IMPACTS ON PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

As an African American in a small town I totally fit in with my surroundings.  However, as I travel to different Professional Development Seminars people look at me as though I am uneducated because of the color of my skin.  I have faced the issue of racism at grocery stores, Wal-mart or at the Laundry Mat.  Unfortunately, I have never experience racism in the classroom.  I have had the opportunity of working with Korean families and Caucasian families.  I have the affect with my parents and students that is very open and tend to get along with all individuals.   I make friends where ever I go because I like learning new things and learning about people. 

The “isms” I have experience are racism and homosexuals.  However, I have not let these “isms” reflect my behavior as an educator.  I learned through resources on how to communicate and be professional in my field with these individuals.  I believe that diversity should be taught in the classroom and that we should discuss different issues at hand.

OBSERVING COMMUNICATION

Observing Communication

 

                I am the teacher and Director at the center where I work.  My hands are full throughout the day!  However, I brought in a substitute and went to visit another center.  I visit Amazing Grace Learning Center.  The teachers were full of life and seem to enjoy what they do.  I observe Ms. Turner who worked with the three and four years old.  She had a great schedule that she followed however, she did not communicate with the children well in the learning centers.  The students ask her to come and eat with them and she told them in a minute.  She never stopped what she was doing and visited the children in the centers.  Children learn through communication.  She let the children play with the toys but there was no interaction with the students and teacher doing center time.  Ms. Turner seemed to enjoy the time to do other things than engage with the children in the learning center. After observing the children and Ms. Turner for over twenty minutes I intervened and visit the children in the learning centers.  Before intervening, I ask Ms. Turner will it be okay if I visit with the children in the learning centers.  The children were very excited.  In Dramatic Play the girls ask me could they comb my hair, I said “yes.”  Zadaisha and Carmen told me that I was at the Beauty Shop and they were going to wash and roll my hair because I did not need a perm.  So I asked them what is a perm, Zadaisha said “a perm is what you put in your hair to make it straight.”  I talking with Zadaisha and Carmen I visit the Block Center.  Zadarian and Kenji were in the block center building a farm house for their animals.  As you can see these children had great vocabulary and were very eager to have conversation.  I ask them what kind of animals live on the farm.  Kenji and Zadarian said that on a farm there are pigs, horses, cows, chickens, goats and sheep.  They told me they were going to put the pigs in the sty with some hay and mud.  Kenji told me that a sty is where the pigs sleep.  I told him that he was right and ask him where did he learn that from?  He said, “My mother read me the story Big Red Barn.” 

            The students had great communication skills whether they learned it from school or home.  The students were great, but Ms. Turner was poor at communicated with the children during center time.  Ms. Turner could have been learning the children as they played in the centers.  As Lisa Kolbeck stated, “You learn a child by watching them play.”  Learning children is getting to their level.  You have to interact and intervene to establish learning in the classroom.  She could teach the children but she seems to be unaware of the best teaching experience that may happen in the classroom.  Children learn from teachers and teachers learn from their students.

Reference

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010) "Communicating with Young Children"

 

CREATING AFFIRMING ENVIRONMENTS

Creating Affirming Environments

The visual of my at home care child facility would provide every opportunity for parents and children to feel that they belong here.  Keshia’s Kinder Care Learning Center will be an anti-bias environment.  When entering the building their will pictures of people from all over the world with different background, representing cultural diversity. The center name and labels throughout the building and classroom will be written in Engalish and Spanish. In the dramatic play center I will provide food from other cultures so the children my explore and learn the types of food that other cultures such as Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Mexican, Caucasian and African Americans may eat.  I would provide a variety of cultural diversity of dolls in the center as well.  In the reading center and the other centers as well, I would provide a variety of books that represent cultural diversity.  The books may focus on foster children, children with disabilities, same sex parents and families that are mixed.  In the block center, I would provide people with different disabilities, puzzles that display disability and teach the children that we are all different but we should still be treated equally and with respect.  I would display pictures of individuals from different cultures and famous people.  There will be plenty material for the children to choose from in the art center.  The children will have their free choice to create their very own portrait with its own unique style.  I will invite the families to come to the center and teach us about their own culture.  Children are living in a diverse world everyday but are unaware of the term because it is not spoken of in the home.  Keshia’s Kinder Care Learning Center will be a “Learning community that truly nurtures and supports all children, and will make our efforts worthwhile and exciting” (Derman-Sparks, L., & Olsen Edwards, J. 2010).

