Professional Hopes & Goals...

4:33 PM by Cortnee Ingram
One hope I have when I think about working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds is that I would be patient, understanding, gracious, and not to judge. I feel the best way to appreciate another family is to get to know them. By doing this I can be understanding and sympathetic to their wants and needs. I hope that this is something I can continue to practice on a daily basis with each and every family. I want to always see myself in their shoes in order to understand their life from their perspective. 

One goal I would like to set for the early childhood field related to issues of diversity, equity, and social justice is to make it a priority to understand these issues and help others to understand them as well. A colleague mentioned in her reply to my discussion post that she had not heard of these issues until starting her degree at Walden. I too hadn't heard a lot of these issues until starting school with Walden as well. It would be nice if these issues were addressed as early in our degree journey as possible. It would also be nice to have local classes that talk about these issues as well. Especially since there seems to be more and more diverse groups moving into non-diverse neighborhoods. 

I would like to thank my colleagues for their input and wonderful discussions  throughout this course. It has been a pleasure and an honor to work with all of you! I believe you all have a wonderful place in this field and am grateful to have had the pleasure of getting to know you better :)

 Thanks,
Cortnee :)


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Welcoming Families From Around the World...

2:17 PM by Cortnee Ingram
The name of my families origin is Moldova. 

 The five ways in which I will prepare myself to be culturally responsive towards this family is:

1. To do as much research as possible on Moldova. 
2. To possibly email or call someone in a government agency that might be able to tell me a little bit more about Moldova and it's people. 
3. To possibly get in contact with several early childhood business within the country in order to see what early childhood consists of in Moldova.
4. To contact the family about their culture and their home they just moved from. 
5. To contact other early childhood agencies within my own country to see if anyone knows anything about Moldova. 
The ways I hope that these preparations will benefit both me and the family is that we will be able to understand a little more about one another. That there will be a comfortability in our conversation because of the familiarity with their culture and background. I hope that we will begin with a mutual respect for one another and understand that it may be difficult at first to communicate and understand each other but that we can work together in order to make their child's transition as easy as possible. 

 Thanks,
Cortnee :)
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The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression...

12:47 PM by Cortnee Ingram
A memory I have of an incident when I experienced oppression is with my ex-boyfriend, the father of my son. For some reason since my son was born I have had nothing but problems with my ex. He seems to try to bully and control me and everyone around him. Over the years this has cause such an oppressive lifestyle that I don't even like to fight under it anymore because it just makes things worse. 

The way this incident diminishes equity is in the fact that I am not able to stand up against his oppression. It is not a fair fight because he is always on the offensive ready to pounce. I am unable to talk to him like a normal human being. I am constantly having to hide, refrain, or just ignore him.

The feelings this incident brings up for me are frustration, anger, hopelessness  inferiority, sadness, and being overwhelmed. 

I feel that my ex would have to change in order to turn this incident into an opportunity for greater equity. I feel as though he does not know how to relate to people, especially me. I feel that he needs help. With help I do feel that he could turn his life around. 

I am sorry to have brought up such a sore subject but it is ever-present in my daily life and I felt it was the most relevant to this assignment. 

Thanks,
Cortnee :)

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