What I have learned - 6357 Wk#8

One hope that I have when I think about working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds is to be open-minded and effectively bring positive change to the families in regard to diversity. One goal I would like to set for the early childhood field related to issues of diversity, equity, and social justice  is to familiarize oneself with the various cultures to be better informed on the diverse cultures.

I would like to say thank you to all of my colleagues.  I have truly appreciated, respected, and enjoyed your reflections and insights during this course.  I wish you all much success as we move forward in our field of Early Childhood Education.

 

Neketha Polley

Start Seeing Diversity: Creating Art

 Black   Hispanic Asian Korean Russian

 

Bullying

Language Barrier

Discrimination

 

Special         Anger

Fear          Handicapped

 Homelessness

Hunger

 

 

Taking time to think about what I have learned in this course about children's identities and development and the ways in which each is impacted by bias, discomfort, and trauma, these are the reflections that come to mind.  This is the artwork inside of my head when I think of the various bias and traumas that affect children.

6357 Wk 6 Blog: "We Don't Say Those Words in Class!"

A time when I reprimanded or tried to silence a child after he had pointed out someone they saw as different (“That man only has one leg!”) was in 2013, while at the hospital visiting my mom (who had just had a stroke), my son noticed a man outside in a wheelchair smoking.  My son was four years old at the time but, he asked the man why he had one leg and what happened to the missing one.  Before I could say be quiet the man said, that’s ok, I don’t mind.  Then, he told my son, I got it from smoking on these cancer sticks so, never smoke if you want to keep your legs and your health.

 

The messages that I might have communicated to my son from the gentleman’s response is that everyone makes mistakes and we are supposed to learn from them.  Therefore, he should never smoke like the man said if he wants to keep his legs. I also expressed to my son that although the man said it was ok, it is never nice to point at people that are different than us or make fun of them.

 

I think an anti-bias educator might have responded to support the child's (or classroom's) understanding by explaining that we are all created equally but have different features and it is not nice to point out or make fun of others that are different than us as we would not want anyone to treat us that way.

 

Gender,Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation

Gender, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation

The fact of ignorance leads to homophobia. My son is in first grade and attends a charter school.  During his pre-kindergarten 3 and kindergarten 4 years at the school, his school uniform consisted of a red polo shirt and khaki or navy pants. Upon entering kindergarten, he was given the opportunity to wear navy blue or red polo shirts and khaki or navy pants. Therefore, I purchased both red and navy polo shirts to give him different options during the school week. While having him try on the shirts to ensure proper fit, my sons stated, “he did not want to wear a red shirt to school because, one of his male classmates had told him that red was gay and only girls wear it.” My first impression was shock. However, I knew that it was my job to tell and teach my son the truth.  Thus, I explained to him that he had the option to wear, think, go anywhere he wanted, and be anything he wanted in life. So, never let others define who he should be.  I further explained that “gay” was not a nice word or term to use and it was often one that bullies used to lash out at others that they wanted to hurt.  To this day, he is skeptical about wearing read but, he does it if he has to.

My personal reflection of discomfort that I experienced relating to children, gender, and or sexual orientation were that prior to the delivery of my son, my ex-husband had expressed to me that a long term friend I had, who was homosexual, would not be allowed around our son ever because, “he knew that “gays” like to play and or fondle little boys because that’s how they became “gay”.   I never indicated this to my friend but, because, I did not divorce my husband until my son was two, he took every opportunity he could prior to the divorce to make my friend uncomfortable when he would visit our home or participate in events that I had invited him to. He eventually stopped visiting, and calling and I am sure it is because he sensed my ex-husband’s homophobia. Within the last year, I was able to reach out to my friend who is my sister and first cousin’s Facebook friend and I am working to make things better.

 

Reference:

quotesgram.com

 

Team Building and Collaboration

 

This week we read about the five stages of team development: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. Considering the adjourning phase for several of the groups in which I have been involved, I  think the aspect of the groups that made for the hardest good-bye was really getting to know one another, sharing, and caring during the adjourning stage.  The groups that I participated in that meant the most to me was my Parole Officer Training group.  We truly went through all five stages during the seven weeks of training that we were together.  This was a group of 23 adults that were changing jobs, left behind children and husbands at a chance for a new career and to make a difference in our communities. Some of my teammates had their mothers pass away while we were at camp.  Others left behind sick relatives (one teammate left a mother that was suffering from cancer).  Four of my teammates were involved in auto accidents while at training camp. We truly shared our ups and downs, prayed together formed study groups, laughed and cried together. This was the hardest group to ever leave. We try to instant message one another at least once every two weeks if not more. I think adjourning  is an essential stage of teamwork because adourning is the connecting face.  As teammates, to better understand and respect one another, you must connect/adjourn to one another.

