SlideShare Assignment

1. 1. Challenges for Lauren as a Korean-Canadian child in Canada
2. How should I deal with as a Lauren’s mother
3. Professional responsibilities as an early childhood educator
Lethbridge College
Eunhee Han

2. Background
• Lauren was born in 2011 July at the Foodhill
Hospital in Calgary.
• Her parents moved from Korea in 2009; She
has a little brother who is 2 and half years
old.
• As she turned 4 years in July 2015, she
needed to involve with other children.
• Nowadays, she complains about many
difficulties she is facing on as she goes to the
library, church and family center.

3. Challenges she is facing
• Language: She speaks Korean fluently but just starts
learning English.
• Sometimes she is depressed because she does not
understand what teachers are saying, especially in
the library. When everybody laughs she does not
notice why they are laughing.

4. • No grandparents
• She has grandparents both mother and father’s
line in Korea. When she sees grandparents with
other children
• She tells her mom “ I miss my grandparents”.
“Why don’t we go back to Korea and live with
them?”

5. • No close friends
• Usually children get closed when their mothers are friends. For Lauren,
she doesn’t have close friend because her mother does not have close
relationship with Canadians.
• I wish I have a girl close girl friend to play with.
• I want to visit friends house and I can invite them to my house.

6. • Cultural conflict
• In Korean culture, family, community and groups are
more important than individuals. We willingly
sacrifice our rights or advantages if community takes
benefits from it.
• In Canadian culture : They use word “I want”. We
rarely use this word.

7. How should I deal with as a mother
• Language: Expose more English speaking
environment to Lauren in order to learn English fast.
For example, send her preschool or read English
books for her.
• No grandparents: Visit Korea at least once two years.
Make good relationships with neighbours. If she
doesn’t feel lonely, she might not miss them a lot.
• No close friends: Go to the library and family center
with Lauren and make some close friends who have
same age children.
• Cultural conflict: Cannot be avoided as she gets
older. Cannot say which is better but both side is
important. I need to keep balance on it

8. Professional responsibilities as an early
childhood educator
• Being an ally to immigrant and refugee
children and their families.
• Be curious about their culture, family,
community, and methods of child rearing
• Respect families’ value-driven approaches to
child rearing
• Be aware of the issues that are most central
to the lives of the families you work with
• Establish trust and create opportunities for
children and their caregivers to approach
you

9. • Establishing a supportive environment for immigrant
and refugee children and their families.
• Children and their families feel emotionally
supported
• Children and their families feel that the program is
applicable to their lives
• Children and their families develop knowledge and
skills to thrive in their new context
• Increased opportunities for Children and their
families’ learning
• Staff develop flexibility and resilience to deal with
issues as they arise Promising

10. • Practice 1: Meeting needs ‘in the moment’
• Accommodating the cultural needs of the particular client group (e.g.
food preferences, issues of timeliness)
• Providing support for children and their families with issues as they arise
in their lives (e.g. moving, loss of work, economic and familial issues)
• Modifying program objectives based on the client group Promising

11. • Understanding immigrant and refugee
children and their families.
• Knowledge of historical, political, and social
context from which immigrant and refugee
children and their families have arrived and
how that may impact their current conditions.
• Curricular models that are sensitive to the
vulnerabilities
• Understanding the cultural contexts in which
they feel most supported
• Having consistent measures in place to assess
progress

12. • Practice 1: Drawing on the knowledge and expertise of immigrant and
refugee children and their families
• Celebrating clients knowledge, customs, traditions, and ways of knowing
• Engaging in ways that build on (rather than undermine) what they
already know
• Creating opportunities for caregivers to contribute in ways they are
comfortable (serving as a translator, cultural sharing through food,
music, etc.)
• Practice 2: It takes a village to raise a child!
• Integrating caregivers (parents, grand-parents, older siblings, legal
custodians) into child’s learning, even if it is not within the mandate of
the program
• Ensuring that families are aware and have access to opportunities within
the communities they live in
• Integrating the broader support structures that can help the family
thrive

13. • Promising Practices of ECE front-line work with immigrant and refugee
children and their families
• Foster parental involvement in immigrant and refugee child’s life
• Willingness to let learning be a two-way activity
• Be patient with the curricular process and unexpected turns along the
way
• Be curious, humble, sensitive, flexible, and patient
• Promising Practice 1: Repetition and Modeling as education
• Varied and divergent curriculum that repeats the same message
• Offering different ways of doing things to expose caregivers to diverse
parenting approaches
• Transcending language barriers through creative pedagogies

14. • Promising Practice 2: Be patient, observe, listen, learn
• Allow immigrant and refugee children to be absorbed
in an activity without rushing him/her, allow as much
time as needed
• Use ‘challenging’ moments as learning opportunities
• Be sensitive to the ways in which social and cultural
contexts of immigrant and refugee children informs
their learning capacity

15. References
• http://www.ecebc.ca/news/AMSSA_Promising_Practices.pdf
• http://canadianimmigrant.ca/featured/children-of-immigrants-and-their-
challenges
• https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/the-7-biggest-challenges-facing-
refugees-and-immig/
• http://www.spcottawa.on.ca/sites/all/files/pdf/2010/Publications/Immigrant-
Family-Report-English.pdf