What Is Communication? Week 1

When I think of excellent communicators I envision my IEP meetings that I conduct so very often.   I know exactly who demonstrates competent communication.  The Occupational Therapist that I work is very articulate, knowledgeable and has a great demeanor. He is an effective communicator because he is able to literally back up each comment or suggestion with research. This really helps when we are in meetings with Parents who are very concerned about their child because he is able to share so much information with them. He also is very personable with each set of parents that we work with and strives to make connections with each of them.  Being calm is another way he is an effective communicator, he can quickly shift the meeting from a heated one to a happy one.  I feel that he is so knowledgeable about our field that he is able to back up everything he says.  I would like to model my own communication behaviors after him.  I can get flustered and stumble over my words and I wish that I could remember research that I have read so that I can share it in a meeting. 


I also think that being a competent communicator takes time and with each meeting I get better at communicating my thoughts and ideas.  Do you agree?


***Side note




Dr. Seuss' birthday is my absolute favorite (okay really it is Dr. Seuss week)! I love love reading all of his books to my students!   


AND


My favorite quote! :)

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.” - Dr. Seuss

Week 8- Professional hopes and goals

I hope that I will continue to reach out to all my students and families.  I am moving at the end of this school year (from the job that I love) to relocate to be closer to friends and family.  I will be moving to a urban city (Seattle) and I plan on working in the thick of everything.  This will be different from my more rural community that I am working in now.   I know that I will be working with a more diverse population and I hope that everything that I learned throughout this course I will take with me and use with all my future students and families.

My goal from early childhood is that everyone who is in the field continues to advocate for the profession.  Continued progress in advocating for all students and families will help make programs more equitable across the nation. 

I would just like to say how thankful for everyone in our program.  I feel fortunate that everyone brings such insightful posts each week.  I am happy to be apart of our early childhood culture and it is fantastic to watch everyone grow!

Week 8

I am pretending that I am in my current position as a special educaiton teacher and my new student and family are from Bulgaria (more specifically from the Roma population). I talked with my brother because he is a Peace Corps volunteer in a very small village in Bulgaria. 

For me to be culturally responsive I would need to consider the following information:
1) Children often do not have any concept of color or numbers or have any writing skills.  The first time they are introduced to these concepts are in kindergarten, which in Bulgaria is a year later than in the United States.
2) Roma people have their own language and different dialects depending on the region they are from.  
3) Currently, there has been an several missionaries in Bulgaria that have been Seventh Day Advent.  My brother noted that often the Roma population will follow the prevailing religion and look at is as protection to follow that belief. 
4) In a school setting (meetings, conferences, family nights) include all members of the family.  Often the grandmothers (Baba's) are the caretakers of the grandchildren and they are highly regarded. 
5) Kid's are not regarded as high importance (as there typically many children in the family).  Roma populations are very male dominated and an example of this being that when food is served fathers eat first and then he decides when others (wife and kids) can eat.  Most of the time it may just be the scraps. This would be very important to be aware about as a person from the outside it could be considered neglect. 

 I would hope that taking these considerations in before my student arrived would help me be more culturally responsive.  I would be able to prepare for a student who might not have been taught academic certain skills yet.  I would be able to know that this would be a cultural thing and not a disability.  I would know that they whole family should be included in the meeting and events.  I would also know to do a little bit of research to know where the family came from specifically in Bulgaria, so that I could hopefully learn a few words (although I may not be able to if it is a dialect not recorded). 
 

Week 6-The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

When I was getting my BA I was part of a program called Camp Adventure and we were highly trained camp counselors that worked on military bases around the world.  My first summer I was in Landstuhl, Germany working at a teen center.  At once point during the summer a young boy got into a fight with another.  He was hit in the face with a ping pong ball and wanted to get after the boy who accidentally hit him.  I immediately asked him to turn around and go for a walk and then he hit me.  Our protocol was to call a meeting with his parents.  I thought that it would be a meeting to discuss strategies to deescalate discuses where we would go from here.  Well, it turned out that his mother walked into the meeting and called me a " rich, white, racist.” Equity was diminished as soon as she walked in the door, she had assumed that I played apart in the reason her son hit me, even though he was mad at the other boy and not me. I had no words that could come out and it was the first time I had felt that my skin color was defining who I am and why something had happened. I felt that there was a bias towards me before she even knew me.  

This particular young boy was not the easiest boy in the center and at times it was challenging to deal with the behavior he was exhibiting.  Even though this was the most in your face incident I had ever experienced, it turned out to be a wonderful experience.  I changed the way I worked with this teen.  I saw the way his mother acted with me and I had a feeling she might act this way with her son.  I started to act in a more caring way towards him and we worked out what had happened and ended the summer on a great note.   

Week 4-Microaggressions

I have a perfect example of a microaggression that happened this week.  Each week I have nursing students who come in and observe students in my classroom.  This is part of their pediatric unit and the  hope is to get some experience with students with disabilities. I enjoy having nursing students because most of them do not have any experience with children with disabilities and I feel that my classroom gives them a great opportunity to observe a wide range of students. The nursing student this week was maybe 45, not untypical of other students.  The first thing he said when he walked in was "I expected you to be 40-45ish because people tell me your so good."  I never know what to say when people make comments about my age.  I know I look young. I am young. I was offend he assumed that a good teacher must be older.  I am just not sure what to say when people, co-working included, make comments to me and call me "kid." 

I know that there was no harm behind this comment, but it did make it a microinsult. It also invalidated that I was not going to be good.