Effective Communication- 6165- Wk5

 

 

 

I am usually all smiles and easy going. Even after being married for 15 years to a man, that I thought was my everything, and finding out about his infidelity, I chose to decide to be his friend and move on.  Yes, I was hurt but, most of me felt like since we got married so young and he chose to be with someone else while he was committed to me.  Then, he must no longer be the person for me; he must not truly love me because love is patient and kind and love is slow to anger as God teaches us.  So, I decided that I could spend my life being bitter or letting our son see how two grown-ups should be when they decide for whatever “grown up reason”, that they must go their separate ways. I have always listened to whatever he has to say and even when he is still rude and disrespectful to me, I just let him continue on like a little kid having a tantrum.  However, after this week’s lesson, I will focus more on the three principals of the NVC.  I also like the 3R’s and will tell him about them using reverse psychology. Of the two, I think the NVC principals would help me best because, since I have someone else in my life now, my ex has gotten worse and over the course of the last few weeks, I find myself responding to him in loud tones as he never seems to let me speak when we are talking about my son our, he hangs up on me.  The three principals of NVC will allow me to be slow to respond to his negative acts in attempts to soften the conversation.

 

 

 

References: www.robinsharma.com

 

Who Am I as a Communicator? 6165 Wk 4

Who Am I as a Communicator?



For the blog this week, I thought about the similarities and differences between how I evaluated myself as a communicator and how others evaluated me. The one thing that surprised me the most is that I felt that I was significant in verbal aggressiveness; with little provocation, I might cross the line of “argumentativeness” which might attack a person’s position or statements. My sister, whom I interviewed believed that I maintain a good balance between respect and consideration for others viewpoints. It was shocking to me that I was harder on myself than my sister was because, she often tells me that I interrupt her while she is talking. 

One insight about communication that I gained this week was that others think that even though I am a people person and love to talk, I often appear to feel somewhat concerned about a number of communication contexts, but probably not all.  A second insight about communication that I gained this week was  that  I sometimes might  feel that I am not concerned about others because, I watch my clock/watch or inform them that I do not have long to hear what they have to say because, I am in a time crunch. These two insights might affect my professional work and personal life by having others feel that I am not confident in what I know or teach to their children if I appear un-easy when speaking.  Secondly, if I appear as someone that provokes people while they are talking then, I might come across as a bully or someone that feels that others thoughts and beliefs are not significant.

Thinking About Cultural Diversity- Educ 6165 Wk3

Thinking about the cultural diversity I see in my colleagues, in my neighborhood, in my workplace, and also, possibly, within my family, I have considered all the aspects that make up culture, including race, religion, political affiliation, sexual orientation, varying abilities, and so on and I used to find myself communicating differently with people from different groups and cultures.  I used to be whatever environment that I was in.  Then, after going through a divorce and teaching my son to be “his own kind of wonderful”, “always love himself first”, and “Don’t let others define you”, I discovered my own kind of beautiful and realized that all the different groups and cultures I am affiliated with were not a part of my life because of my skin color but because, I  did not see their color; because I had a heart full of love and compassion for others.

Prior to becoming my own kind of beautiful, I used to change my voice when talking individuals or my persona, for example, when I was with my colleagues and family, I was cool, calm, collective, poised, and used proper grammar. Meanwhile, when I was with my husband, his family and friends, I would talk loud, utilize slang, and work hard to proof to them that I was “black, proud, rough and tuff”.  However, being a black American does not mean that you cannot be educated, tough, determined, well poised, speak correct grammar, be involved in and aware of political issues, and etc…  Thus, my ex-husband was blinded by all of these viewpoints and I worked hard my entire marriage to be all that he wanted me to be even though that “me” was not “me” and the “me” that I was raised to be and enjoy being in life. No matter what your culture, nationality, religion, size, height, color, and etc… love yourself first and the skin you’re in!

