As I complete my final week of this course on Perspectives
on Diversity and Equity, I think about how if more educators had training in
anti bias education, then more children would grow up accepting their own
unique identity, have higher self esteem, and be much more accepting of the
characteristics of others that make us all different yet wonderful. So my hope
as I dive into working closer with diverse children and families is to make a
difference, even in small ways, and to help my colleagues realize the
importance of anti bias education for our future. I realize that most likely I
will make many mistakes along the way, but it's been said many times that we
learn best from those mistakes. It's a journey we make as we learn to become
better educators and therefore better individuals. My short term goal is to
take what I have learned from this course and use it to assess how my current
school is doing regarding addressing issues of diversity and equity, and then
bring those issues to the attention of our school administrators. My goal for
the early childhood field in general is to influence other early childhood
educators to make changes to their classrooms that welcome diverse families and
make them feel at home. Even if I can only influence one, eventually there will
be a chain reaction and more will follow. I want to thank all of my colleagues
that have participated in this course with me for their support. I also thank
you for opening my eyes to the perspectives of others and thank you for the
wonderful discussions we have had over the last eight weeks. I wish you all
well and hope to see you in future courses at Walden.
Thank you for all of your posts! I enjoyed reading how you want to influence your colleagues or other professionals - which I think is very important as well as educating them professionally!
ReplyDeleteHi Celeste,
ReplyDeleteFirst I want to wish you all the best as well! I also want to address your concerns on how to help others we work with in the early childhood field of understanding diversity and the biases they may carry toward others. As we have learned throughout this course that some of our biases are unrecognizable to us because we have use them all of our lives without thinking that these biases are hurting others. Therefore I feel in order to help others understand, and learn what we have learned through this courses that helped us grow in having an understanding of diversity, equity, and social justice, our co-workers too must be introduced to such information that will provide them with this knowledge of learning how to accept others for who they are by learning first who we are.
Celeste,
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I'd like to thank you for contributing to the learning environment throughout this course, and to wish you well as you continue on your own journey. I agree that there needs to be more anti-bias education in place for early childhood educators. The program I completed for my bachelors did have an anti-bias course which helped jump start my awareness. But once in the field, there seems to be a disconnect with the concept, which makes ongoing professional development of anti-bias practice so critical to achieving cultural competence, diversity, equity, and social justice. Somehow we need to bridge that gap between the classroom for adult ECE learner and the ECE field. What might you suggest an ECE professional do to help close the gap?
Pamela
Celeste,
ReplyDeleteI hope that we will all take some valuable information from this course that will improve our professional practices, whether we are in the classroom or not. The aspiration to influence diversity education in other professionals is admirable, and I too also desire to impact other's towards making these beneficial changes in their teaching methods. I have really enjoyed your contributions and input in this class, and hope you have much success in the rest of your courses.