Professional Hopes and Goals

Hopes and Goals

This course was full of new awareness and rich opportunities to grow. I have never imagined that one course would have such a strong impact on my personal and professional life. I am full of hope and aspiration to make my classroom setting a safe, nurturing, and fair environment for all children. I am prompted to become a culturally responsive educator who makes the diverse families’ cultures as visible as the dominant ones. My broadened perspective prompts me to adapt my practices to nurture the children’s sense of self and belonging.

I would like to take the opportunity to extend my deep thanks to my professor and colleagues who have played a crucial part in this growth. Their shared experiences and thoughtful ideas have given me valuable insight, great hope, and a new incentive to keep trying and moving forward. I leave this course as an anti-bias educator dedicated to social change.

Welcoming Families From Around the World

Assignment: 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.

In order to complete this assignment, first choose a country you know nothing about as this family’s country of origin.

 

Malaysia

The country of origin I chose is Malaysia.

The five ways in which I will prepare myself to be culturally responsive towards this family:

1.                   Familiarize myself with the country’s spoken language

2.                   Meet the parents and interview them about their own family culture, the family structure, their    parenting style, and their child’s overall routine

3.                   Understand some of the countries’ behavioral customs; pay particular attention to what is considered inappropriate or insulting, etc…

4.                   Get pictures of different people from this country and share them with the class

5.                   Find books written by and about Malay people

This assignment has prompted me to explore the ways in which I can become more aware of my students’ culture. Although in this particular scenario, we had to choose a country that we have absolutely no idea of, I believe this exercise has encouraged me to adapt further strategies that will enable me to be culturally responsive toward my students and learn more about their culture, even if I think I have enough information about them and their families, there is always something useful to learn.

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

Bias and prejudice that leads to injustice have been around throughout time. Every person has a story to tell, in which he or she was subjected to prejudice, one way or another. I am no different, and I can relay many incidents in which I have encountered uninformed people reacting negatively to at least one aspect of my social identity.

However, what I would like to share with you today is not a personal experience; it is rather a prevailing Arab stereotyping that is frequently displayed in the media. As a cinema enthusiast, I have watched countless movies throughout my life, and within many, I have silently observed the manipulation of the Arab images of men and women. These films have repeatedly featured many demeaning depictions of Arabs, portraying them as lawless, terrorists, women oppressors, ignorant, regressive, narrow-minded, etc…These ascribed or limited views of Arabs only serve to negate their diverse identities, individuality, complex experiences, and social values.

Curiously, I have realized that I have indeed internalized some of the misconceptions and misleading denotations in some of these movies- and I am an Arab. Despite that I am aware that these are characteristics that do not fit the Arabs I know, including myself. This has prompted me to think of others who are constantly absorbing these messages, without being properly informed of the true nature of the individuals they are developing assumptions about and consequently adapting some form of prejudice.

There is an interesting article the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee has posted many years ago, and it tackled some of the distorted messages that are displayed through the media. The authors articulately named the threats of discriminatory media messages, including the ones present in children’s movies- something that is quite upsetting to take in (Wingfield & Karaman, 1995).

It is important to note here, that Arabs are not the only victims of movie bigotry. I have often captured negative hidden or blatant messages that entailed other nations, such as East Europeans, Chinese, or Indians for example.

As I have been made aware of the various forms of prejudice throughout this course, I have learned that people can only invalidate negative images that dissimulate into our minds if they genuinely examine their own personal bias and engage in self-reflection. Unfortunately, this is not something that everyone is inclined to do, and as long as one perceives his or her own race, gender, class, religion, nationality to be superior to diverse others, he or she will be not only harm others, but also themselves (Margles & Margles, 2010).

Having said that, I believe that hope lies in caregivers as they educate, be mindful of their practices, and lead by example in order to ensure bias is prevented from getting embedded in the minds of our children.

 

References

Margles, S., & Margles, R. M. (2010). Inverting racism's distortions. Our Schools/Our Selves, 19(3), 137--149. Retrieved from the Walden Library using the Education Research Complete database: http://ezp.waldenulibrary.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=51372248&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Wingfield, M.,  Karaman, B. (1995). Arab stereotypes and American educators. Retrieved from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee website: http://www.adc.org/index.php?id=283