 

EDUC 6165 Wk2 - Communication continued...

     How I Met Your Mother

 

Over the course of the last two weeks we have focused on communication.  This week, we were asked to focus on various forms of non-verbal communication and how we as individuals, Educators, Children and Families are impacted by non- verbal communication.  Thus, for this week’s assignment, we were asked to focus on non-verbal communication by selecting a television show that we normally do not watch and record that show and watch it two times; first, without sound and next with sound. The television show that I selected was “How I Met Your Mother".

I watched this movie without sound and from just the images and facial expressions, it appeared to be a group of friends and siblings thinking back on how their mom and dad met.  Based on the non- verbal communication, it appeared that the group of individuals were have a blast; it looked like a modern day “friends” series. I then watched it with sound and discovered that my assumption was far-fetched. After watching the television show with sound, I watched the remainder of the first two seasons and then researched it to discover that it is based on the thoughts of one of the gentleman flashing back and expressing to his child the true story of how he met and fell in love with the child’s mom; the other cast members were just a part of the journey and reflections leading up to the marriage of the man’s wife.  I believe that my assumptions would have been more accurate if I had been watching a show that I knew well.

Educ 6165 Week 1 Blog Post- My Competent Communicator by Neketha Polley

 

My Competent Communicator...

 

My Dad has always been a great communicator who demonstrates competent communication.  My dad reads a lot to stay current on all the latest happenings around the world and foreign communication.  He majored in history in college.  He is a very good listener that always has an optimistic view on things.  My dad always goes the extra mile to help others. My dad has always taught me that listening is the most important part of communicating because you learn a lot when you listen to others.  I would love to model some of my own communication behaviors after my dad.  He believes that everyone should have a voice even if those voices do not always agree or say the same thing. He believes that communication is letting your voice be heard.  He often tells me this when dealing with my own son.  My son, like many children, talks to no end.  Often times at the end of a long day of work, it is just too much talking and I always say would you please stop talking. My dad will always tell me when he is visiting us, “let him talk until he gets out everything that he wants to say; let him get his point out”.  He will continue to let me know, just because he is little doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have anything to say; his voice should be heard. This sticks with me daily when communicating with other children; especially my own son. Therefore, I would love to model my dad’s communication skills because he is patient, open-minded, color-blind, and un-bias when communicating with others. My dad is a calm, loving, respectable, hardworking individual with great communication skills and I love him for teaching me all that I know including how to communicate with others.

Neketha Polley

Professional Hopes and Goals

One hope that I have when I think about working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds is that all adults (parents, childcare givers, aunts, uncles, early childhood educators and administrators) understand that the bigger picture is doing what is best for the child.  I also hope that they will learn to be patient as everyone has some level of change to undergo when it comes to dealing with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds.

One goal I would like to set for the early childhood field related to issues of diversity, equity, and social justice is for educators and early childhood administrators to foster and conduct a program targeted on the issues, concerns, and impacts that children and families encounter relating to diversity, equity, social justice, and social injustices. By Fostering and conducting such a program, it will help educators to learn from individual families and children directly impacted by such issues.  Such a program will also offer aid to others via communication and support as we all work to overcome the vastly growing concerns and issues of diversity, equity, and social justices and/or injustices.

I would like to give a big thanks to my colleagues for sharing the events and memories of their lives that have made them the people they are today. By sharing these events and memories, we have been able to learn a lot form one another and understand how others feel and are impacted by various situations of diversity, equity, and social justices/social injustices. Lastly, I would like to thank each and every one of my colleagues and our professor for all of the words of encouragement throughout this course. Best Wishes to everyone for all of their future endeavors.

Welcoming Families From Around the World

 

 

I have recently been promoted to the Dean of Elementary education at my school.  Two days into my new title, I have received word that the child of a family from Guatemala has recently immigrated to our country.  I am not familiar with Guatemala. So, to prepare myself for welcome the child and her family, I have thought of five things to do to give me a jump start to prepare myself for this task/

Thus, five ways in which I will prepare myself to be culturally responsive towards this family from Guatemala is: 1) obtain information relating to school life for children so that I will be knowledgeable of the possible educational strengths and weaknesses that the children and their families may encounter. 2) I will try to learn about the food. 3) I will focus on their possible religious believes so that I may not disrespect any holidays or religious beliefs as it relates the educational structure/school calendar and events. 4) I will focus on some of the interests that my family might have to assist with making them comfortable in their new city and country. 5) Lastly, I would purchase a Spanish/English dictionary to assist me with communicating with the children and family as Spanish is the prominent language in Guatemala.

