The final task on this blog is as follows:

Reflect on the learning outcomes for this FLC, describe your experiences that contributed to those outcomes, and analyze your mastery of those ideas. Present how you might incorporate your new insights in your teaching, your department, your office, or in designing student experiences. 

Here are the learning outcomes for the community:

• Describe strategies of learning to cope with new social/cultural expectations through immersion experiences such as BaFa BaFa and personal experience.
• Analyze experiences of dealing with diversity through personal assessment using the Intercultural Development Instrument.
• Create ways to foster of diversity in professional life/classes/student services/student groups

I think I am have some new strategies for coping with new social cultural expectations. These include finding the familiar while being open to novelty. Finding the familiar helps me to use my cultural strengths and referents to access new spaces and ideas. Being open to and embracing the unfamiliar allows me to learn about others. Having opportunities to feel like an outsider in the immersion experiences served as important reminders both of how to welcome others and how to successfully join new experiences. Participating in personal assessment through reflection and the Intercultural Development Instrument allowed me to have some insight into the distance between what I know and believe and what I do. As an advisor for a student group, course instructor and colleague I need to find ways to allow for that learning space and to be intentional about creating it.  One specific thing I can do is allow time for reflection. Without reflection and dialogue there is a danger of reinforcing stereotypes instead of recognizing the “funds of knowledge” or cultural and cognitive resources (Moll, Amanti, Neff & Gonzalez, 1992) that others bring to the table.  What I can take away from this group is to not be held back by or wrapped up in what I already know and recognize how much I have to learn.

 

Reference

 

Moll, L. C., Amanti, C., Neff, D., & Gonzalez, N. (1992). Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory into Practice, 32(2), 132-141.

March 8 

ePortfolio prompt:  Summarize  your “outside experience.” Where did you go; what did you do; who did you meet; how did you feel; what were your strategies for interaction in an unfamiliar place? 

I had difficulty selecting an "outside experience". I really wanted to choose something where I had a new experience and where I felt "othered" or like an outsider in some way in order to attempt to take the perspective of others. I often feel like an outsider. Just yesterday I went to see To Kill A Mockingbird at The Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. The Marx Theatre seats 626 people. There were probably about a dozen people of color, of which I was one. Every time the "N" word was spoken in the play, particularly by a child I felt uncomfortable. Anyway, this was not my outside experience. I just wanted to highlight that it is not uncommon to be in situations where I feel conspicuous. As one half of an interracial marriage, I am sometimes the "only" at family events. Another challenge is that I have a fairly diverse circle of friends that includes people from a variety of backgrounds. I am half Haitian and half Panamanian. I have traveled to Haiti and I am going to visit my parents in Panama for spring break. My sister in law is from Russia. I enjoy going to a range of restaurants and often eat at Emanu http://emanuea.com/  I attend pride week events with friends. What could I do that would be a new outside experience? It struck me that when we discussed events that impacted us, I recalled my cousin coming from Haiti and going to a grocery store on Long Island for the first time. She stood in the aisle with all of the shampoo and seemed frozen. She was not used to so many choices and did not know where to begin. She said, "I just want shampoo." When Ruth suggested a grocery store as a possible experience I knew that was the right choice for me. Going to the grocery store allows you to get items to meet basic needs. It is something I take for granted.  When our children were old enough to stay home alone, going to the grocery store was one of the first things my husband and I did without them. We jokingly called it "a grocery store date." I went to CAM International Market.

As I entered there were several signs and a bulletin board that were not in English. The aisle markers were all in English, but most of the items were not. I decided to make myself walk through every aisle and pick out at least three items that I could recognize. I didn't want to just walk around and leave. That felt rude.  I was the only Black person in the store. At the time I was the only non Asian person in the store. I felt like I was intruding I looked at spices and pastes that I didn't recognize. Aha! - coconut milk. It had a photo and the words in English and Spanish, that was something I could get. Wasabi peas were in another aisle. My husband loves spicy food and we have gotten those before. I got to the final aisle and there were bags and bags of rice. Somehow this was incredibly comforting. When I was a teacher of young children, I used to read the book Everybody Cooks Rice. In Haiti and in Panama every meal has rice. As I went to check out I saw a booble head cat that my sons would like. They collect little figures. I got in line and noticed that there was a credit card machine, but everyone in front of me paid with cash, so I did too. I didn't really have any strategies for interaction. I smiled and nodded if anyone looked at me. I thanked the woman at the checkout. I guess my strategies overall were to look for familiar images, be polite and avoid any assumptions or inserting myself into any conversations.  I am an introvert, so situations where I don't know anyone are difficult. My strategy in most situations where I am new is to find one friend or familiar person to connect with. I was by myself, which made it harder. 

