Modeling Competency

    

When I think if a person that I admire as an effective communicator, I do not go far from home. I admire my mother's communications skills. My mom is a wife, a mother, a sister and an aunt. She is the communication leader of my family. We always know how she feels and what she expects of us. My dad and mom have a great relationship, they are the couple that never keeps anything from each other. My mom always tells me that you should tell your husband everything because communication is the key to happiness. When you don't communicate that leads to problems and consequences. Between my brother and me, we were always told what to do in the best possible way. My mom had a way of giving us chores and responsibilities like she was giving us gifts. We felt proud to get opportunities to show her what we could do.

I chose my mom because she always had time to talk to me and my brother. We would sit at the table and have dinner together so we could talk. We would share our days, the good and the bad. We always communicated to each other without judgement. My mom would offer suggestions and tell us, when you have a problem you have to communicate, do not assume people can read your mind. As a family, my mom held us together because she always promoting sharing whats on our mind.

Now that I am working in the field of early childhood education, I do my best to follow what I have learned about communication from my mother. I do my best to tell everyone in a professional manner how I feel about the situations that occur at work and the implementation of new programs. I would rather have the mines of communication open with my staff and we do our best to meet at least one a week to discuss new ideas. Promoting the skills I have learned from my mom would allow me to be an adequate leader that staff can rely on.

Communication is the most effective way to tell people how you feel. Body language is a form of communication that we continue to use without knowing what signals we are giving off. I hope during this course, I can learn how to effectively communicate in all aspects of my life.

Professional Hopes and Goals

                                            

I hope as I continue to work with children and families, who come from diverse backgrounds, I can maintain the ability to provide them with programs that support all their needs. I also want to provide an environment that can further their growth and development while maintain their family culture. Diversity is an issue that I plan to keep myself aware about by continuing to read and distribute resources to my staff. Staying well informed will help me to make the decisions I need to make to keep maintain a diverse facility.

One goal I would like to set for the early childhood field related to issues of diversity, equity, and social justice is the process of continuance. By that I hope that the field can continue to build and promote knowledge through researches. I feel if the field can continue to grow and develop as they learn more about these issues, we can someday eliminate prejudice and biases that affect our children. As I continue to work in the field, I plan to share the knowledge that I acquire with other professionals, so we can support each other in our professional and personal growth.

To all my colleagues, I thank you for sharing all your personal stories, hopes and goals throughout the course. Thank you for all your positive feedback and your words of encouragement over the past eight weeks. It has been a pleasure getting to know all of you and I hope I can work with you again as we all continue our studies here at Walden University. I am honored to work with individuals that share the same passion of helping children and promoting appropriate early childhood education.  I want to extend to everyone, please feel free to contact me as we continue to grow and learn. I feel as they I have made life long relationship here at Walden and I hope you all feel the same. I wish you the best of luck on your future hopes and dreams. See you all the finish line where another journey in our lives will begin.

Until we meet again, Natasha Khan

Welcoming Families From Around the World

For this blog assignment I choose the country of Yemen. I am not familiar with this country and I would love to know how children from Yemen are exposed to early childhood education.  In the scenario, I have chosen to operate my own licensed childcare center. I have just received news that a family will be relocating from Yemen and I have a spot available for their child to start right away.  Now being the owner of the child care facility. I have to prepare myself to welcome this new child by learning all I can about her and her background.

Five ways I would begin to prepare myself to welcome this new child to my child care center:

      1)   My first step would be to create a welcome guide for the new child and her family. I would take pictures of the classroom, and translate the words into her particular language. I would include pictures of her new classmates and teachers with their names. Creating this welcome packet will allow the family to become comfortable with the school and know where everything is. In the packet I will give all the names of the staff and do my best to provide local places where they can get food that is close to their home cuisine.

       2)    I would need to find out the history of the country of Yemen. Learning about the history, cultures and traditions would give me a foundation of what to expect.                                                                               3 )   I would also prepare the current students by giving them some information on their new classmate. I would encourage them to make drawings that they can present to their new friend as a welcome gift.