I hope that these preparations will allow me to understand the generally culture, language, and food preferences of my family from Guatemala thus making it a little easier to communicate with the family and understand any barriers I might have while trying to educate the children.

 

 

 

 



The personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

 

In the previous few weeks, I learned about and observed some examples of microaggressions. After that, I was able to explore personal biases as well as institutional prejudices as sources of inequities and oppression, and that bias and prejudice themselves are learned. Thus, the memories that I have of an incident when I experienced bias, prejudice, and/or oppression, or witnessed someone else as the target of bias, prejudice, and or oppression was, three years ago, at my old job that I had been working at for seven years at the time, denied me a promotion because I was too young and had a small child that my boss felt would occupy my time.  Thus, my boss assumed, I would not be able to stay focused or would be needing to take time off from work because of child illnesses or etc…  It was at this very moment that I understood how people felt when they thought they had been discriminated against, annihilated, stereotyped, taken advantage of, and stabbed in the back…

This incident and actions expressed by my boss diminished equity by expressing that because I was young and a new mom, although very qualified for the job and having been employed with the company for seven years prior to applying for the position, that when it comes to a company’s bottom line(economic status) equity is only a notion because, although, I would never do my job any less that I had done prior to having a child, I was still discriminated against as a women and mother by my boss (who happened to me a mother and women) who often indicated that she regretted at times that she spent more time at work than with her two sons as they were growing up.

In order to turn the incident around that I experienced, there would have to be a push for better equal rights for women; men have children and get promoted all the time and are never questioned about their ability to complete the guidelines of the job because they are a parent yet, women are Oster sized if they are a woman that wants to provide for her family, have a career, and a family. The world must truly understand that women are structured to multi takes and strong enough to withstand the necessary stress and guidelines to have a family and run a company at the same time.

Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

 

One example of a microaggression that I detected/experienced this week was, I recently got my hair braided and at work everyone that is either Caucasian or Spanish American always seem to ask if they can touch my hair, can I was it, how long will it stay up there and how long does it take Yall( black women) to get the hair braided?

 

When I observed the microagression, I thought to myself, I know my co-workers don’t really mean any harm but, I am so tired of the racially center questions about hair. My observation this week affected my perception of the effects of discrimination,prejudice, and/or stereotypes on people be allowing me to realize how something not menat to hurt a person can, how no matter how old or young you are no matter how you might think you are not affected by it, we can and might become a victim of racism even if it by an un intended microagression.

 

 

 



Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

In the world that we live in, everyone has their own opinion and interests. Therefore, when trying to get a better understanding or different viewpoint on a subject/topic of interest; an especially effective method to deepen one’s grasp of any topic to listen to and then reflect on the ideas of others. I spoke with three different people and their viewpoints that I received about the definition of culture were, culture is one’s upbringing, culture is one’s value and belief system, and culture is variations of traditions in families.  These same three individuals when asked, said, diversity is change, diversity is one’s indifferences, and diversity is the various deviations in religions, ethnicities, and social economics. The aspects of culture and diversity that I studied in this course that are included in the answers I received from the three individuals that I interviewed were change and different religions, ethnicities, and economic status. I don’t think any aspects have been omitted from the aspects that I have learned thus far and the aspects that the three individuals have discussed when I interviewed them.  The three individuals thoughts about culture and diversity have given me a deeper thought on how my upbringing relates to my culture and diversity and how I respond to diversity overall. This blog assignment has mostly given me a different outlook on how I view individuals that I know and considered a friend.  For example, I have a Hispanic friend that is younger than me and does not have children, we work in a predominantly African American environment, grew up during to different eras, households, economic back grounds, and religions, yet share the same economic and social beliefs. Brenda might be 26, Hispanic, Catholic, younger, and single without children; yet, she still believes in respecting individuals no matter their age, going to church, loves eating sweets, and dining out. Therefore, I have learned the visual indifferences sometimes blind us from the similarities that we share with others in our world of diversity.

