Communication Role Models

Mark Shriver

I must admit that reading the assignment for this week for my Communicating and Collaborating graduate class there were several names that immediately went through my head as competent speakers; Louise Derman-Sparks, President Barack Obama, Dr. Eugene Garcia, Hillary Clinton and T. Berry Brazelton.  The most recent speaker to really fuel my passion for empowering children and families is the son of my hero, Eunice Kennedy Shriver. 

Those of you who have been following my blog know that Eunice Kennedy Shriver has fulfilled a role I would love to model my life after.  You can imagine my excitement when I was provided the opportunity to see that her son, Mark Shriver, was a plenary presenter at an early learning leadership conference I attended in October of 2011.  He shared a few emotional stories of growing up in the Shriver household, working with children with disabilities and how he was inspired to follow in his parent’s footsteps to advocate for social justice.  As the leader of the Save the Children’s U.S. Programs I was honored to listen to Mr. Shriver share, from his heart, his passion for ensuring every child in the world has a “safe and vibrant childhood” (www.eunicekennedyshriver.org/bios/mark-shriver).   I was an engaged listener from the very beginning of his speaking engagement; one minute I was crying and the next minute I was laughing.  His communication was honest, accurate, and truthful.  He had statistics and strong knowledge to back up his reason for encouraging the audience to continue on in our roles as advocates for children and families.  I will carry Mark Shriver’s message in my heart for many years and this will be my motivation as I strive to become a competent communicator.

Diversity and Equity: Professional Hopes and Goals

The hopes that I have when thinking about working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds is that every early learning professional will:

·   Have a dog eared and highlighted copy of NAEYC’s publication titled Anti-Bias Education and they are implementing anti-bias practices in all the classrooms they work in;

·   On an annual basis, participate in a professional development opportunity that will enhance their work to support social justice and equity;

·  Have the self-esteem and knowledge to feel secure enough to defend any opposition to social justice and equity; and

·  All early learning professionals will be passionate in their role to advocate for a more just society; supporting all children and families to feel whole.

One goal I would like to see accomplished in the field of early childhood is that training and/or discussion of implementing anti-bias curriculum is constant in all early learning programs.  Just as our individual diversity is complex, implementation of anti-bias curriculum is complex.  For early learning professionals to support big outcomes related to social justice and equity for all, anti-bias curriculum implementation needs to be a topic on every training and staff meeting agenda.

This may be the last week of my Perspectives on Diversity and Equity college class but the knowledge shared by my colleagues in these last eight weeks will influence my work with children and families far into the future.  I would like to extend my gratitude to each of you for adding so much value to my professional and personal life; I have become a much better person because of your contribution to my education.

Welcoming Families from Around the World

 

The following is a scenario describing how a teaching team can support a 4-year-old girl, Laetitia, from the country of Belize in the Caribbean as she and her family transition to a Head Start classroom in the United States of America.  To support the success of Laetitia and her family I am recommending we take the following steps so Laetitia feels welcome, safe and nurtured in the classroom at all times and our family services personnel can support the family in meeting their identified goals as a new family in the United States.

·        A picture of Laetitia’s home land will be posted in the classroom on her first day of school.

·        The teaching team will learn a few words in the French language; a greeting and manners such as ‘thank you’ and ‘you’re welcome’.

·        By conducting a home visit before Laetitia’s first day of school will ease her stress as she will be meeting the teaching team in the comfort of her home instead of meeting us for the first time in a new environment.  During this home visit the following action steps will be completed:

o   Using a digital camera we will take a picture of Laetitia so we can take the photograph and put on her cubby next to her printed name;

o   Using a digital camera we will take a family picture so on the first day of school Laetitia can take the framed photograph and place it on our bookshelf with other family photographs.

o   We will record either Laetitia’s mom or dad pronouncing Laetitia’s name so all adults working with Laetitia’s at the Head Start center will listen to the recording in hopes we can all pronounce Laetitia’s name correctly before the first day of school.

