Professional Hopes and Goals

My never ending hope when working with diverse families and children is to cherish their diversity, and use it as a resource to educate others.  The early childhood field is so often overlooked and underappreciated.  I will continue to strive to educate others on the importance of early childhood education as a whole.  Thank you all for your inspirational guidance throughout this course.  I wish you all the best in your educational journey. 

Week 8 EDUC 6165-6

To All My Dear Colleagues,

I wish you all success as you move forward with your educational journey.  It has been so interesting getting to know each individual.  We have learned and collaborated together to form new ideas and goals for the early learning environments that we work in.  Together we can make the necessary changes to continue to elevate the early childhood education field.  We can show the importance of early learning to law makers and citizens alike.  We have a responsibility to take the education we have received and spread it to other early childhood educators.  I wish you all the best in your future endeavors! 

Sincerely,

Brooke Downs Guy

Welcoming Families From Around the World

Families Country of Origin: American Samoa

American Samoa is a small archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean and is comprised of five volcanic islands (Tutuila, Ta'u, Ofu, Olosega, Aunu'u, Nu'utele) and two coral atolls (Swain's and Rose Islands). Tutuila contains about two thirds of the total area and is home to 95% of the 64 000 islanders.

In the time of 1000 B.C. Southeast Asian immmigrants arrived in the Samoan islands and from there they settled the rest of Polynesia.

First sparsely contacts with Europeans began in the early 1700s, intensified with the arrival of English missionaries and traders in the 1830s.

International rivalries had been settled by the Treaty of Berlin in 1899 in which Germany and the US divided the Samoan archipelago. The US formally occupied its portion.

Despite of modern influences Samoan people still hold firmly to "Fa'asamoa", the traditional Samoan way, related to their language, dress, food, customs and even property (http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/american_samoa.htm#Culture).

Five ways that I will prepare for this family’s arrival would be

*Educate myself

*Educate the other early childhood professionals that will also be assisting with this family.

*Prepare the students by discussing the family’s country of origin.  Discuss with the children how they may feel if they were moving to a new country as well as how we could make the child and their family feel welcomed.

*Display items in the classroom that would be familiar to the child.

*Locate music from the country of origin that they are relocating from and play it as background music in the classroom.

The preparations that I would take will help the child and family to feel welcome in their new environment.  It will help them know that I care about them and respect where they are coming from.  I would hope they would see that I was making an effort in understanding their background to assist their child in the relocation.  

Week 6

Groups are generally hard to leave behind when they are groups with passionate and respectful individuals that make up the overall group.  High performance groups are hardest for me to leave behind due to the over whelming amount of problems we tend to successfully solve together.  The more we work together to accomplish our goals the closer we get and the harder it is to say goodbye.  Rituals that are important to me at the close of a group is recapping the achievements the group has made and reviewing the time line of the accomplishments.  I have become close with a few individuals that attend Walden and I feel it will be very different to leave this group of individuals.  Anytime there is a group that only communicates and performs online it is bound to be different than groups that are created and function face to face.  Adjourning is an essential stage of teamwork because it is critical to end on a positive note that will help the group members to successfully be a part of future groups.

The Personal SIde of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

When I was in high school I distinctly remember a fellow cheerleader friend of mine being the target of prejudice behavior.  The entire cheerleading squad was white middle class girls except for one individual.  She was an African American individual who had a middle class family as well. We were having a squad sleep over.  The cheerleader who was hosting the sleep over did not want our fellow squad member to attend because she was “just different than us”.  I absolutely stood my ground and refused to go unless she was invited as well.  This was ridiculous behavior I felt and had a very hard time understanding it.  I decided no matter what the final decision would be on inviting this individual I would not attend the sleep over.  I did not want to associate with individuals that could be so hurtful.  When people stand up for what they believe in, it shows others the right thing to do.  We are all equals in this world.  We may have a different skin color, religion or sexual orientation but we are still equal. 

Nonviolent Communication and Conflict Management

Stress and conflict are always present when working with many different individuals.  It is essential that we as early childhood educators are equipment to handle these situations in a professional manner.  For instance I have a child who just turned three years old in May (at the end of May as well).  Because I will not move this child to a pre-k class room and feel she would benefit from her time in a three year old classroom the parents were furious and took her out of the school.  During this time I feel many different emotions, however I must keep them in check and remember that I am not that child’s parent and whether I agree or not they are doing what they feel is best for her.  I dealt with this frustration by writing down my concerns and then speaking with the parents about them.  It is important for both sides of the conflict to be heard and respected.  As early childhood educators we will deal with situations such as these often and must be able to handle them by equipping ourselves with the knowledge needed.