It is my hope that when I interact
in my work with children and families that they feel welcomed and comfortable
within the environment that they come into, whether it’s in a classroom,
community center, or even right in their own homes on a home visit. Maintaining
a positive relationship, being thoughtful about communication, and truly getting
to know families aside from their stereotypical preconceived notions about
their culture are all tools that can create strong connections regardless of
the cultural differences. When people from different backgrounds come together
beneficial contributions are too made as we all can learn to understand and
appreciate cultural differences, and bring individual richness to each of our
interactions with different social identities. I also hope that the through the
welcoming environment that they know that they are valued and regarded not only
as a people from a diverse background but as unique individuals who bring their
own significant contributions to the classroom and society.
The goal I would like to set for the early childhood field
is as followed; To impart the knowledge
of strong diversity, equity, and social justice concepts on the young aspiring
teachers who are still in the early stages of their schooling, in order to effectively
institute change in the early childhood community. (If young teachers are
able to learn the practices of incorporating diversity into their classrooms
from early on the actual application of it will be less of a challenge for
them. These concepts of self-identification towards an understanding of biases
and prejudices are so beneficial to the teaching process and understanding how
and why we interact with different cultures that it needs to be introduced in
the beginning of a career when students have not yet been set in their ways.)
I would like to thank all of my colleagues and instructor Rosalie
Parrish, for all of the awesome insight, work and feedback from all of the
assignments throughout this course! I have truly learned so much knowledge and awareness
from this course that I will take with me in all future endeavors both
professional and personal. Good luck to everyone with the rest of their
academic ventures towards a degree!
I couldn't agree more with your hopes and goals. I feel that everything we learned during this course will contribute to making better connections with families and children and even colleagues. Your goal for the field is spot on. I think that it is so important to put efforts into teaching new teachers about anti-bias education. It was interesting that many of the panelists in the videos we watched in this course were led into the teacher training field. I think that this is definitely a vital part of supporting diversity, equity, and social justice. Thank you for your post and good luck in your future endeavors.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post and your encouraging words will help me continue down this road in becoming a teacher. I agree with you on your hopes for your children and your family to be able to provide a positive and welcome environment for your families.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing!
Excellent post, very well written. I especially agree with adding diversity and equity courses to the required coursework for new teachers. Doing so will help it feel much more natural as they embark on their teaching careers. I wish I would have had courses like this when I was initially certified. It would have helped me tremendously in several classroom settings. I also want to say that I really liked the artwork you posted at the beginning of this post. It points out all of the major topics we learned about in this course and keeps them in the forefront of our minds. Thanks for sharing and I wish you well in your future endeavors and hope to see you in future courses.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, I love your goal and agree it needs to start earlier than graduate work! Thank you and best wishes in the rest of your studies.
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