The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

A hope I have for working with children and their families from diverse backgrounds is that I can make them feel comfortable. I want families to walk into the classroom and feel like they can safely be open about their culture with me. Walking into my classrooms should make them feel safe to leave their kids and not have to worry about if their kids are going to get the same kind of treatment as the rest of the children within my charge. I want them to feel that their child is getting the same opportunities and same care as the other children regardless of their cultural or racial background. Comfort is the most important part of my classroom as far as I'm concerned.

I would say that my goal for the field is to be open-minded and allow yourself to become the student again. As teachers, we are often looked to as the authority but sometimes we need to take a step back and ask questions. Making sure that we can help families is the number one priority of us as we work in this field. The goal would be to make sure that despite having the authority most of the time, we allow ourselves to realize that sometimes we need to ask questions still because there are some things we still need to learn.

As a final note, I would like to thank you all for your various thoughts and posts this class. They have been insightful and I've learned quite a bit. Thank you so much !