Here are my purchases

Here is our task for February

Activity: Choose an activity from the text. Present how you would apply this activity in your class, with student groups, or in a workshop for your colleagues/staff. 

ePortfolio prompt: Describe your activity, present its design, procedures, goals, and facilitation plan. 

I teach a class called ECE 2025 - Families, Communities and Schools. It is a class for pre-early childhood majors. All of the students hope to be teachers of children from Pre-K - Third Grade. 

Here is the course description: This course explores educational considerations in working with young children and families from a variety of cultural, ethnic, and other diverse backgrounds. This course also addresses issues related to working with families in early care and education and to learning strategies for building partnerships, communicating about child progress, and accessing community resources.

In the third week of the course we discuss family diversity and the variation among families. We talk about anti-bias curriculum or representation of the diversity in society in the classroom throughout the day and throughout the curriculum while challenging stereotypes and helping children to develop a positive self-identity. One component of working with children and families is to see things from their perspective and learn about their cultures. 

In reviewing our text for this learning community,  I found an activity about culture called the four analogies. (It is activity #4 on pages 61-68.)

Here is the reference for our cultural diversity community text: Berardo, K., Deardorff, D. (2012). Building Cultural Competence – Innovative activities and models. Sterling, VA. Stylus Publishing, LLC 

Goals

I thought this would be helpful because it would allow me to assess the students' current understanding of culture, followed by engaging them in a discussion about the complexity of culture. I hope students would be able to do the following

• Define and explain culture
• Make comparisons of the images  provided to culture 
• Apply concepts of the course to the images in terms of working with families and engaging them in meaningful ways.

At this point in the course we have reviewed several theoretical frameworks that show the family system and how important the family is to a child. We have discussed the importance of family engagement and how it is recommended by professional organizations. We have also discussed the importance of listening to families and avoiding assumptions. 

Design - Hand out pictures of an onion, a fish in a fishbowl, an iceberg and lenses and ask students to consider how these are like culture. Facilitate a discussion about culture. 

Procedures

Put the instructions from the text on a PowerPoint slide and project them

You will receive a picture of either an onion, an iceberg, a fish in water or lenses. All are analogies for understanding culture. Discuss these with the people around you.

What is the similarity between the object in front of you and culture?

What insight does this give you about how to effectively work across cultures? 

The students do a "think, write, pair, share." They think about the materials presented and questions. They write down their responses. They pair up with the people around them. (My students did this in groups of 4.) They share their responses in a small group and then share them again in a large group.

Facilitation Plan

I planned to walk around the room and listen to and reflect back responses in the small groups. I then planned to have one representative for each image share their responses. After each response I would use the additional guidance from the text to develop responses a bit further. I will make specific connection to working with children and families in schools. 

Onion - We need to recognize the many layers of family members and see them for the complex individuals they are. Avoid assumptions and stereotypes.

Iceberg - Surface level culture such as food and dress is the tip of the iceberg. We should avoid minimizing people to these. When working with families be aware that changing the way you think or your worldview is challenging. The way families may view their children or what they view as obscene or offensive may be different from you. 

Fish in water - You are in your own world and the influence of your own culture can be invisible. Learn about yourself and your culture. Step out of your comfort zone and be a fish out of water. Go to events in the neighborhoods where your families live. 

Lenses - Try to see things from the perspective of others. "The goal of working across cultures is to recognize our own lenses or cultural filter we are wearing in any situation and learn to put on the lenses of someone from a different cultural background (Berardo & Deardorff, 2012, p. 62)."

I plan to revisit these throughout the semester. 

I implemented this activity and it went well. Students were hesitant at first. They were looking for the "right answer." They were ultimately all able to make the connections for each image.