You are working in an early childhood setting of your choice—a hospital, a child care center, a social service agency. You receive word that the child of a family who has recently emigrated from a country you know nothing about will join your group soon. You want to prepare yourself to welcome the child and her family. Luckily, you are enrolled in a course about diversity and have learned that in order to support families who have immigrated you need to know more than surface facts about their country of origin.
I am a teacher for a early childhood program and the family is coming from the country Australia.
Ways in which I would prepare myself to be culturally responsive towards this family:
- Recognize any bias or stereotypes.
- Do my best to sensitive to terminology
- Become more informed about the history and culture of Australia.
- Treat the family and student as an individual
- I would prepare my classroom with pictures of Australia to welcome the family and acknowledge their country.
I would hope that the family would appreciate the efforts I took to learn about their country and to highlight their country in my classroom. It is important for families of foreign countries to know that their culture would be accepted and appreciated when they come to the United States. The family should not feel that they have to loose their culture or beliefs just because they no longer live there. I believe that by celebrating cultures in a diverse classroom is very important and make the families feel appreciated. All families from foreign countries that come to the United States just want to feel respected and as an educator I feel it is my responsibility to do so within my classroom.
Hello Erica,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your posts. I think it is good that you would include pictures of Australia in your classroom. When you go to a new place it is always nice to have something familiar and be able to relate to something around you. As an educator I think it is important to know something about the history and culture of every student in one's class.
Karina.
Hello Erica,
ReplyDeleteYou picked such a cool country to explore! You made some very valid points on ways to be sure you are culturally responsive to your new family. As educators, it is important to include the family and to bring awareness about embracing and excepting differences within the educational setting. Great blog post! If I were your family, I would feel appreciative and grateful of our efforts:-)