A Note of Thanks

My hope in working with any family is to make them feel respected, valued, and welcome.  I believe that through all of the educational resources that we have any family can be a part of any community.  It’s my hope that in time our profession will empower the children of our future to accept everyone as equals.  I would like to pursue the social justice aspect of diversity and learn what types of proactive measures that I can take for the children of tomorrow.  As with each of my graduate classes, I have enjoyed my colleague’s comments, suggestions, and ideas.  Each of the people I have come to know is so unique and passionate about children and it makes me feel very honored to be included in this program.  Thank you all for a great class!

Welcoming a Family from Nigeria

As I prepare to travel to Colorado to see my baby brother deploy to Nigeria on a Special Forces mission, I would love to learn to about Nigeria. 

The family is from Hausa native culture.  The children have only spoken Hausa and the oldest child can speak very little English.

In preparation for this family’s arrival I am going prepare the classroom with PIC cards that describe the activities in their native language.

I will have a list of Islamic resources and religious affiliated organizations

I will recruit our military interpreter that speaks Arabic to be available upon arrival to help with translation.

Ensure to explain about the meals and snacks that our program provides and the reassure the children they will not experience hunger in our program.

Week Six My Journey

Since starting with my organization I have been vaguely aware that certain personal is afraid to hold the African American staff to the same expectations of all the other staff.  I am fairly new and still learning the history of our growth and lessons learned.  I have never truly witnessed personal bias in this capacity.   It has almost become a prejudice not of African Americans but a prejudice that African American staff will use their race to get what they want, or to get out what they do not want to do.    I have never felt differently about supervising anyone from any race, gender, age or background.  I have personally witnessed such fear of prejudice that they were actually being prejudice themselves.   The affect of prejudice among our leadership has diminished equity significantly.  It creates an environment in which all employees are not treated equally nor are they held accountable to the same standard.  Being able to lead, guide, mentor, and supervise employees equally is imperative. I want staff to always know that as their supervisor I will always treat them as individualize, and uphold them to the same standard as their collogues.  As I continue to grow and learn to lead my staff I hope that all my staff regardless of their ethnical background will appreciate that they are treated fair, and held to the same standards.