Effective Communicator

        The person that sticks out to me as an excellent communicator was Steve Jobs.  Jobs wad an effective communicator because he talked to people rather than at people.  He made relevant points when talking to others.  His presentations are well put together and he articulates his point well.  I would like to be as well spoken as Jobs was and to be able to draw the attention of many people with my knowledge. 

Professional Hopes and Goals

One hope that I have when thinking about working with children and their families from diverse backgrounds is that I am able to show them that not all people are judgmental and that I genuinely have a desire to help them and their child succeed.

One goal that I would like to set for the early childhood education field related to issues of equity, diversity and social justice is for educators to receive training that provides them with cultural awareness and that requires them to learn more about the families that the children in their classrooms come from. 

I would like to thank all of my colleagues for creating an excellent learning environment.  I have truly enjoyed working with each of you and learning from you as part of our journey.  Good luck to all of you in your future courses and endeavors!

Jamie Reid

Welcoming Families Around The World

      The country that I chose to use as the home of my family is Uganda.  I used the viewpoint of a social service agency.   One of the ways that I would prepare myself would be to find out about the culture that the family is a part of.  I would also find out from the family what types of food they enjoy.  I would work to find a religious center in the area that worships as the family does so they may attend if they so desire.  I would use my resources to try to locate a family in the area that shares the same heritage to act as a host family to the family.  I would also do my best to make sure that they have all of the resources available to them to make adjusting to daily life as stress-free as possible.
       I would hope that the efforts that I made would benefit the family and myself by giving us both an opportunity to learn from each other.  I think that it is also important to make sure that the family knows that they have support here which would encourage them to bean active part of the community.  I would enjoy have the opportunity to learn about people who are from another country such as this family.

The Personal Side of Prejudice and Bias

The instance that I chose to use comes from the movie and novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" written by Harper Lee.  In the story, a back man is accused of raping a white woman who was actually beaten by her father.  The woman blames the black man because during that time, a black man and a white woman were not to have any sort of relationship according to society.  The equity was diminished when the black man was wrongly accused of raping a white girl, but because of the view of society at the time, he was found guilty.  This   incident made me feel ashamed to be a part of such a judgmental race of people.  In order for this case to see equity, the court would have to have heard the case and looked past the color of the skin of the defendant and instead at the evidence in the case.