      4)   Learning the languages that are spoken would help me to get familiar with keywords. I would make some notes to myself, of how to say important phrases such as “Hello”, “Good morning”, “how are you? “, “Welcome to your new school” and  “We are excited to have you here!” Key phrases will help this particular child feel welcome as well as her family. This information will be passed on to the teachers, current families and children.

       5)      I would purchase some supplies for the classroom, which would support this particular child’s family culture. Books, supplies, materials that would represent her home life because her whole environment will be different due to her relocation. 

It is important for me to complete these tasks because I want the any new child to feel welcome and respected. It is important to have a program that presents a culturally diverse atmosphere so families can feel reassured that we are presenting a well-balanced program that can cater to everyone’s individual needs. My program needs to support children and their families by giving the basic supplies that are needed to adapt to a new environment. Allowing myself to learn about different cultures gives me the ability to learn and accept new things. I am always hoping to set an example to my staff and current children that we can open our doors to all people around the world if we open our minds. Being a part of diverse community allows me have numerous amounts of information at my fingertip.

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

            In 2009, I met my husband Foizal in Guyana while on vacation. I do not travel often to South America because my parents migrated from there when I was four years old. I do not have many memories of my birth country. During my vacation, I fell in love and returned to Guyana, three months later and we married in a simple ceremony. I made frequent visit to see my husband and always enjoyed learning more about the country where I was born. Each trip was a new adventure and I was ready to take in all the knowledge. My last trip to Guyana, I had a terrible experience in a local village shop.  I usually pack my suitcase very carefully each time I take a trip, but unfortunately this time I forgot my perfume.

            My husband took me a shop where they sold perfume from the U.S. because I would be more familiar with the brands. The store was lovely and there were two local village girls working there. When I arrived in the store, they were both assisting other customers. I began to walk around and look through the different bottles. I felt a strange vibe but I ignored it without making a big deal. My husband was looking at men’s colognes as I continued to browse. I noticed one of the girls had finished with her customer and then I heard her say she is taking her break now. The next young lady was done with her customer, but she never approached me or acknowledged that I was waiting. Another customer walked into the store and she offered assistance to her. In a slightly assertive voice, I stated I was next and would need assistance just in case she really did not notice me. She looked at me and said I thought you were still browsing.

            My husband asked what happen, I told him the sale woman is ignoring me and that is mean. My husband told me maybe she did not honestly know you were ready to be attended too.  Finally when she did come to where I was standing, I asked her to see a few different perfumes, and she spoke to me very rudely and would not pull out the ones I wanted to see. I asked my husband to take me somewhere else and he agreed. As I was leaving the store, I decided to ask to talk to the person that was in charge. I told the manager, that his workers refused to serve me and I do not know why. As I proceeded to leave the store, I could hear them arguing and I heard one of girls say she is not Guyanese, she is a foreigner. I was insulted and I could believe that I was judged based upon my looks and my language.

            My feeling of equity was diminished by the lack of service I received. I was not seen as a customer, but as a nuisance to the two girls. I was treated as if I had not right to be in the store and my money was of no value to buy in there. I told my husband that this incident made me sad because, I always had positive interactions wherever I went. I enjoyed visiting different stores and learning about Guyana, through his eyes. But during this incident I felt single out and de-graded as a human being. In order to have the opportunity of equity, there needs to customer services rules that regulate the worker’s behavior. Your personal biases should be left outside your professional working environment. When dealing with any business that requires face to face interactions with people, you learn to show respect for all differences and present fairness as one of your abilities. Customer services is a job that many people perform all over the world and if we all portrayed the way we feel, our business would not succeed.

              I was unfortunately single out by the two women because they felt I should not be shopping in there store, even though I am a paying customer. I was targeted by biases and prejudice feelings that made me feel inferior. I was very sad, but I ended up going to another store where I was treated with respect. I just keep thinking if I am Guyanese by birth and I was treated that way, how the people that are facing severe poverty in Guyana treated by their own people. In this world we are all connected because all of us face the same problems and we are all looking for a solution to make our worlds full of harmony and respect for all people.