Practing Awareness of Microaggressions

Practing Awareness of Microaggressions   An example of microaggression that comes to mind for me was about six months ago. A white co-worker complains about her community from time to time. Apparently there is a bar close by,  that she refers to as the “hood” ( black peoples hangout). She assumed that my husband and I would like it!   I felt angry that she presented it as “funny” or looked for me to make fun of the “hood”. This experience defiantly felt like a stereotype towards my husband and me. It is suggesting  we would feel comfortable in a less  then desirable area for entertainment.   And in return, I have to forgive her or I will fall back into stereotypes myself , because that is how we are taught from our environment  meaning; “if you say something offensive you must be prejudice” so I’m learning it was just an ignorant comment and to keep it moving.

 

Perspective on Diversity and Culture

I asked three people the question what does culture and diversity mean to them,  all three spoke around the terms   “  culture  is a group of people that share the same beliefs, experiences, expressions, understandings, and customs in particular place in time”  and diversity was explained as acceptance.  One person went a little farther to say it’s so important to her  because she wants her children to be immersed in many views and the way of life and in her opinion it’s the only way to make educated decisions.  

o     Which aspects of culture and diversity that I have studied in this course are included in the answers I received—and what are some examples?

All through the course we have talked about our beliefs and how we were raised. We talked about the strong beliefs and what is most important to us. One of the participant spoke on   diversity, he said “ I’d say diversity means the intentional inclusion and acceptance of others beyond what’s dominate and common.  It is embracing others of different paths, ethnicities, races, and beliefs.” When he shared that,  I thought  wow his descriptions is going beyond culture ( dominate) right into diversity…. Very cool    

o    Which aspects have been omitted—and what are some examples of such omission?

I can’t think of anything being omitted, everyone want to cover all their bases. Religion. Food, values, expression, experiences, holidays, schools, family life style, it seems all was covered

 

o    .  In what ways has thinking about other people’s definitions of culture and diversity influenced my own thinking about these topics?

I simply have more respect and acceptance of people. My husband says you cannot control people nor change people, so instead of saying “I like her,  accept…… change that accept to acceptance”  

 

 

My Family Culture

If something devastating happen to my country and I had to make some decisions about what I could take with me as far as items to live in another country with complete  strangers, I would take my  photo album, cell phone and bible.

I would explain to others that my photo album is of my family members , my cell phone has videos of family and friends and my bible  is part of my faith and inspiration of GOD’s word.

I would be devastated and depress if I were told that I would have to give up all but two items.

In the event that I was forced  give the items, I would keep my bible.  I would think  at this point in my life nothing on earth would help me get through this change in my life  accepted drawing closer to GOD.

I think this exercise would shed light on a number of things like;

·         How blessed I was and didn’t appreciated it.

 

 

·         How  prejudice I was and didn’t know it.  

·         I would take advantage of sharing things that  my host didn’t know.

·         And me learning things  at I didn’t know.  

When I Think of Research

I love research because I’m an analytic person; some may say a type A person who needs to know the function of matters. Research speaks volumes to my heart! It really doesn’t matter about the population of groups study but, whatever I’m researching, there will most likely be a twist.

The insight gain from the course are the vocabulary words that I will never forget “qualitative  and quantitative” as my examples, the “understanding the research chart “ was my favorite assignment to do, “it didn’t mean that I always got it right, BUT I could express my understanding of what I was try to learn .  Now I have the understanding of a protocol, the steps of planning, designing and conducting have guided me  in how to think through, collect necessary forms and proceed with caution, while working with children and families.  The ethical rights of children, the inform consent, the formal consent and the respect for others if the participants were no longer interested.  When I think of challenges, I can’t say that I really met any; it was all about learning and growing in knowledge.  

Finally, because of my research simulation project of “Teacher burnout in early childhood education” my perception and compassion of teacher responsibilities has grown deeper. Early education in a child care center is HARD work, especially if you claim to be a quality center.   Therefore, CHEERS to the best research class ever!!!!!! I have learned lot about myself and others.