o   During our interview with the family we will ask the family if they have a traditional meal that we could include in our breakfast or lunch menu.

o   A formal invitation written in French will be extended to the family inviting them to the classroom to share information about their culture with other children in the classroom.  This invitation will be extended several times throughout the school year.  (An interpreter will be available to translate from French to English)

Prejudice without Prior Knowledge

The following video is a little over nine minutes long.  In those nine minutes my emotions went from anger to tears.  I was horrified by racial behavior targeted at a beautiful young lady because she is wearing a Hijaab, a traditional head scarf worn by Muslim women, trying to order an apple turnover in a bakery.  The clerk is refusing to sell the young lady an apple turnover and the surrounding customers are either pretending not to witness the brutal and demoralizing racism or they are supporting the behavior by agreeing with the clerk or giving him thumbs up.  The scene is staged with the clerk and the young lady being actors but the customers have no clue that they are acting while the young lady is the victim of extreme racism.  I am surprised she had the energy to continue with the staging as long as she did.  The demeaning behavior towards her had to of been emotionally draining.  It is during the last few minutes of the video that my anger subsides and I am reduced to tears because, finally, some customers did not hold back on supporting the young lady by walking out of the bakery or demanding the clerk to serve the young lady.

I do not feel there is an opportunity for greater equity in this video unless the customers who are so filled with racism were to change.  Their behavior is evidence that we still have a lot of work to do in supporting social justice and equity for all.

Microaggressions in Every Day Life

Initially I perceived the following experience as a micro aggression.  I was at a community forum this week for our local school district.  The superintendent was facilitating the discussion on how the school board will be making a decision on which elementary school to close in our neighborhood.  This is a community forum where you are guaranteed to have an upset parent or two because our children’s social/emotional balance could be thrown off a bit as they transition to a different school in two years.  As questions were being asked the superintendent was being attentive until a question came from an American Indian man.  As he started his question, the superintendent cut him off.  I perceived this as a micro-insult and was saddened by the negative message she was sending about this citizen’s question.  As the meeting progressed, the superintendent began cutting all parents off as they were asking their questions and I began hoping she did not insult this man based on his race since she was cutting many other parents off.

I felt my micro-aggression radar was very over active this week.  Whenever there was a person of a different race I was watching to see how people around them were communicating and interacting with them.  At one point I observed a white lady getting angry at an African American driver for no apparent reason and I had to wonder if the lady would have reacted the same way if the other driver was a white person.

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

I have asked two professional colleagues and one family member to share their definitions of culture and diversity.  Included in these definitions are aspects similar to what I have been studying in my Perspectives on Culture and Diversity college class.  The immediate common denominator between the aspects I have been studying and the definitions is reference to how complex the topics are, the individual definitions are complex and all three definitions touched on some aspect of deep culture; values, hierarchy, and roles are just a few to mention.  An example on what has been omitted from the definitions is any reference to the dominant culture and how social, political and economic power can dictate what ‘normal’ culture  should look like.

Reflecting on the following definitions of culture and diversity has helped me gain a deeper understanding of each person as individuals.  Each individual has contributed to my amazement of how complex and rich our world is.  The definitions are a true reflection of Janet Gonzalez-Mena’s philosophy in that, “diversity is a benefit” and “identity formation should be an additive process” (Laureate Education, 2011).  Our diversity makes a beautiful tapestry with each and every thread of the tapestry adding to the beauty of our world.

Family Response:

Culture is influenced by each individual’s family dynamics, values, and/or a group (not necessarily family) of individuals who have the same belief system and ideals.

Diversity is individual beliefs and ideas which have a variety of differences compared to that of your friends and sometimes family.

Colleague Response:

It is easier for me to answer diversity before culture.  Diversity is about differences and culture is about agreed upon norms.  As I answer the question I am in my current work place that celebrates diversity and acknowledges diversity of people in a much more subdued manner than my last work place.  In my last work place, the journey each morning from the elevator to my office would offer me the opportunity to hear four different languages before I arrived at my desk.  People dressed differently, spoke different languages and were more than willing to share their different music, food, and norms with me at a company sponsored luncheon, concert, book signing, or holiday event specific to their part of the world.  I felt there was equity in the work place because of this celebration of the diversity and the diversity in the seating around the board room, the executive lounge, and the manager’s meetings.

