Shanae's Blog

One hope that I have about working with children and families from diverse backgrounds, is that I as an educator can be open-minded and inclusive of all children. I hope that I make every student and family feel welcome and a part of my classroom and environment. In addition I hope that I can take my own biases into consideration while not letting them hinder me from being inclusive of everyone. One goal that I would like to set for the field of early childhood education in regard to diversity, equality and social justice is to incorporate more aspects into curriculum that reflect a diverse population. I would like to see more things all curriculum that are geared toward people from a variety of ethnic groups and cultures. In addition, I would like to thank my colleagues for all of the insight that they have provided throughout this course. I enjoyed reading everyone's perspectives and personal anecdotes. I wish you all much success in your future endeavours.

     For this weeks blog assignment, we were assigned to choose a country that we know nothing about and asses how we as early childhood professionals would prepare for a child coming into our classroom from that country. The country that I choose was Albania. I personally know nothing about this country. The first thing that I would do to prepare for the child was to research the country. I would find out exactly where the country was located. I would look at the country's history. I would also look and see if there were any conflicts currently going on in Albania that many have been traumatic to the child. Next, I would research the culture of the country. I would look at the food that is eaten there, I would look at the customs and religious affiliation so that I would not do or say anything that may be offensive to the child and the family. Next I would look at the primary languages spoken in Albania. I would print out some common phrases and translations, just in cas...

     In my own personal life I would have to say that I have experienced biased and prejudice in the work environment. Working in a predominately Caucasian male dominated work environment was tough. At a young age I was African American and female at my place of business. I was also not from the county area that the business was located. I was told many times that i had a "city" accent. I assume that this was supposed to mean that since I was not from the suburbs that I did not exactly speak the way that the company would have liked. There were many times that people would blatantly correct my language, not specifically the context in which it was used but how I pronounced and enunciated certain words. I also was told that I was a "diamond in the rough". I was told that I needed to drop some of the things that I had that were because I was "from the city". This included things such as wearing more than one ring or a necklace that could be seen from the out...

     While browsing social media, this week I came across a video of a young black man in an Old Navy store. the young man had walked in the store with Old Navy apparel on that he had previously purchased. Long story short, the employees in the store made the young man take off his apparel and scanned it, and told the man that he would have to pay for the clothing. The store;s video cameras actually had to be checked for the store employees to believe that the man's clothing had been already purchased. When I watched this video, I was actually hurting for that young man. I'm sure that he felt discriminated against, singled out and embarrassed. It was a shame that the store employees that were white would single the young black man out. I am sure that there were other patrons in the store that had also had the store's apparel on when entering the store, Were these people made to check their clothing too. I also thought the man did a decent job of staying calm during, the o...

     I interviewed three people and asked them about culture. I interviewed 24 year old Sireana who is a Christian, who does not have children and works in the health field. I interviewed 38 year old Damian who is a Muslim, with five children, who works in the transportation field and I interviewed 30 year old Cassandra who has no particular religious affiliation, and she is a mother of three who works in the field of contracting. Sireana said that she believes that the definition of culture would be the combination of tradition, morals, values, religion and ethnicity for human societies. She stated that every culture is based upon different things and has different beliefs.  Sireana also said that diversity is a mixture of societies mixing together. When I asked the questions to Damian, he said that culture is basically traditions of a people over a period of time. Damian stated that diversity is personal differences. Cassandra stated that when she thinks of culture...

     The three items that I would choose to take with me would be my mom's ring, a medium sized knife, and a pocket bible.I would say that I would take the ring because my Mom passed away a few years ago and I would take the ring to keep her close to me. I would take my father's medium sized knife, because a knife is always useful. You can use it for cutting things, hunting things,making things or for protection. Lastly, I would bring a small christian bible.       If I would told that I could only keep one item, I would be disappointed, but I would keep the bible. I would keep the bible because based on my previous life experiences, my faith and my family's faith in God has gotten us through tough times and has guided my family with decision making. An insight that I gained about myself when doing this assignment, was that I believe in and rely on my faith more than I had originally thought. In my opinion, this was a good thing, because I feel lik...