As I talked to three different types of people in my life. I talked to my best friend Alisha, whom I feel her and I have many similar ways our culture relates. I also talked to one of my employees at work about how and what she believes for her culture. Then I chose to talk to one of my athletes that I coach. She is the one person who I believe is in some ways culturally different from how I have grown up. She is 14 years old. She defined culture as being at the simple things. Such as gender, race, religion, etc. At her age, I believe this is what they are taught to be culture. Culture in their years, I don't feel expands to what we feel is culture. Until this course, I never looked at deep culture or dominant culture. Her definition of diversity is people not being the same. I asked her to expand her thoughts, and she stated that she believed that everyone is different and they believe and celebrate different types culture. She believed that without diversity culture would be dull and the same.
I feel that without this course, I wouldn't have much knowledge on what is culture and diversity. I have expanded my thoughts on just appearances, such as gender, race, age and class. Everyone's definition is different for culture and diversity. I feel that with diversity in the classroom especially this will open and influence the minds of young children and early childhood professionals.
Diversity in the classroom is very important for young children. It allows them to see that there are people different from themselves. It's funny how everyone hasn't different definition of culture yet their all similar. The responses I received were eye opening in the sense that I never thought about what anyone else would define the words as.
ReplyDeleteHello Brittany,
ReplyDeleteNow we are aware of what culture and diversity entail, as early childhood educators, we must be mindful of a family's culture, by getting to know our students and family's culture. This can be done by finding out about their values, practices, preferences, and other factors, because all families are unique, so we have to avoid stereotypes.
Joanne Lynch.