Professional hopes and goals

 EDUC - 6164 : Perspectives in Diversity and Equity

My professional hopes and goals.

Children are unique individuals with their own identity developed from their culture either surface or deep, and from what they experience from their interactions. Our diversity – differences is not a disadvantage but an advantage if properly understood and utilized, as I found in this course. 

The past eight weeks have been life changing for me in respect to understanding diversity, equity and social justice.

 I hope to be a voice for these children who have been marginalized or being marginalized because of their race, ethnicity, gender, poverty or parental educational status.

I have gained a lot of insight into ‘isms’ and honestly they were baffling. I pray to be open minded to receive people from all classes and orientations despite my own faith and beliefs, because this is the essence of understanding diversity. Knowing now that disability is not lack of ability, and that if people have all the support they need their lives can be normal and productive, I hope to be involved in encouraging the establishment of classrooms that are inclusive and give every child opportunity to grow and develop in the mainstream without the fear of being looked down on as ‘disable’. 

I hope to be involved in teacher education whereby people who engage children in our classrooms are professionals who do personal assessment of themselves to establish first their own biases, stereotypes and prejudices, and secondly recognize the diversity of the families and children in their classroom, and thirdly be willing to learn about the home culture and values of the children and use such information.  They need to be educated in the knowledge of diversity, equity, and social justice, and understand its negative implications when it is viewed as a problem and be willing to create learning environment where all issues of racism, classism, gender discrimination, or sexual orientation does not determine the access of children to facilities and support any longer.

My dear colleagues have been wonderful. I realize that this is really a diversified class. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, your genuine responses and for motivating me by your insightful contributions to my blog posts.  Thank you for your understanding and further encouragement in all our discussions. I really appreciate your determination to bring improvement to the early childhood field and your willingness to make the sacrifice that bringing such a big change will demand. With people like you, there is hope for the future of the children of the world.

I wish you success in your future courses and hope to see you again. Thank you, please keep the hope alive.