What I have learned

My hope is that I continue to strengthen myself to be an anti-biased educator to help support all learners of any background. I will continue to support diverse children and their families to form a partnership to help their child reach their fullest potential in my classroom.

A goal I set for myself is to continue learning ways and insight about issues related to diversity, equity, and social justice. My goal is to engage in professional development, trainings, or webinars that will give me knowledge so that I can strengthen myself as a well-rounded Early Childhood professional.

Thanks to all my colleagues for your support during this journey. It has been a great experience to link up and share ideas, comments, and new knowledge as it relates to the early childhood field. I wish you all continued success and happy holidays.

Warmest Regards,

Tierra Jackson

Creating Art

I ndividually                                            

D eveloping

E xplicable personalities and characteristics

N otably

T hru traumatic experiences, biases, and discomforts

I nto

T he

Y oung child

I created this poem entitled “IDENTITY” to define how young children start developing diversity early on. As we have been learning from this course, these early experiences of trauma, biases, and discomforts will shape how we start to view the world around us. It plays a significant part on how we develop and form identities as a young child.

References:

Image from-

Rubashkyn, E.R.(2014, March 14). Eliana’s Blog.

Crossing Borders [Blog post]. Retrieved from

http://elianabutterfly.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/gender_identity_mtf_story.jpg

Start Seeing Diversity

An instance I can recall happening when a child pointed out something they noticed different was with my little cousin. We were out shopping in the mall and I can remember seeing a shorter than average person coming towards us. I was hoping my little cousin would not comment or even notice the difference, however, she did. As the lady was approaching she stated, “Why is that lady so little?” I really was in a moment of shock. I just was like “Shhh, Be Quiet!”

                The message I communicated to my cousin was that this person is different. Not only that, but that we should now respond to what we see. Now when she sees another person that is of shorter than average height, she may think that something has to be wrong with that person. Professionally, it would have been best not to just “shhh” my cousin, but perhaps explain to her that there are many different people in the world. People come in many shapes, colors, and sizes. Later, I may even share some books about differences in people.

Seeing Diversity-Gender and Sexual Orientation

“Bias related to sexual orientation, also called homophobia” (Laureate Education, n.d.). Heterosexism in my own words is the strong beliefs people have that heterosexuality should pervade in our society. I decided to observe a children’s TV. show and view children in an early childhood setting for any stereotypes or biases related to sexual orientation or gender roles. While watching the Sophia the First, I noticed that the girl characters wore lots of pink and were very well mannered. Spoke sofetly and seemingly nurturing and caring characters. I noticed the boy characters were more dominate and wore darker colors. In the early childhood setting, I noticed the boys seemed to only play with trucks, cars, and blocks. The girls tended to be interested in dress-up and taking care of baby dolls. However, there were some boys that did enjoy pretend play, but I did not seem them interact so much with the dolls. It seems as if societal views on girl’s vs boys have had some influence on our young children.

The “need to validate all the kinds of families children are coming from” (Laureate Education, n.d.) is the main reason early childhood educators should include classroom materials that depict same-sex partnered families. I think we should remember, as children we don’t get to choose the family we’re born into, so we could at least acknowledge that these types of families do exist. It helps the child not to feel bad or singled out because of the family that they were born into. For parents that have strong feelings against homosexual or transgendered individuals caring for their children. I would share the importance respecting differences in others. Also to remember that we would not want to be singled out because of choices we made in life, but maybe consider the child take part in the classroom. If there are still any discomforts I would respect the parents’ choice and just place the child in another room.

I have heard the term “tom boy” said to a little girl that likes to dress in pants, tennis shoes, and shirts vs dresses and skirts. She preferred rough play and doing more building in the block area. I think it may have caused the little girl to start thinking she was different in some way, although she continued dressing and playing the way she preferred.

References:

Video: Laureate Education (Producer). (n.d.). Start seeing diversity: Sexual orientation [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

Thanks for Supporting Me

This course has been so helpful for me both professionally and personally. With support from my colleagues in the discussion boards and blogs, I was able to gain feedback to strengthen my communication skills. Also with weekly resources, video segments, and text readings I was able to extend my knowledge about how to communicate effectively. Overall, I appreciate all the support as I continue my journey into my master’s degree. I know that I have learned about the type of communicator I am and am continuing to build skills to become competent as a communicator. I wish all my colleagues continued success.

Adjourning!

       “The adjourning stage is when the team is completing the current project. They will be joining other teams and moving on to other work in the near future. For a high performing team, the end of a project brings on feelings of sadness as the team members have effectively become as one and now are going their separate ways” (Abudi, 2010). I would say teams that are high-performing and have established norms are the most difficult to leave. I believe this may happen because you a have built relationships amongst team members to obtain goals that have been set. The bond created becomes strong as the group moves from the different stages of team building. At the end, when the goal or project has been accomplished a relationship has been built with lasting memories for what has been accomplish by the team.

     One group I can recall being hard to leave was when I was Moral Dance Coach for Dance Marathon when I was a student at Texas Woman’s University. Dance Marathon committee was made of a team of up to ten students that put together a fun filled, theme packed 14 hour event to raise money for Children’s Miracle Network to help support local hospitals in Dallas- Fort Worth area. We would start with our own simple ideas once each person had their position on the team. Then we moved to storming, figuring out how we would want ‘dancers’ to be able to push through the event. We would come up with a theme for the night, decorations, music, group dance, games all to motivate our ‘dancers’ to stay on their feet for the event. Also fund raiser events to help raise additional money. Once the event happened we could see how effective our team had been at planning and now executing our event. Adjourning was fun, but yet sad because we had worked for months on this event and now we would be moving forth with our lives. We would still see each other on campus and still engage in conversations. A closing ritual we did was have a meeting to discuss how much money was raised and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the night. Also discuss what could we add to improve the event and encourage more ‘dancers.’

                As I adjourn from colleagues during my Master’s coursework, I am sure I will have the same feelings. It will surely be a bittersweet moment. I will be happy to have accomplished my goal to obtain a Master’s. On the other hand, I will miss the connections and discussions I have had with colleagues during the course of my studies. As I move forward, I will have a sense of longing to still be a part of this college community of learners.

References:

Abudi, G. (2010). The five stages of team development: A case study. Retrieved from http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/the-five-stages-of-team-development-a-case-study.html

                

This takes the CAKE!

A recent conflict I dealt with was between someone in my personal life. We were figuring out things for my son’s third birthday party. The big deal was who would drive the birthday cake over to the venue. The cake was one of those two layer cakes made with fondue, jungle themed. Now I asked this person to drop me off with my mom, and they could take the cake and pick up balloons and I would meet them at the venue. Well, apparently this caused a disagreement that I COULD NOT comprehend at the time. The other person was very reluctant to take the cake and I couldn’t understand why it was such a big deal. Needless to say, we ended up going in the same car and we BOTH transported the cake and balloons. I think a strategy that could have helped us would be actually explaining why we either did or did not want to transport the cake. I think even showing empathy would have supported our conflict in a positive manner, as NVC suggest. The bottom line was that the other person just did not feel comfortable transporting the cake because anything could have happened during the car ride and that person would have felt responsible for any damage done to the cake. Had I shown more empathy and even asked” Why do you feel so opposed to taking the cake?” we could have resolved the issue sooner and more positively. Colleagues feel free to add any additional advice.