 

References

Derman-Sparks, L., & Olsen Edwards, J. (2010). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves. Washington, D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children       (NAEYC).

WHAT I HAVE LEARNED

The hope that I have when working with children is to treat them the way I would like to be treated.  To encourage them to be the best they can be and be the one that they look up to for advice and answers.  I want to be the one who makes a difference in each child’s life that I touch. The goal I would like to set is to always teach diversity in the classroom and increase the children’s learning of other countries, religions and biases. 

I would like to thank my colleagues for the support and comments during the past eight weeks.  I have learned a lot from each of you as well as myself.  I pray that we are the best educators for our preschoolers and great communicators for our children, parents and community.

Thanks,

LaKeshia S. Short

shortlakeshia@yahoo.com   or

Short325@gmail.com

My Creative Art on Diversity

My outlook on diversity………………………………………………

  

                                         

 

It’s ok to be different,
It’s ok to be the odd one out
You see black isn’t white and white isn’t red
I’d rather be different than the same instead

What I mean by different is not the same
I might be short but I am not to blame
You see my twin brother he is 6 feet tall
Because we’re not the same it doesn’t matter at all

What I mean by different is not the same
Some might be blind or walk with a cane
Some might get around in an old wheel chair
Because they’re not the same hey I don’t care

What I mean by different is not the same
Some might like to holiday and camp in the rain
Some might like to travel on a second class train
But I like to travel up the front of the plane

Yes black isn’t white and white isn’t red
I’d rather be different than the same instead
Oh yes I’d rather be different than the same instead yea

By Prue  Whoo

This picture and song will help to teach children in the classroom that we accept people the way they are and they should not be treated different from other.  It is a wonderful thing to be able to accept others even those with disabilities.  You want children to learn about different culture and disabilities.  Teach them what they need to know so that they will teach and treat others with respect as they continue to grow and better understand this world. No one is perfect and God did not make all of us the same.

We Don't Say Those Words

We Don’t Say Those Words

 My experience happened to me with my own children.  We were in at the laundry mat when this African American lady came in to wash her clothes.  Immediately my children stop and stared at the lady and said she was ugly and looked funny.  I told them that they should not say things like that because it hurts the person feelings.  I then told them that she was different to them because she had had a 4^th degree burn all over her body and her face was disfigured from normal and her legs were wrinkled from plastic surgery I assume.  I also told my children that they should not stare at talk about individuals who are different.  I explained to them that she had been burned really bad both she is no different from us and she is a blessing to be alive.  My children start talking to the lady, and ask her name.  She told them that her name was Mary and that she was checking on the hot water heater because it was making noise, and she went in the storage room the heater exploded living her with the 4^th degree burn on her body.  I told my children that Mary was like their Uncle Cedric but he only had 2^nd and 3^rd degree burns and his burns were not as bad as hers.  My children look at the lady different at first, but after talking to Mary I believe they have learned a variable lesson.  Never judge a book by its cover.

Gender, Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation

 

In high school , there were a group of girls and only one guy would hang around with us.  As girls we already know that Jason had a secret he was not telling.  The other students would call him fag or guy.  He would play church and dress up in dresses as though he was a mother of the church or in the choir singing.  However, the older he got the more he hanged with girls.  After graduating from high school he went to college and begin to blossom as a young woman.  He had a transgender operation and now SHE  wears dresses, get her hair done and now is a beautiful woman.  I see her no different from me.  I am not fond of what he has done but I treat her no different than my other female friends. 

My other encounter is a student years ago told another student that he was gay.  I ask her why you said that, she replied because he is always playing with the girls and never the boys.  He stays in dramatic play and cooks and cleans.  I then told her that young boys and men can clean, cook and take care of children just like young girls and women.  I also asked her what does gay mean.  She told me that gay is when two boys like each other.  The child was three years old and she could tell you a lot about gay and lesbian. 

I believe that diversity should be taught in the classroom and that we should discuss different issues at hand.  I have had a parent who did not want her son to play with baby dolls.  I told the parent that playing with dolls will not make him gay or less than a man we he grows up.  The dolls may help and encourage him to be a great father in the future.  Parents are very denial but eventually they come around to reality.