Welcoming Families From Around The World
Welcoming Families From Around The World
The family that will be
joining my child care center has just come to the United States from Estonia. The only prior knowledge I have about this country
is that most Estonians are of White heritage.
The first two things I will do to prepare myself for bringing their
child into my classroom are to do some independent research about the country
and its origins, and to arrange a personal meeting with the family prior to the
first day of school. I think it is
important to have a base knowledge of the family’s last place they called home
to have an authentic interaction upon meeting together. I learned that Estonians typically speak
Estonian or Russian, and their country is 90% homogeneous in Estonian heritage
across their various counties (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2018). The Encyclopedia Britannica (2018) compares Estonia
to a Eurocentric society currently, however, the country has suffered great
cultural turmoil in the past through war and marginalization of various
individuals. With this prior knowledge,
I will know to offer language services if needed and prepare to give additional
support about the local diversity that is in our community in the family
meeting.
I
hope to gain several key elements of information to support the family and their
child upon meeting with them. I plan to
have a “Get to Know You” form with me with guided questions that will assist me
in being respectful and supportive to them.
I will begin with asking the family how they would like to be
communicated with and whom should be the primary individual to communicate
with. Family dynamics and cultural
values and beliefs can dictate how the family may want to handle communication
with the child care center. I will ask
if there are any family traditions or specific information the family would
like me to know about them. In the past,
I have gotten responses about holidays and family interests for this question. The following information I am looking for
encompasses discovering the child’s developmental
niche: the physical and social settings of the child, the culturally
regulated customs and practices, and the beliefs or ethno-theories of the
parents (Smidt, 2013).
For the
next portion of the family meeting, I would like to focus on the child. The family is the first expert on the child
and has valuable information that no one else does about them. We will discuss basic needs such as eating,
sleeping, and toileting. I will go
further to find out materials, activities, and the learning style of the
child. A child’s learning style is very
much connected to their culture and I would like to be as consistent with my expectations
of the child’s learning style as the family when building a relationship with
them (Smidt, 2013). The meeting is
concluded with the parents discussing any additional information that we did
not cover. Personally, and
professionally, I believe that meeting with a family before enrollment to
discuss the program and how their family can be supported is essential to
building a reciprocal relationship of mutual respect and compassion.
After
the meeting, I would begin to focus on my learning environment and how I will
ensure that the child and family will feel welcomed and visible. I will use the HighScope Program Quality Assessment
Guide (2013), to assess if there are “Materials for exploration and play [that]
reflect home and community cultures and differing abilities of the children in
the program”, “All materials for exploration and play depict a wide range of
nonstereotyped role models and cultures”, and “There are photographs of all
children and their family members for children to see, touch, hold, and carry.”
(p. 16-19). Strategies I will use to
achieve these standards will be to obtain photos of the family (perhaps at the
meeting), and I will ask the family to donate food containers or pretend play
items that may encourage the child to feel a sense of belonging. If there is a second language, I will add books
and labels throughout the classroom in the language to encourage the family to
visit and join our classroom.
With
several intentional actions, I am hoping the child and family will have an
easier transition into child care. I
want to partner with the family to effectively support their child’s development
across domains. With the subtle
additions to the classroom, I am hoping to increase the child’s cultural
capital within the classroom. Smidt
(2013), summarizes cultural capital as ‘what people know’. A student’s cultural capital within an
educational setting could encourage or devastate their ability to be successful
in the classroom. The child will have a substantial
amount of cultural capital with some familiar materials from home, similar adult
interaction/support, and their second language represented throughout the
setting. This is just the beginning of creating a culturally responsive relationship with the child, family, and within the classroom. As the child settles into our setting, they will assimilate into our unique classroom culture, because children are not mono-cultured (Smidt, 2013). Children learn many variations of culture through experiences and the contexts of them. The goal is for the child to feel positive enough to retain their own culture along side adopting another.
References
HighScope Educational Research Foundation. (2013). Program quality assessment: Infant-toddler
program quality assessment. Ypsilanti, MI: HighScope Press.
Smidt, S. (2013). The
developing child in the 21st century: A global perspective on child
development. New York, NY: Routledge.
Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. (2018). Estonia. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/place/Esto
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