 

Research around the World

Research around the World

·         Some of the articles today are still current research topics that deserve attention like;

·         The Development of an Integrated Early Childhood Development Urban Model Training Program for Informal Minders and Community Volunteers in Ghana

·         Involving Fathers in Early Childhood Care and Development -Nigeria -

·         Coordinating the Development and Implementation of the 2003 – 2013 National Action Plan (NAP) for Children in Malawi

·         Parents’ and Other Caregivers’ Perception of Early Childhood Development Needs and Quality: A Study of the PLAN-Assisted Programmes in Bawjiase, Ghana

A lot of the articles are out date YET timeless, it still speaks to the stagnant or progression we have made in ECD.   

 I have gained

Just from exploring the  http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/major.report.php   I have come across an idea to  contribute to my center .  The article “Involving Fathers in Early Childhood Care and Development “   written by ; Rosemary Hua  of Nigeria,  inspirited me to take a closer look at father participation  in child care.   We have fathers from one extreme, to the other meaning ; helicopter fathers who make it impossible or uncomfortable for educators to do their jobs or from the other end of the spectrum  fathers that  are missing in action. This particulate article is about getting fathers involved more, they are even asked how they view children , an  interesting reply from a father  from Nigeria was “Mr. Swem, who is about 65 years old, said: “A man without children is like a farmer who eats all his corn without keeping some seeds. He will have nothing to plant next year.” http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/major.report.php

Interesting comparison,  just from this website alone I find this to be  noteworthy,  it seems that most men have allowed mothers to take the lead in child care and I’m sure that the mothers convey information about their child’s development growth from the educators stand-point,  however I can see and indicator (from what  moms share, or how lost fathers  look at drop off or pick up) that  educators need to support the moms and focus in on giving the fathers  their own club to receive  information

Reference;
Involving Fathers in Early Childhood Care and Development http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/major.report.php

Research On Quality Sleep

Sharing a positive example of research from the Z flo for infants positioner/ I worked in the  NICU for nine years with the smallest citizens, you can imagine.

A protocol was written about the quality of rest an infant needed to grow. So the research question was "Will Z-flos help an infant sleep long?"  Deep sleep is how an infant heals. The environment plays a part ( lights, sound and touch) but actual quality of the environment takes the place of the womb in the outside world. So the research went on for a couple of months, The infant would be place on the z-flo at 9:pm and  the nurse would document the times the infant would wake up (not including the assessment times) while he or she was on the z-flo.  Again the next night at the same time without the mattress, documentation was collected. From there,  another part of the day was added,  this would happen in the morning and a night.  Ultimately data shared our hypothesis, the infant slept better on the z-flo.  Parents were relieve that their child was getting satisfactory sleep in the world of  NICU.

                                        

My chosen topic for my simulation is Teacher Burnout.

Simulation

In the last year  our center has  made some adjustments to preparing for “Set Up to Quality” requirements.  A lot of the paperwork takes away from that rich relationship between the teacher and child because intentional anecdotes, documented observations, portfolios screeners and assessment  need to be current, and factual ( which I agree) . Teachers have shared, they just don’t have enough planning time while meeting the needs and giving relationship attention to the children individually and as a group. This concern is more so in the infant rooms because schedules and routines are also a factor.

Personal experience

My personal experience in this process are finding ways to help teachers get out of the room more for their planning times. Example, days that we don’t have meetings  using that  hour to plan,
or cutting down on forms so that screeners and parent conference forms  can be used as a onetime lesson plan for that month,  so that  planning the following  week will  help the  teachers  stay a head of paper work.  

 

Insights gained

As I become more familiar with my course work, I’m paying closer attention to websites that offer research data. At this point just discovering more educational sites is big for me. A few examples ; http://www.childcareexchange.com/eed/

http://www.cdc.gov/

http://www.naeyc.org/policy/ecwsi 

 http://www.aap.org/en-us/Pages/Default.aspx and my favorite http://www.centerforchildhoodcreativity.org/research/?gclid=Cj0KEQiAreilBRDzrNfb6uqX4fwBEiQAk-MRY_dbKHCpCvEJER0650g-i3oGD7J6WJ58LnJApFeFPQEaAk318P8HAQ  which comes from Zero to Three

 

I’m learning how to make sense of new terminology of research  and applying it in  everyday life on my job. IF you have any websites that I should add to my list please feel free to guide me or just hearing your experiences will help me greatly.