Culture for me is about a set of norms or rules to which a group of people have agreed.  I think we have social norms, family norms, work norms, geographic norms and ethnic norms.  I think we all belong to more than one culture and cannot be boxed into just having one set of cultural norms that serves as the moniker of how we define each other.  I remember being in a class once and having an African American student say that in black families’ grandmothers were the strongest in the family and everyone did as she said; I was quick to say not in my family; my father was the head of the household and head of the family.   However, I am also one to quickly acknowledge the importance of a grandmother in the African American family, music, gospel and southern cooking (Oh wait, that’s the cultural norm of an African American girl from the South.)

Another Colleague Response:

I believe culture is the knowledge, experience, skills, beliefs, behaviors, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, concepts of the world, motives, symbols, and material objects that are passed along by communication and imitation, explicitly and implicitly, from one generation to the next through social learning of a particular group of people that are generally considered to be the tradition of that people.

I believe diversity is the individuality of people that consists of not only race, age, ethnicity, and gender but also the wide variety of unique qualities possessed by people such as:  the unique combination of skills, competencies, attributes, knowledge, personality traits, culture, background, viewpoints, religion, education, work style, communication style, organizational role, economic status, geographic origin, and all of the encompassing characteristics and experiences that define each of us as individuals  and that affect the way we think and do things. I believe that recognition of each person’s diversity enhances productivity, effectiveness, and competitiveness.

References:

Laureate Education, Inc. (Walden University). (2011). EDUC 6164. Culture and Diversity (DVD). In Perspectives on Diversity and Equity. Baltimore, MD.

My Family Culture

 

As my imagination can run away from me at times, I am imagining a major catastrophe that has almost completely devastated the infrastructure of our country. The emergency government has decided that the surviving citizens will be best served if we are evacuated to other countries willing to take refugees. My immediate family is among the survivors of this catastrophic event.  We have absolutely no input into the final destination or in any other evacuation details. We are told that our host country’s culture is completely different from ours, and that we might have to stay there permanently. We are further told that, in addition to one change of clothes, we can only take 3 small items with us. The three items we decide to take that we hold dear and that represent our family culture are:

·    Eskimo Doll ~ this is the last Eskimo Doll made by my 8-year-old daughter’s grandma who passed away at the age of 82 in April 2007.  The doll was hand sewn with rabbit, musk rat and seal skin and represents the culture and traditions of Inupiaq Eskimos.  Grandma Amy grew up in the village of Shishmaref, Alaska; she lived her entire life fully living the culture and traditions of the Inupiaq ways.

·    Wooden Clock ~ this clock was hand made in wood shop by my 30-year-old daughter when she was in high school.  Not only has this clocked looked beautiful in every home I have lived in during the last 15 years, it has also contributed to my emotional balance during some of the late nights that I could not sleep.  I have a habit of sitting in the dark to process my worries and listening to this clock tick tick tick in the quiet house has provided comfort and peace in my heart.

·    Laptop ~ because all the family pictures are stored on the laptop, it is mandatory that it join us on this journey.  Older pictures such as the picture of my mom and dad’s wedding picture have been scanned and stored on the laptop and on an external hard drive.  Our family has had the opportunity to travel extensively in the United States with several trips to Hawaii and of course, all our Alaskan adventures have been captured in photographs.

If, once we arrived into the unknown country that has been so gracious to allow us to make this our new home, we were told we could only keep one of the above three items my heart would be heavy with sorrow because they all mean so much to me and my family.  I would ultimately want to keep the laptop because of all the pictures taken of each of us in our home country.

As a result of this assignment, insights I have gained about myself is how much I could live without.  Thinking about items that have truly added value to my life helped me realize that it really is the simple things in life that support the preservation of culture and traditions.