Rebecca Escutia

2-28-17
Reflection HD 412-Working with Children and Families in a Diverse World
HD 497 Capstone
HLP Cohort

I fulfilled my goals in taking this class by learning new approaches in working with

immigrant children and their families.

 This class added to my knowledge of working with children and families of a different

culture by learning the meaning of culture shock. The book The Inner World of the Immigrant

Child written by Christina Igoa really helped give me an insight of the way teachers can help

their students of a different culture feel comfortable by helping them transition into the new

culture.

This class taught me the importance of familiarizing yourself with a specific culture to

have a better understanding of the child. Getting to know the family and their history can help

show a child that you are trying to get to know the child which can help them feel comfortable

about trusting the teacher.

I also learned the purpose of a persona doll in this class. I have implemented a persona

doll into my own class and continue to use it till this day. The persona doll has helped many of

my students solve problems that have risen in the classroom between students. My students have

responded very well to the classroom persona doll.

I contributed to my classmates by participating in class discussions and by sharing my

own experiences with my upbringing and work experience. My peers contributed their own

history of their culture to me during our artifact presentation and by sharing some challenges

they face when working with children of a different culture. I really enjoyed those discussions

because at the moment of that class I worked in a community that served all Hispanic families so

I really didn't have the privilege or the experience of working with families of a different culture.

One concept I would have liked to learn about was how the U.S. school system helps

immigrant children. In the book we read, there were a few examples of how a teacher set up her

classroom to accommodate some of her students. One of these examples was the teacher

removing chairs and placing carpet for the students to sit on because where they came from they
were not used to sitting on chairs. This isn't something that is usually done in the United States to

accommodate children. It would have been useful to have learned about strategies that are

allowed here in the United States.

Reflecting on the writings and discussions from this class I learned new information

about my own culture. I never paid much attention about where I came from I just followed the

family traditions with my own children because it was what I was used to doing while growing

up. The value of understanding our own childhood differences is important to know where our

values and beliefs came from and why we have those same values as adults. This impacts who

we are as adults to help us teach our own children about our family culture to educate our own

children about the culture we live in, the culture they come from and also teaching them about

different cultures in the world. This will help children to realize and learn about the diverse

world that we live in.