Professional Hopes and Goals

One hope that I have when I think about working with children and their families who come from diverse backgrounds:

The hope that I have for working with children and their families is that they will one day be treated equally and receive the same rights and opportunities that they deserve. I also hope that one day that racism will end and all children and their families will be recognized and accepted and this acceptance will not be based on the color of their skin, their gender, their sexual orientation, and the class they belong to.

One goal I would like to set for the early childhood field related to issues of diversity, equity, and social justice is:

That all early childhood educators, researchers, and all who work to ensure that children receive the best quality of education possible continue to work together to help in eliminating poverty, so that children and their families will receive equal opportunities, so that they will also be worthy of the necessities of life.  Reflecting back to the media segment of "In their Own voices" the most touching event was when Julie Benavides had to endure being compared  because of the color of her skin to the dog in the story, has made me take a look and to be aware of encounters such as this with my children and families. My goal in teaching is for them to not have to  experience this type of stereotyped or discrimination.

To all of my colleagues, this class  has really been a learning experience and a heart felt journey for me. I would like to thank each and every one of you for helping me to travel this journey because without your sharing of insights thoughts, and ideas I would not have learned as much as I did about diversity, equity, and social justice. I hope to continue to learn with each of you in other classes, I am sure it will be a good and exciting adventure. Just remember Equity is very much a part of social justice.  I want to share this one and last thought with you.

     "The degree to which social justice is achieved in a given time and
       place should be measured by two..... notions: 1) the greatest of good
       for the greatest number. and 2). how the least powerful and the smallest minorities in a society are faring."
                                                   Ched Myers

References

In her own voice: Julie Benavides ( Laureate Education, Inc. 2011). Retrieved from http://waldenu.edu

Justice and Equity: A fairer world. The Tasmartian Center for Global learning . (2013) Retrieved from http://www.googleonline.com