Practicing the Awareness of Microaggressions

              I had the opportunity this week to go to a conference with people from twelve western states (including Hawaii and Alaska), as well as people from America Samoa, Guam, and the Mariana Islands. The purpose of the conference was to talk about what states were doing in their Early Childhood Professional Development Systems to support teachers to prepare children for school readiness. We were discussing the tools that are widely accepted as reliable for determining quality in classrooms and programs, when the representative from Alaska spoke up. She mentioned that native children are not talk to interact in the same way that Caucasian children are-they are talk to listen as their way of learning. One of the widely accepted tools to measure interactions between teachers and children does not take this cultural difference into consideration, and the scores of the native teachers and children in Alaska were low. Not because they had poor interactions, but because they had different interactions than those being measured. This nationally renowned tool was a microaggression to this leader and the native people in her state because it says that their way of interacting is not worthwhile. Although the tool is meant to be a support for teachers, and no malice was put into the design, it has unintentionally caused this community an indignity.

            This observation has helped me realize that many things that are designed to benefit “all” children in the U.S. have been designed by White, middle/upper class, educated people-and they are piloted on the same demographic. We, as Early Childhood leaders need to be willing to step out of our reality and realize that our world is changing. I will take the lesson learned from my colleague in Alaska and ask myself if what I am sending out to the providers in Utah, in regards to Professional Development, are truly taking many right ways of doing what is best for children.

What Culture and Diversity Mean to my Family and Friends

            I have been given the assignment to talk to at least three of my family members and friends about their definitions of culture and diversity. I actually talked to six people of diverse ages, genders, sexual orientations, religious backgrounds and ethnicities. All of these people had some aspect that differentiated their specific cultures from mine.

            My mother, who is 86 years old, used the words “elite” and “refined” when she heard the word culture. She thinks of culture in terms of “being cultured or well-bred”. My husband’s response to the word culture was “educated”, because those that are well educated understand the more sophisticated things in life. Other younger members of the group responded with terms such as: customs, trends, ideals, beliefs, traditions, and lifestyle. When it came to the responses for diversity, all of the people responded with ideas that centered on the idea that people are different. One member of the group specifically mentioned race, and several people talked about accepting others for whom and what they are. My husband’s response to this question was “a willingness to adapt” to different things and different people.

            Most of the answers that they gave were things that I have studied about during this course and in other work that I have done, with the exception of three answers. My mother was raised in a time when the word culture held a different meaning. My husband was raised in a different socio-economic culture than I was, and he equates culture to intelligence because those who are ignorant are not cultured. He is also unfamiliar with the term “culture” as it is used today. When we talked about diversity he explained that part of understanding diversity is the willingness to try and see things from another’s point of view. I think this answer may be a good example of something that we have studied because it address seeing things from another’s point of view, which is the key to making diversity successful.

 

            It was very interesting sitting with this group of my family and friends and realizing that, even among those people that I know very well, there is a variety of thoughts on these two topics. Although I understand my mother’s and husband’s different definitions of culture, I realize that the last time both one of them was in school this was the definition, and it has since expanded. I enjoyed the exercise but I think that I will stick to the thinking that is a little more up to date! J

My Culture

 

             I have been given the assignment to choose three things that I could take with me to a new culture if my current culture was destroyed. These three things need to be representative of the culture that I am leaving behind.

            The first thing that I would take is my photographs. Photos capture moments in time in my family story. These pictures and the stories that go along with them will preserve our family culture. The next thing that I would take is a rocking chair that my great great great grandmother brought with her across the plains as a pioneer to settle in the west. That rocking chair has rocked many children, and children have always been an important part of my family culture. The third thing would be family recipes that I loved as a child, and my children loved when they were small. Most of our family gatherings involve food in some way, and having those recipes would help carry on the tradition of large family meals, as well as the tastes that we have grown to love.

            If I had to give up two things it would be the rocking chair and the recipes, and although I would be sad about it, it would not be devastating. The photos are the thing that best tell the story of my culture, and they would be most valuable in helping to preserve it if everything was left behind. I would like to say that love is the greatest part of my culture, and if we had nothing tangible but still had each other our culture would be still be in tact!

            The insight that I had as part of this experience is that the most important part of culture can’t be touched, it must be felt. I will remember this exercise as I continue to support cultural competence with those that I work with and with myself.