Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

Definition of Diversity & Culture:

When talking to my friends and family members. They given me their definition of Diversity and Culture:


Ann live here in United State now but was raised in Vietnam. Ann, defines culture as being part of our life and that family and friends make up your culture. She says its the way we live. She also defined diversity as being different. It is something we learn to accept about each individual. "I totally love her answers"






Mai lives in Egypt was born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt and still live there today. Mai, defines cultures as being part of a person family some ones belief system how they live. She also defines diversity as being able to accept others for themselves.



This is my husband Ahmed and he was born in Egypt  also and also raised in Egypt went to college in Alexandria and Rutgers university. He defines culture as being part of a  individual life and the people and things that surround that individual. He also says culture help become who we are today. diversity he defines as being able to accept individual and their culture. Diversity is being different.

    Taking to Erica Rivera and asking her to defined culture  and diversity.  She stated Culture is family and where you are brought up and Diversity is different people. Erica was raised in the United States but her family is from Puerto

 
Rabbi Miller: No Picture (Sorry) He refuse a picture taken.


Culture is  family and everything surround you including your friends

Diversity: is changes and being able to accept it.

Dr. Todd: No Picture (Sorry) ?





Culture: something we are born with and we surround ourselves with everyday
Diversity: is be different or having something different.


I found through-out many conversation with my friends and family members diversity and culture seem to be on the same aspect of our course reading. For example diversity is being able to accept individual who may look or act different and  my friend and others stated the same thing. They also talked about how culture is based on family and in our course reading it talked about family and environment.
However, when you talk about omitted and what part, I love how being part of a person or culture is never mention and how we lived. Some times we forget that how we live is the key to our culture because sometime it not necessary where we live at.
I found that other people definition of culture and diversity influence me by their true meaning and what they may feel culture and diversity really means.



My Family Culture

                                                  My Family Culture
My 3 survive Items:

 

A description of the three items you would choose

 Through-out my evacuation to other countries with  some of my family members. I would definitely grab these three items.

1. My wedding ring because this symbol the love my husband and I have for each other forever. Looking at it everyday would help me to remember that special feeling.

2. Quran is my religious book and this is a big part my family. The Quran holds the establishment on how a Muslim family should live .The family in Islam is a patriarchal family and the patriarch, that is to say, the head of the family, carries a tremendous burden of responsibility. Along with this responsibility he carries the burden of leadership.

3.Family Photos and Birth Cert., the reason I would take family photo because of my member of times with my family and friends.

 

How you would explain to others what each of these items means to you:

1.My wedding ring I would tell people this symbol my love with my husband forever.

2.Quran, is consider my Holy book in my religion and this how my family culture is base on is our religion.

3. Photos, these are my family and friends pictures and they man the world to me and I want to remember how we dress and the food we ate and many other things only with my birth cert. that stated where I was born at.

 

Your feelings if, upon arrival, you were told that you could only keep one personal item and have to give up the other two items you brought with you.

I would feel confused and hurt because they all have a special place in my hurt and I wouldn't know what to do.

Any insights you gained about yourself, your family culture, diversity, and/or cultural differences in general, as a result of this exercise,

My family means the world to me and so do my religion. I didn't realized how much I really follow the Quran until I was put in a situation where I would not be able to have my culture around me or my family. I never really thought about how much is installed inside of me until I am ask a certain question.

 

When I Think of Research

When I Think of Research

 

 Being able to have a better understanding of research. Given me the opportunity to gain a better insight how research is perform. Although I have taken a similar course about research. this course I was able to have better clarity and understanding on how to perform a research simulation.

I can truly admit taking this course have change my thoughts about research.
Even though, I was familiar with doing research, the thought of learning new things about research freight me. However learning different challenges in research have given me the opportunity to express my understanding of research.

Through-out this course being able to understand how planning and designing a research in early childhood can affect data collection or sampling or just the outcome of the research. There are many parts to conducting  and designing research. Therefore when implementing a research for early childhood there must be understanding of equity in the research along with  mixed method.

Even though, I had encounter many challenges through-out this course. I was able to critically examine these challenges so I would have a better understanding. Mixed method approach in which it used qualitative and quantitative method on one study.

This course have given me the opportunity to learn a different parts of early childhood field.
Research has open many doors for me comprehend and understand in early childhood field in which ways how research is performed and developed. Therefore, my understanding of early childhood studies have broaden because of research course.

I want to Thank You, everyone who have post  a comment on my blog and to my classmates. I enjoyed learning about research in early childhood field.

Research Around the World

                                              About ECDVU in Sub-Saharan Africa:
While looking through ecd website, I was able to view some of their research topics. For Example;
 
                      1.The Development of an Integrated Early Childhood Development Urban Model Training Program for Informal Minders and Community Volunteers in Ghana; BY;Felix Agorsah
 
 
                     2.Building Community Leadership for Quality Sustainability in Madrasa Preschools: The Case of Madrasa Preschools Post Graduation Support BY:Asha Mohammed Ahmed
 
 
                    3.The Status of Coordination and Supervision of Early Childhood Education in Ghana BY:Margaret Amponsah

