Imagine
the following scenario:
You are working in an early childhood setting
of your choice—a hospital, a child care center, a social service agency. You
receive word that the child of a family who has recently emigrated from a
country you know nothing about will join your group soon. You want to prepare
yourself to welcome the child and her family. Luckily, you are enrolled in a
course about diversity and have learned that in order to support families who
have immigrated you need to know more than surface facts about their country of
origin.
- The name of “your” family’s country of origin
The name of the new family's country of origin
is Cambodia. This family has immigrated to America before their children were
born. There are three children and the girl in our class is the first child in
this family.
- At least five ways in which you will prepare yourself to be culturally responsive towards this family
In order to prepare myself to be culturally
responsive towards this family, firstly I will search on the Internet for
information about Cambodia's history, culture, political and economic status,
religion, and the like. Second, I will look for information about Cambodian
families in America to get general ideas about their life in America. Third, I
will consult my colleagues about their experience of cultural response to immigrant
families. Fourth, I will have a conference with this family to find out more
details about their family culture, including political and economic background,
their belief and religion, their expectations of their children in school,
their home language, their cultural dos and don'ts, and the like. Last but not
least, I will learn attend more workshop to learn more about the knowledge of the
third culture.
- A brief statement describing in what ways you hope that these preparations will benefit both you and the family
Through these ways that I described above, I
think I can better prepare myself to be culturally responsive to this family
and the other families alike. I could learn what their dominant culture and
their family culture are, so that I could try to bridge their family culture up
with our school culture, community culture and even the new local culture which
they now are getting to know about in China. From the information I get from
the Internet, colleagues, and this family, I could avoid the occurrences of
stereotyping concepts; I could avoid being unconsciously racial microaggressive
with good intentions; I could cater for what the child emotionally and
physically need; I can build up relationships with the child and the family to
support the child's development in all aspects.
Hi Xiaowan,
回复删除One of the things that you said you would do that I did not think of was looking for information about the Cambodian families in America to get general ideas about their life in America. I think that would be a great idea. It would also be good to find out if there are others in the school, and maybe they could be asked if they would like to get together for support.
By the way, I love your profile picture!
Bonnie
I think researching Cambodian families in America is a great idea. This way you can gain insights about the experiences of other families and maybe even get in contact with them somehow. Feeling supported and understood will definitely help the family feel accepted. You can also share with them stories of other families in the community who have come from other countries and how their cultural diversity is accepted and integrated into the program or classroom.
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