Professional Hope and Goals

The last 8 weeks have been an interesting and insightful journey. I have truly and thoroughly enjoyed this course.

I hope to continue to impact the lives of children and families, inspite of our differences. Our differences allow us to be the unique individuals and families that we are.

It is my goal to use every concept and idea, learned through this course, in order to further educate providers on various aspects of diversity. In addition, it is my goal to provide examples and methods on how to incorporated these new ideas throughout their program.

I would personally like to thank each of my colleagues for allowing me insight into their lives and for also sharing their thoughts and beliefs. I sincerely hope that we will all take what we have learn and use it to effectively impact and change lives. I wish everyone success in all of their future and educational endeavors.

Welcoming Families From Around the World

Working as  social worker, in Robeson County school system, I was notified that a new family would be moving into our school district with three children ages 4, 5,  and 8. The youngest child would be enrolled in our school's NC Pre-K program, while the other two would be enrolled in kindergarten and third grade. This family is unique from others, because they recently immigrated from Indonesia.

As the school social worker, it is my duty to serve as a liaison between home and school. In order to be culturally responsive towards this family I would research Indonesian culture. Learning about Indonesian culture would be important in order to learn proper forms of communication, physical contact (i.e handshaking), education. Next, I would take the opportunity to personally meet the family and discuss any questions, concerns, and expectations. Once this task has been completed, I would meet with each child's teacher to ensure that each child's need would be accommodated and to ensure that the teacher has become familiar with the family's culture. Next, I would work with the teachers to ensure that diversity, including Indonesian culture, has been positively displayed throughout the classrooms. This is important because the children will be inquisitive and it would be ideal to have materials that relate to Indonesian culture in order for the children to have a better understanding of their new peers, their family, and native country. Finally, once school has begun a form of cultural awareness would be implemented into the curriculum, which would allow the children and their family to share Indonesian culture and for them to become familiar with American culture, in addition to various cultures throughout the school. In addition, I would always have an interpreter on site to help diffuse language/culture barriers.

The above acts would allow me to culturally responsive because I would be able to have a basic understanding of Indonesia culture. In addition, I will also assist the family in adjusting to their new lives in a new country. It is important that children have an understanding of the various cultures around them. Teachers would also assist in the families transition by having basic knowledge to help their students understand and build a level of respect for one another.

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

This morning, around 6:00 a.m., I was woken out of my sleep. I was unable to go back, so I decided to watch an old show from the 1990's called "New York Undercover". On this episode, the NYPD police, J.C, Torres, and McNamara, were investigating a string of black churches that were bombed. All though this show was fictional, it still displayed the hatred that many African Americans encountered during the early 1900's and Civil Rights Movement. At the end of the show a list of churches, from around the U.S., that were bombed during the 1990's.

This incident diminishes  equity because it gives off the impression that African Americans and their property is not valued. The prime suspect in the case stated that the churches were being burned in order to rid America of all minorities to get back to a "pure" America.

This incident saddens me because it shows that 30 years after the Civil Rights Movement, this level of prejudice still exist. Even though this show is fictional it depicted current events during this time. I'm still in awe at the level of ignorance that are displayed by people. It often makes me wonder will we ever live in a nondiscriminatory society.


If there was something that I could change, it would be the similar incidents that occurred in real life.