This was a very interesting week. I now have more information on discrimination, prejudices and stereotypes and what it looks like.  I now know that the littlest comments can truly offend someone and with this new knowledge I hope that I can be more aware of what I say and what could potentially be harmful. Dr. Sue offered some great ways to prevent microaggression, I hope that I can use this in my teaching career and continue to make great relationships with my students and their families.

• In what ways did your observation experiences this week affect your perception of the effects of discrimination, prejudice, and/or stereotypes on people 
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Week 3-Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

I asked three different people to give me examples of culture and diversity.  I chose these three people because they all had different upbringing and their family life is unique.

Penny-A Unitarian Reverend and a mother of 3:

“Hmmmm. Off the top of my head, I think that culture is largely defined by geography and the influence of the life of our times. Being physically proximate with a group of people and sharing certain activities that could be construed as a 'cultural norm' (habits and social behaviors that are absorbed from a wide base of people) For example I would say that there is a defined "American culture" and a "French culture", a "South American" culture, etc. that extends beyond income, gender & race and is framed by commonalities that those outside the culture would recognize as belonging to that specific group of people...it could include basic human rights (freedom of speech, right to vote) or it could be something as pedestrian as food preferences (Brats in Germany, fast food in America). This is more of a collective term that embraces a large population of folks.

I think that "diversity" exists WITHIN culture and includes specific individual differences like race, gender, ethnicity, sexual preferences, tall, short, old, young, income levels, etc. All of the things that set an individual apart from another within a specific culture. Diversity could (for me) be defined as a continuum of possibilities of the human species within each culture.”

Barb- Moved around the US all around US while growing up, Peace Corp Volunteer and Graduate Student at Tulane University in the College Global Heath:

“So how I define culture and diversity...

CULTURE: I would say that culture is unique commonalities or characteristics shared by people within a population. It could be anything from art and music to language and religion, but these things tend to enrich or define a certain subset of people.

DIVERSITY: I just think of diversity as a wide range of something or an all-encompassing representation. In terms of people, I think of diversity as a group of different people from various backgrounds. This encompasses not only race (like traditionally defined) but education, socio-economic status, ethnicity, language proficiency, age, occupation, life decisions, etc.”

Alan first generation Vietnamese American and Buddhist:

“Culture to me is a set of beliefs that a certain social group or ethnic group share. Often it can be expressed through the arts, manners and even academic pursuits. Culture is an amazing thing as it can often help to define a person, to better understand their background and where they come from.

Diversity can mean variety in a number of different ways. When we talk about people and diversity, people can represent a variety different cultures, ethnicities, sexual orientation, so on and so forth. I feel it is important for people to be accepting of people's diversity.”

I thought they all had very similar answers.  I really liked what Penny said that “I think that ‘diversity’ exists within a culture and includes specific individual differences.”  I think this gave a great example of what we are studying in this course. 

I think that what is omitted the individual culture that each person has created.  From the first journal reflection on defining our own culture and how specific we got, to me their responses were more surface level. 

To me this exercise teaches me that with everyday conversation this is what a variety of different people feel about culture and diversity.  So, with this in mind some of my parents (who all come from different backgrounds) may also be thinking of diversity and culture on the surface, in regards to other peoples culture and diversity.  So… how do we dig deeper with the students and families that we work with?  We know or are in the process of discovering our own culture, now I need to move on to helping all my students and families be accepting of all backgrounds and cultures.

This past week I had a parent come to me and request a busing change for her son.  Currently, he rides the special education bus (as all my students do) she wanted to change to the big bus, but this would not of been appropriate for him.  At first she said that he could handle it, then it was her son and daughter wanted him to and come to find out she felt the bus driver was being standoffish. She also said well she is from a different country and we just don’t get along.  I was a little shocked, because what does being from a different country have to do with not getting along? I also know this bus driver and she is more than nice and patient with all of the students riding her bus.  I guess I need to figure out how I can address with the parent who is upset. Obviously, there is a misunderstanding somewhere and the fact that “from another country” was brought up could very well make this a cultural misunderstanding.  Something I will need to ponder over the weekend.

Week 1-My family Culture

I assume I cannot take my dog (tear).

This is an interesting question.  I believe in trying to live without “things” and I try to be a minimalist (so it’s a little hard for me).  I am envisioning my parent’s house and what is in there that I would have to take with me.  What means the most to me is pictures. I love pictures and some of my favorite ones are from when my brothers and I were little. 

1)   A picture of my brother and I in our first house, in our bay window.  I have pink pj’s on with a yellow football helmet, and my brothers are wearing hammer pants with football helmets.  We are dancing.  It is a square picture. A picture of happiness and silliness. It would provide an example of a time when we were carefree.

  

(I do not have this picture with me, I promise it is adorable)

This led me to think of more pictures that I have and my extended family.  My parents are still friends with their friends from college and all the kids have know each other their entire lives.  Each summer we get together every summer.

2)   The first 22 years of our college campout on a DVD.  Twenty-two minutes of picture bliss, from my most favorite people. This would be an example of what our family is, our extended family, a family who is not blood related. It shows the bond of family/friendship. 

Lastly, because I love pictures so much I would bring my favorite picture of my dog (that is only if I could not take him (: ). 

3)   Favorite Winston picture.  He is looking out the window at the snow when I was in college.  This would provide an example of how dogs are valued in my culture, so valued that people call them children.

If upon arrival I could only take one item, I would take the DVD. Even if it couldn’t be played I would still take it, because it would give me a reminder of some of the happiest moments in my life.

Making this list made me realize what is important to me, my family.  I sometimes forget how much they mean to me and I definitely do not tell them enough how much I love them and appreciate them for everything they do. This exercise also showed me what I value and I am a little surprised that all I thought of was pictures of people and animals that I love.