Friday, 12 December 2014

(EDUC 6164 - Diversity) Welcoming Families Around the World

This week we were told that a new child will be joining or group in a few weeks and that this family is from Botswana. As soon as our team received word that this child and family will be a new member of our early learning program, we began to discuss how we could prepare ourselves so we could be truly culturally responsive towards this family. We realized that this meant going above and beyond just having the surface facts about their country of origin, so we knew that we would have to think deeper about how we could really be culturally responsive so they would feel welcome.  We wondered about the language they spoke so we found out that although the national language of Botswana is Setswana, English is the second most language used and this family did in fact speak some English. We were also informed that this would be their first time leaving their country, so we wanted to try our best to make them feel that this was a safe place to be when they arrived. The mother sent us this picture, so this gave us an idea......................


.................We still had lots of time to prepare ourselves and lucky enough we had their contact information and e-mail, so we began our process by taking pictures of the educators, children, and the environment and sent them to the family so they could get a feel for our early learning program. The children really got involved and began writing this child letters of how they are awaiting her arrival. Now that we began the process, we thought that we better come up with some concrete ways that we could prepare ourselves to be culturally responsive towards this family.


My colleague and I talked about how lucky we are that I am enrolled in a diversity course and that we can apply what I have learned to our situation. We realized that we will need to learn about the country of Botswana and some of the culture, customs, and traditions that you would find there. Although it is important to learn about their country, we knew that we could not rely solely  on that information as this family will have their own distinct family customs and traditions; however, we knew that we would only be able to learn this when we actually get to meet the family and have time to connect with them. Their arrival will enable us to get to them know them on a more personal level.

Once we knew that the family spoke a little English, we thought that it would be nice for us to learn some common words in their native language such as; hello, good-bye, eat, bathroom, etc. We also wanted to ensure that we were familiar with how to communicate with this family with regards to greetings so we are being respectful. We don’t want to assume that we can shake hands, so this was something that we thought was important to find out. We also thought it would be important to look for images and materials that we could include in our program that would represent their culture as this would make the environment more inclusive for this child and her family. We thought that it might be helpful to find out what types of food is most common in Botswana and see if we could incorporate some of the food into our program that would be familiar to her and this would give the rest of the children an opportunity to be exposed to food from a different country. We also thought that in order to be culturally responsive, we would need to think about our curriculum. We will need to be prepared and ready to implement a diverse curriculum which will encourage her to become an active learner in the environment that that she will be part of. This will also help to make her feel included and respected for who she is and what she brings to our program.


Our goal as a team is to hope that the preparations we made together will create an environment where this family feels that they belong. I know that it will take some time as this will be a new experience and environment for this family. Being respectful, greeting them with a “hello” spoken in Setswana, providing materials in the environment that represent their culture, I hope it will make them feel welcome. These preparations will let us know that we did our best to make an environment where everyone feels included and that we tried to make a peaceful transition from their country to a new one. Once the family has time to settle in, we will continue to get to know this family so they remain on the path towards a sense of belonging.

5 comments:

  1. Hi Stephanie,
    Great post! I love the fact that you included pictures and information about the staff and the program in your communication with the family. What a great way to reach out and help them to start preparing for this big transition! This action along with the request for pictures from them shows the family that you are thinking about them and are eager to include them in your community. This family would be lucky to be entering your program with such a pro-active and inclusive staff!
    Melissa

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  2. Stephanie,
    I like how you would gather your team together to find out ways to truly culturally responsive to the families. Creative idea on sending the family the pictures of the teachers, children and the environment to prepare their arrival and they would not be too surprising for the child! Using their native language to greet them is also a great way to show the family that we valued their uniqueness.

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  3. Hi Stephanie,
    You have provided a plethora of ways on how you will make your student and her family feel welcomed. I know I would certainly feel welcomed and safe if I was a student in your class. I think it is great how you plan on recreating a Botswana dish in order to make your student feel at home, while also giving your other students an opportunity of trying a new dish from a different country. This is very creative, as your student may feel homesick at times and this, including the pictures in the classroom will provide her some comfort.

    Elizabeth

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  4. Stephanie,
    You seem to have gathered your information quite well and plan to welcome them with open arms. I see that they second language is English which is great, so that's something you don't have to worry about because you can communicate with the family. Do you know what type of foods they eat in Botswana?

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  5. Stephanie,
    It was nice meeting you this class; I want to thank you for all your positive feedback and support. I enjoyed reading your posts; you help me to understand the resources much better than the readings and I appreciated that. I am continuing on my core classes on teaching and diversity, I am not sure what your core courses are going to be but I hope to see you in my future classes. Take care.

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