Professional Hopes and Goals

     The journey into early childhood has brought about many lessons, awakenings, possibilities, and of course many smiles.  Each time you see the little smiling faces or their cute little laughs or the look of the feeling that you know your children are developing skills, mastering concepts, or writing their name for the first time, you realize that having the ability to be part of these moments is what makes the field of early childhood so rewarding and we are lucky to be a part of it.  With each new day, a new experience, each new family, an opportunity to build a new relationship, and an opportunity for a new learning experience.  As early educators we need to embrace, differences, change, diversity and be activists for our families promoting social equity, anti-bias behavior, and inclusive practices that will make each an every children feel loved, respected, and proud.
     My hope for working with families from diverse backgrounds is that professionally I will have all of the tools, trainings, and education to prevent a children from feeling the effects of cutural discontinuity and be inclusive and flexible in my practice to adjust and mold my program to give each child the same opportunities of academic success regardless of barriers such as language or economic hardship.  Personally, I hope to be able to build relationships with families that will allow for their sharing of culture and traditions in a way that I will be able to work with them to create equilibrium between home and school for their children and they will experience what it means to be "truly bicultural."
    In the field of early childhood, I have found that with each individual child and family there is something that despite all of the resources that we have available, there is always something that we don't know or that we could be educated more fully on.  Cultural and diversity in our environment is all around us and families have many resources in multiple languages that are consistent with what their needs are.  The shocking reality that I have learned is that despite all of the planning, the individuals who do not always have the answers they need, is the elders in my community.  After the insight that we have gained from the positive effects of young children working with elders, I hope to bring more of this into my program and my hopes is that besides for the positive effects it should have on the two groups, that it will help to cause attention by the community of what their needs are that we are not meeting.  It is very sad to me to see that a community that has suffered through wars, poverty, and employment that provided them with very few resources or compensation are struggling now just to keep warm.  We should be learning from them and embracing their culture, traditions, and knowledge.
      The other issue dealing with equity and diversity that is actually my second goal is to become better educated and trained to assist children with differing learning abilities.  I have had some experience and training to help children exhibiting symptoms associated with attention deficit disorder as well as sensory processing disorder but my new challenge is to become trained to help children with dyslexia. My goal is to receive certification in this area and add it to the tutoring services that we now offer for school age children.  The drive for this is not just professional but has recently touched our family on a more personal level and it is my goal to know as much about what children are experiencing at each stage with this barrier in academics.
      I just would like to address to send out a personal note of thanks to all of the students in the program for all of the interesting and eye opening discussions sharing personal and professional experiences that have been a contribution to my program in multiple ways.  As well as the professors who I have learned so much from throughout the duration of this program so far and a personal thanks to Dr Kien for her guidance, direction, and understanding throughout this course as well as through child development. See you all next class!