Professional Hopes and Goals

One hope that I have when thinking about working with children and families who came from diverse backgrounds is to help children to accept, understand, and value their rich and varied world. I want to make children feel comfortable with being able to express themselves. 

One goal that I want to set for early childhood field related to issues of diversity, equity, and social justice is to understand and get rid of my own bias so that I can be an advocate for others of different cultures.

I would just like to take this opportunity to thank each and everyone of my colleagues for sharing their insights and experiences on diversity. I have learned so much from Professor Ferrari and my colleagues. Good luck as each of you continue yor educational journey.

Welcoming Families From Around the World

The name of “your” family’s country of origin

The name of my family's country of origin is Chile.

At least five ways in which you will prepare yourself to be culturally responsive towards this family.

1. I will learn more about this family through community supports and ethnic organizations.

2. I will establish personal contacts with these families in person, as well as phone calls.

3. I will accommodate these families needs when it comes to scheduling meetings.

4.  I will become more educated in the families cultural beliefs.

5 . I would seek and provide resources for these families.


A brief statement describing in what ways you hope that these preparations will benefit both you and the family

These preparations will benefit the family and myself because it will allow me to get to learn and respect culturally diverse families. It will allow me to learn how to provide the support and resources that are needed for these families. I believe that we can learn from each.

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

The memory that I have is when I witnessed a teacher being biased toward a student. I noticed that a student who was less fortunate than the other students in his class, it seems as if the teacher did not want to listen to him. I noticed that the teacher would always talk about the child came to school with dirty clothing. I felt like she should have talked to the little boy parents instead of placing him in a corner. I noticed she never allowed the little boy to have any privileges.

I feel like the specific bias incident dimished equity because it is important that student/teacher interaction plays an important role in class.  It is important to use the appropriate materials because it sends a powerful message to the students.  The feeling that this incident brought up to me was a feeling of sadness as well as anger. It is hard for me to accept a child being ignored because of his appearance or the way that he looks.  The child was eventually moved to another classroom and I was glad to see that justice was done for this child.  Children can only get what we give to them they are very dependent on us.  I feel like the professionals will have to change themselves first; they need to take a look at their own bias as well as I believe that it is important that staff members receive training on diversity.

Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

The type of micragression that I experienced was religion-ism.  I remember once that I said Merry Christmas and I was corrected not to use those words. I felt that because I was a christian and some of the other people were not considered to be christians that this was a form of religion-ism. I was in a school system, I really felt that I had lost my freedom of speech as well as discriminated against.  I feel that microagressions and prejudice has really gave people a difference of opinions about others. I feel like microagressions really seperate people in many ways.

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

The first person that I called stated that culture is beliefs and value.
The second person stated that culture is celebrating music, art and traditions.
The third person stated that culture is the behavior, beliefs, values, and traditions

The first person that I called stated that diversity is acceptance and respect.
The second person stated that diversity is differences.
The third person stated that diversity is understanding uniqueness.

The aspects of culture and diversity that I have studied is through understanding culture through social identies. I learned about different types of cultures as well as the types of diversity.

The aspects that have been omitted are people of the same cultures differences in cultures within the same culture.

I have learned from other people to cherish your beliefs, values, and traditions; I learned to respect others differences.

My Family Culture

A major catastrophe has occurred and my family and I will have to evacuate, the three most important things that I would take are: my bible, my photos and videos, and my clothing.
The reason that I would take my bible is because I am a chriastian and I read my bible on a daily basis. I believe that reading the bible will help me through life difficult journeys. I read the bible when I first wake up in the morning as well as before I go to sleep at night.

The next thing that I would take with me is my photos and videos; the reason that I would take my photos and videos is because they hold a lot of history for me. I have many photos and videos of deceased family members that I would not want to lose; including photos and videos of my deceased father. I feel that as long as I have pictures that I can refer back to it will always bring a smile to my face to see how much I really resemble him.

The last thing that I would grab would be my clothing; I know that this goes without saying but I have clothes that are very important to me; I have clothings that were given to me from some of my favorite family members and I really want to cherish them.

When I think of research...

The insights that I have gained about research from taking this course; I have learned as I developed my research simulation that there is a difference in power between the researcher and the participants.  Even though research is not my strong point I have learned that research is a professional tool. I learned about the standard and guidelines as well as research charts. I learned about the importance of ethnics in research in the field of early childhood. I learned about hypothesis writing as well as qualitative research and the importance of validity. I also learned about the value of mixing methods. My ideas about research have changed, I am aware of the many steps of research and its validity. I have learned lessons about planning, designing, and conducting research in the early childhood field. Careful design of research takes time; it will ensure that research provides data with what was set out to be achieved.  Some of the challenges that I faced was the mixed research methods. I met this challenge by writing a research study outline. My perception of an early childhood professional have been modified as a result of this course by understanding the importance of using research as a professional tool.