justice is inculcating in the young children under our care the importance of tolerance, respect just treatment to everybody we come across and accepting people irrespective of their abilities, age or racial identity. I feel these are like virtues we need as human beings to keep us going where ever we find ourselves. Bringing up children is not an easy task but collaborating with one another to get the job done is what we owe each other as early educators. So with our burning desire/passion, we will be able to get there, because we know what the outcome will be when we eventually get there.

It has been a wonderful eight weeks, it wouldn’t have been easy without my wonderful and amazing colleagues’, I thank every one of you for your collaboration, comments on blogs and discussion posts. You all kept me going and bringing out the best in me by your comments each week. I appreciate you all, this is just the beginning of collaborating with you all because I know this is a lifelong career path we have chosen, and we will continue to share ideas even after this course through our blogs. God bless you all and I wish you the best.

                                   Welcoming Families From Around the World

There are about 195 countries in the world today, and most people migrate from their countries to a country they feel will offer them and their children a better economic background and also create a save heaven for them. With the level of migration from one part of the world to the other people encounter culture shock and also limited ability to communicate effectively with the people in their host country.

Because of this culture shock and language barrier most people don’t feel comfortable mixing up and communicating freely. My assignment this week is to name a country and least 5 ways in which I can prepare myself to be culturally responsive towards helping families that fall into this category.

The name of the country I chose is Laos, the five ways in which I will prepare myself to be culturally responsive towards this family will include;

·         Learning about their culture, not only their surface culture but their deep culture because this will help me know them better and help me in working with them.

·         Collaborating with the family so that they will have an idea of what is happening in the school so as to carry on with the children when they get back home from school.

·         I will include their home culture into the activities in school so that they don’t feel left out in the school activities.

·         I will create a two way communication, interaction between me and tis family and it will be an ongoing process so that we will be able to work together and achieve success.

·         I will be visiting the family once in a while to see how they are settling and how the children are finding their new environment.

I believe as an early childhood professional if I prepare myself with the above mentioned processes it will help me go a long way in helping the family feel welcomed and part of the school community. Family- teacher relationships are important in building up or molding a total child; it helps strengthen adults’ knowledge, builds children emotional health and provides more support system for both children and their family. This will also help both I and the family to build a positive relationship and  this will help me take note of the barriers that exist like language barrier that make it difficult to communicate and possibly look for a more soothing way to help while working with them.

                           The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice and Oppression.

  Whenever I come across words like bias, prejudice and oppression what comes into my mind is superiority/inferiority and discrimination/inequity. Even though I most have experienced so many unjust treatments that have to do with biases, prejudices and oppression there none compared to this particular one I have decided to share with you all.

In Myanmar south East Asia, there is a minority tribe called the Rohingya, according to the BBC, they” are one of the world’s most persecuted minority groups”, and are the little- publicized and largely forgotten Muslim people of the coastal Rakhine state of western Myanmar. Over the past three decades, the Rohingya have been systematically driven out of their homeland by Myanmar’s military junta and subjected to widespread violence and total negation of their rights and citizenship within Myanmar. They are a stateless Muslim minority.

This particular tribe has been suffering biases, prejudices and oppression even before most of them were born and the climax of it all is that when their women put to birth their new born babies were denied citizenship and as such they don’t register their birth and no birth certificate is issued to them. There is this particular story on the news of this Rohingya woman that just had a set of twins, her children were not recognized as citizens and she had no roof to lay her head under, it was so diminishing and frustrating as well. Though the Rohingya may be small in number at less than two million, the fact is that democracy can only succeed if there is inclusion of all people within a country’s borders. Every member of society regardless of race, religion, social economic statue and sexual orientation should and must be given their due rights as citizens.

This particular story of the Rohingya brought a feeling of total rejection, not good enough to be part of this society that is meant to be for them and other tribes and it also makes me feel so sorry for the Rohingya tribe in Myanmar because for no just cause they are being denied their rights of free existence in their land.

For this situation to be reversed, the Myanmar’s should be able to value every tribe in their region by practicing inclusion and acceptance of everybody irrespective of their religion, social economic statue, abilities. And I think human rights activists and United Nations should be able to assist the Rohingyas too.

Reference:

Al Jazeera.