 

My Family Culture

My Family Culture

On the news, I often hear about major catastrophes around the world all the time.  But, I never consider what I would do if possibly impacted by one. A major catastrophe has almost completely devastated the infrastructure of my country. Therefore, the government emergency agency has decided to evacuate the citizens to other countries for their best interest. Luckily for me and my family that we were chosen among the surviving citizens to evacuate to another country.  This event will be one that is bitter sweet because, I am happy that my family is alive and well; bitter, because we are leaving behind a life that is of comfort and familiarity. We have been informed that we will be able to take a change of clothing and three small items/keepsakes. It is important that we evacuate soon.  So, the three items that I have decided to take are my first bible that was given to me when I was a baby, my cellular phone, and a family photo album. I have choose  my first bible because it was dedicated to me as a baby and has information in it about my family tree,  I chose the photo album  to visualize and remember my family members when I am feeling down and home sick. Lastly, I chose my cell phone because technology will allow me to listen to music, reach out to, locate, or keep in touch with some family members and friends that have been evacuated to a different country than me and my immediate family.  Because, I realize that every country has its own rules, regulations, believes/cultures, and I am both happy and respectful that the country has chosen to help me and my immediate family during this catastrophe that, I am not angry when arriving to the new country and being told that I must only keep one of the three items.  The one item that I have chosen to keep is my cellular phone because, its technology will allow me to reach out to, locate, and possibly talk to other family members and friends, it will also allow me to search the internet for my family tree if necessary, and I may utilize my phone to look at stored pictures or search the “Facebook” for family photos if I am feeling lonely and homesick.

                                                

When I think of Research

From the course, the insights that I have gained about research are that, like anything, research has its purpose in life. Research when conducted effectively is vital to early childhood education.  My ideas about research have changed drastically.  I have always been told, “Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes”.  Thus, to truly understand the aspects and importance of research, I had to go through the steps of being involved in a research.

The lessons about planning, designing, and conducting research in early childhood that I learned is that planning is the most vital part of the research project.  Having a structured plan helps to lead the basis of the research.  Some of the challenges that I encountered while conducting my research was being thorough in my thoughts that supported my research.  The ways that I met these challenges was to listen to and act on the productive advice that I received from my instructor and colleagues. As a result of this course, my perception of early childhood professional have changed in regard to a new found respect for all the research that has been conducted to pave the way.

 

  

Reference:

http://www.bing.com/images/search
 
 
 
Reference:

Research Around the World

Some of the current international research topics are:

 

1.      Strengthening the Capacity of Grandparents in Providing Care to Children Less than 8 Years Old Affected by HIV/AIDS

 

2.      Indigenous Knowledge and Practices of Parents and Families Regarding Psychosocial Care for Children in Three Rural Communities in The Gambia: Implications for UNICEF Programming in IECD

 

What surprising facts/insights/new ideas about early childhood did you gain from exploring this international early childhood website?

 

The surprising facts/insights/new ideas about early childhood that I gained from exploring this international early childhood website was that research has revealed that in Uganda, many young children are cared for by very elderly grandparents or older siblings. Therefore, as orphans, these children are very vulnerable to all the potentials of fatal malnutrition, diarrhea, and pneumonia and very often require the most intensive care. This is a difficult situations for the orphans and their caregivers mainly because, the orphans offer little to no contribution to the household.

 

What other noteworthy information did you find on this website?

Some other noteworthy information that I found about this website was, that

 

EECERA seeks to sustain and develop the rich tradition of European early childhood thought, and its reach and interest is resolutely international and, whilst wanting to identify with Europe’s pluralist and diverse cultures, it is open to learn of, and to share in, the equally rich early childhood traditions and concepts of the World.  EECERA is also a non-profit organization, wholly-owned and subscribed to by its substantial and influential world-wide membership.

I also learned that The Centre for Disease Control (1999) estimates that in Uganda, one in every three children that are orphaned, are orphaned because of HIV?AIDS and are generally eight years old  and under.  I also learned from this site that of the 34 countries impacted by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, by 2021, almost 15 million children age eight and younger will be victim to HIV/AIDS.

Reference:

European Early Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA):  http://www.eecera.org/