Welcoming Families From Around the World

Welcoming Families From Around the World

I have always been concerned about how to provide quality educational experiences for children and families from different countries. There are many diverse populations of people coming to the United States and the families want their children to get a high quality education. As an educator I have to prepare myself to be able to accomplish this goal. I know before I can achieve this I need to know about the families’ culture, beliefs and traditions.

The family I am focused on preparing for is from the country of Japan. I know from observe the families business ethnics children are kept close and the mother is the dominant educator of teaching and caring for the children.

To prepare myself to be culturally responsive towards the family I would do the following:

1.      Gain general knowledge about the cultural and their ethnicity to have sense of views about behavior, communication and learning styles. I will be careful not place any form of stereotypes.

 

2.      I will research the country’s parenting and discipline styles to ensure I am not disrespecting their families’ traditions. I would schedule a time to meet with the parents to learn about their culture beliefs on the topic.

3.      Research the country’s culture beliefs about education: Before I can provide a quality education I must know what children and families expectations are ways to ensure the transition to our culture is as smooth as possible. I need to know how and what types of curriculum has been implemented in their country and creates ways to a line it with ours programs.

 

4.       The language barrier between the family and I will be a challenge that I would have to work on strategies to help solve so I will be able to effectively communicate with the family. I have used the internet as a means for translating information to go home parents so I would use this resource as a way to communicate with the family.

 

5.      I would prepare my classroom environment to reflect their culture and of other diverse people. I want the family and child to feel we respect and embrace their culture but also we do the same for other cultures.

I hope the changes and preparations I plan to implement will help the family from Japan know we welcome them to our school and are excited about learning about their culture and teaching their children about ours. I want them to feel a sense of peace, support and respect as we embark on the education journey with their children and family.