However there were some new insight I was able to learn about early childhood in Ghana, Tanzania. For example;Ghana office of UNICEF introduced the IECD program aimed at promoting the survival, growth, protection, and education, all key components of development of the child aged 0-8 years. I was  also able to learn about early childhood education in Ghana dates back over 160 years to 1843. I was amazed how long early childhood education has been around. Even though it has not been until 1961, however, that institutions were put in place to formalise this service to young children. Since then, major changes and activities have taken place. These include formulation of policy guidelines for nursery education. http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/index.php

There were also additional information I also recognized on this website: ECDVU participants work with a number of highly respected ECD faculty.Inclusion in ECDVU was not based solely on a self-identification application process typical of graduate level educational programs. Instead, in most cases, the names of ECDVU candidates emerged from an in-country process that brought together an inter-sectoral ECD country committee to identify significant early childhood goals for the country in the years ahead.Even though individual aptitude and sustained commitment are critical factors in candidates' success, the ECDVU is not primarily about individual learning and development. It is primarily concerned with advancing ECD within each participating country, and across sub-Saharan Africa, through a "flow-through" of information and involvement in the candidate's learning by the larger ECD "community" within his or her country. http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/index.php

Therefore, I find this website to be highly informative about international early childhood development, education. Even-though each research I have read about was based on different criteria. Their foundation was based on helping communities, families and children development. However among all the different financial support of the following organizations: For example; World Bank:Norwegian Educational Trust Fund; UNICEF;UNESCO;CIDA;Dutch Government, and many more. ECD website was excellent.

Reference:

 http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/index.php

http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/major_reports.php

Research that Benefits Children and Families—Uplifting Stories

                                                           Down Syndrome
Down Syndrome has touch my life in many ways. My children have grown up in a very ordinary school district and to seem to have a lot of friends. During the fall they play football, the winter they played basketball and the spring it was softball. There was one kid in the neighborhood that had Down Syndrome but to my kids and the other kids in the neighborhood he was just like everyone else. Until one night we had away game and  some one called him a rude name and my son decided to hit the kid for saying such a rude name and it cause a huge fight between the two teams. Myself and the other parents in the neighborhood decided to seek professional help. We wanted our children to understand what Down Syndrome is and that people who have it can have a normal life.

About Down Syndrome:
Down syndrome (DS), also called Trisomy 21, is a condition in which extra genetic material causes delays in the way a child develops, both mentally and physically. It affects about 1 in every 800 babies born in the United States.The physical features and medical problems associated with Down syndrome can vary widely from child to child. While some kids with DS need a lot of medical attention, others lead healthy lives

Reference:
kidshealth.org › Parents › Diseases & Conditions
www.mayoclinic.com/health/down-syndrome/DS00182‎

Personal Research Journey

There are many reason researcher studies child development. developmentlists begin with curiosity and then seek the facts, drawing conclusion only after careful research. However child development is divided into four equal parts to make a whole child. Therefor, I chose for my simulation is Early Childhood; Cognitive Development between the ages of 2 and 6 years of age understanding conservation and what is logic or not logic.
Through-out my teaching with  pre-school children. I have personally watch how children eyes have lighten up through-out the years over many fairy-tale stories.Children begin to think symbolically and learn to use words and pictures to represent objects. They also tend to be very egocentric, and see things only from their point of view.

Preoperational Stage:

"During this stage, young children are able to think about things symbolically. Their language use becomes more mature. They also develop memory and imagination, which allows them to understand the difference between past and future, and engage in make-believe.

But their thinking is based on intuition and still not completely logical. They cannot yet grasp more complex concepts such as cause and effect, time, and comparison."(Inhelder&Piaget,pg257, 1964)

 

Reference:

 

Berger, K. S. (2012). The developing person through childhood (6th ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers

Berger, K. S. (2012). The developing person through childhood (6th ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers: Inhelder, Barbel, & Piaget, Jean, (1964) The early growth of logic in the child.

 

 

CONSEQUENCES OF LEARNING

Through-out my eight weeks journey the three consequences of learning about the international early childhood field in a professional and personal development are.
1) When I first start to engage with my colleague over seas my understanding was unclear of the struggles in Egypt school system. The decline of many student attendance because of political problems have made the country standards academically decline. Many of the families who could afford to send their children to private American or French Pre-school happen to be 20% percentile that is considered wealthy. However my gaining of understanding is that we don't realize how lucky as teachers and parents we are to have are children attend school with out a correct regime in power.

2) Even-though Egypt school system have had it rough I was able to network with many colleagues. Mai have been my main resource with pictures and events. I was able to learned that teacher do not make huge salary and recently a union was form than it was broken than it was formed again and than broken. Many of the teacher in Egypt are true teacher because they may teach all day than turn around and tutor individual children after school. I learn from this experience is true dedication and loving to teach. I learned that high-quality teacher's are based on the amount of caring and time educating individual students in other countries.

3) Through-out my journey I was able to meet some many lovely colleagues. I am proud to say. Mai will visit me soon from Egypt. I am glad we are able to keep the communication open. I was able to learn a lot about Egypt early childhood field and their school system. I was able to network and receive resources that can help many of my diverse student and I was able to help them with resource from American schools. Networking help me with information that I was able to share with other colleague.

Therefore, my goal to international awareness and collegial relations is to be able to communicate and share resources when necessary. There should be a open door at all times. We are colleagues from different parts of the world but we share the same interest. Teaching Early Childhood Education. I really enjoyed these last past eight weeks. I hope to see everyone next class. I enjoyed reading everyone blog.