Communication & Collaboration in Early Childhood

Welcome to a new exciting blogging adventure!

For this first post I am supposed to write about a person I admire based on their communication skills.  I chose someone I truly admire for their communication skills my Nutrition Professors, Dr. Patricia Miner. She taught me a lot of what I know about counseling patients. When she talks with you, she engages you. She is receptive, attentive and genuine. She has been a nutritionist for many years, and she knows that health behavioral changes come from more than education. I always remember the tips she shared about body language, verbal and non-verbal communication and how important it is to make the other person feel heard.

Returning to school has been a new challenge for me. I am not the greatest written communicator. I find the message loses it's essence. I wish we had more than a smiley face to connote excitement :) or a sad face to state disappointment :( When will technology give us more than symbols >:S

Working through my second MS online has really pushed my capacity to communicate through written language. I am looking forward to learning more.


Message for the week:

Are you practicing your listening skills?

Farewell Blog Post: Final perspectives on diversity and equity

Dear Colleagues,

This has been an amazing journey... I have learned from posting, reading your comments, and your blogs. I leave this term full of hope, dreams and a stronger vision of my work with young children.

Hopes for my future include

My personal goal is to create professional development that includes cultural sensitive and diversity education.

A goal for the future of early childhood might be to improve our recognition and practices to support equity and cultural diversity.

Thank you for coming along all these weeks. I am honored to have gotten to know you all.

-Angie


Diversity and Social Equity are important...

because the world is full of diversity and social identities

because we are stronger when diversity is embraced!

because there are many right ways...

because inclusion is crucial for social equity

because every family deserves to be welcomed

because children deserve better than "isms"

And because family culture deserves support, not judgment.

Welcoming Cultural Diversity

For this blog I am supposed to select a country I am unfamiliar about, and prepare to welcome a child in my early learn program who recently emigrated from this country.

I selected the country of Eritrea because I do not know anything about this country.

The five things I would do to prepare to welcome my new student include:

1. Conduct a basic online search about general facts about this country using credible websites for information.
2. Find key words in the country’s official languages Trinyan, Arabic and English to display to make it more inviting for the family.
3. Welcome the family and child into the classroom and determine our ability to communicate with one another. If there is a language barrier, find non-verbal ways to communicate such as pictures of familiar object, signs for basic instructions, or a physical demonstration. I will learn their non-verbal cues, and be careful to note their level of comfort with my approach.
4. I will ask questions about the family culture. Discipline, routine, dietary basics and other familiar habits that might help me understand the needs of the child in the classroom.
5. I will encourage the family to visit often, bring familiar objects or pictures in the classroom for display. I will ask if I could have a picture of the family to display for the child to see during the day.

Official Map of Eritrea 

Internet research of Eritrea:

African country bordering Ethiopia, Sudan and Red Sea capital is Asmara.  The area has suffered a lot of uncertainty with government and civil war. It is a diverse country with nine recognized ethnicities and over seven languages. The predominant religion is Islam. Other religions in the area include Coptic Christian, Roman Catholic and Protestant  (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/er.html).

Official Flag

Flag Description:

Red isosceles triangle (based on the hoist side) dividing the flag into two right triangles; the upper triangle is green, the lower one is blue; a gold wreath encircling a gold olive branch is centered on the hoist side of the red triangle; green stands for the country's agriculture economy, red signifies the blood shed in the fight for freedom, and blue symbolizes the bounty of the sea; the wreath-olive branch symbol is similar to that on the first flag of Eritrea from 1952; the shape of the red triangle broadly mimics the shape of the country (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/flags/flagtemplate_er.html).

English

 Trinyan

Arabic

References
http://www.google.com/transliterate
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

During the past weeks I have been learning about bias, oppression and marginalization of individuals based on their differences. It has been a great journey to be able to identify and acknowledge how discrimination exists, it is real and not only an intellectual removed concept.

The incident I want to share happened to my wife a few weeks ago... She called me upset because some guy had been very threatening to her. She stopped on her way to work to get coffee from a coffee shop. This has been part of her routine for a while. Apparently this guy was upset she took up the only parking space available in the lot. He got out from his car and followed her inside. In there he proceeded to yell at her to stop acting like a man and accept she is a woman. Then threatened to beat her up. The guy was making so much fuss that the store manager felt the need to escort my wife to safety.

On the phone, I asked why she had not contacted the police. Since in fact he had threatened her safety and it was mainly due to her sexual orientation or gender identity. She was glad to be out of the situation, but had not felt empowered by anyone in that place to contact the authorities. The store was full of witnesses who stood by, listened to this guy humiliate and threatened my wife, yet they did NOTHING. I felt so hurt that in the eyes of society we can witness injustice or hate crimes and people still do nothing.

If I had been present, I would have called the authorities and made this guy realize it is not okay to verbally abuse others because he is uncomfortable with their sexual orientation. It is important to stand up for ourselves and let everyone know it is not okay.

This class has made me realized members of the targeted and oppressed social identities can be invisible; their humanity is stripped away so that the privilege members can ignore their existence. However, it is within us to make this change for our future generations.

Thank you for reading!
Angie

My wife, Lan, on the left. Her gender identity is different from the mainstream identity of female.
She identifies as a butch, or masculine, lesbian. This has made her target to hateful words and prejudice. 

At the Gay Pride March on 2010.
Emmy proudly advocates for her parents.
Her classmates told her remove this photograph from her writing journal because 'gay' was a bad word.
She educated them instead.