Microaggressions

While attending High School (junior year), I was sitting in class socializing with other students.  We were allowed to socialize for the first ten minutes of class.  I was engaged in a conversation with a couple of my classmates, when another student (white male) addressed me inappropriately.  I immediately made some statements back to the student.  We went back in forward for a minute and he called me a B!#ch.  When he made that statement, I became very upset.  The teacher, who was white, finally asked what was going on.  I tried to explain to her what happened.  She didn’t want to hear my story.  She asked me to have a sit and began to ask the white male student what happened. Based on his statements, she wrote me up for disrupting the class and using profanity.  I was sent me to the principal’s office. My feelings was hurt because I felt like because I was black and the teacher and student that I was arguing with was white, I was not treated fairly.   Her recommendation was for me to be suspended from school for 3 days.

I was very upset and I felt as if I was not treated fairly because of the color of my skins.  I was not given a chance to prove myself. In my opinion, the white male student did not learn anything from the solution.  My parents ended up having a conference with the school principal and teacher about the incident.  The principal decided to interview students from the class and out of 20 students, 15 made a statement that they heard the two of us arguing and the only profanity word used was by the white male.  I know I was wrong for arguing in class and I would have accepted the punishment of “disrupting the class”, but I also felt as if the white student should have been punished also for using profanity and disrupting the class. Fair is Fair!!

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

The United States of America thrives on diversity. A synthesis of the world’s plentiful and varied races, religions, and cultures, America is a home to all, such that no one group can call itself more “American” than another. And the fusion of cultures here is so unique and so exceptional that citizens can be just as proud of their original cultural heritage as they are to be an American.

Our Diversity in America collection takes a good look at what it means to be “American” and examines the rich heritages that make up our country. Each culture provides its own special and irreplaceable contribution to our understanding of America today, and The World & I Online showcases this here. From Asia to Europe to Africa to Latin America, some 128 articles trace each nationality’s broad history and important contributions to the American way of life. Diversity in America not only presents a host of intimate snapshots of culture and heritage, but documents the struggles of nationalities to integrate into the “melting pot” society of America, and highlights the strength and integrity of various cultural leaders and thinkers.

My Family Culture

If there was a major catastrophe of my country and I was only allowed to take 3 small items, I would take the following items to represent my family culture:

·         My family photo album:  the photo albums will have memories of my culture and traditions.

·         The Bible:  For me to read and keep my faith

·         My Laptop:  just in case there will be internet connection, I will be able to connect with family member and friends thought social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

Once I arrived to the host country and I was told that I could only keep one of the three items I brought.  I think I would keep my laptop, especially If I determine that I would have access to the internet.  On my laptop, I have pictures of my family downloaded and I could always download a copy of The Bible (King James Version). 

My family is so dear to me and I couldn’t imagine something like this happening.  If it did, I would continue my culture by cooking foods that are a tradition to my family and sing songs of my culture to remind me of where I came from.

When I Think of Research.....

Understanding how research is conducted is valuable because it is from research that we gain information about people and their behavior.  We act on that information, and social policy is based on it.  We are exposed to their results of research every day in the news media, and as a parent, teacher, or another professional working with children, we are exposed to research-based advice or training.  Knowledge about reach methods can make you a wiser consumer of information.  Being a wise consumer of research means using what you have learned to think critically about research and its application.

ABOUT ECDVU IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

The Early Childhood Development Virtual University (ECDVU) supports countries in Sub-Saharan Africa in addressing the care and development needs of their young children. The approach promotes within-country and within-region leadership, respecting both local sources of knowledge as well as international research.

The approach is innovative, inter-sectoral and multi-organizational. It is effective as evidenced by external evaluations in 2004 and 2011. Participation involves several steps: first, a committee within each participating country identifies key national goals in regards to early childhood care and development (ECD); the committee then openly solicits applications and forwards the nominees to the program. Each of the nominated teams joins similarly selected country teams to form a cohort of leaders from eight to ten Sub-Saharan countries.

The ECDVU engages with these leaders through online and face-to-face delivery of courses specifically developed for African and international development contexts. Participants continue with their in-country employment and share their learning across the cohort and within their home country. Strong and sustainable communities of practice have been forged across the region.

References:

http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/about.php

Research that Benefits Children and Families—Uplifting Stories

Early Head start effects of research on children and/or families

Early Head Start programs must adhere to the Head Start Program Performance Standards. In the implementation study phase of the evaluation (reported in two reports, Pathways to Quality and Leading the Way), programs were systematically rated on the extent to which they implemented the performance standards. Early Head Start programs that implemented the standards early (by 1997 site visits) or later (by 1999) demonstrated a broader pattern of significant impacts than was true for the several programs that were not rated as fully implemented in 1999. This finding underscores the importance of adherence to the performance standards for producing a breadth of impacts for children and parents.

Impacts Differ by Approach Programs choosing different approaches to serving families achieved different patterns of success. Programs were characterized according to the options they offer families as (1) center-based (providing all services to families through center-based child care and education, parent education, and a minimum of two home visits per year to each family); (2) home-based (serving families through weekly home visits and at least two group socialization per month for each family); or (3) mixed (providing center-based services to some families, home-based services to other families, or a mixture of center-based and home-based services, either at the same or at different times). By fall 1997, seven programs were home-based, four were center-based, and six were mixed programs. Impacts among center-based programs centered on enhancing children’s cognitive and social-emotional development; these programs had some favorable impacts on aspects of parenting, but few on parents’ self-sufficiency.

Home-based programs in general had some impact on children’s social-emotional development and reduced parenting stress, relative to the control group parents. The home-based programs that were fully implemented, however, had impacts on cognitive and language development at age 3 that have not generally been found in evaluations of home visiting programs.

Mixed-approach programs demonstrated the strongest pattern of impacts for the families they served. The mixed-approach programs consistently enhanced children’s language development and aspects of social-emotional development. These programs also enhanced a wide range of parenting behaviors and participation in self-sufficiency-oriented activities. The mixed-approach programs that became fully implemented early had a particularly strong pattern of impacts.