Evaluating Impacts on Professional Practice

                                                                                                                                                                                                              

One ‘–ism’ that I see a little of at my preschool is classism. This is because my area has a lot of displaced fishermen who are trying to raise families in the face of more and more over regulation of their trade. On the other hand, we also have a lot of wealthy families who are here because of the beautiful coastline. Sometimes these factions don’t blend well and there is a bit of classism.

 For this assignment, I will use the example of a mother who works full time as a preschool teacher and struggles to keep up with the rest of life, too. She doesn’t make enough money to cover anything but the basics, and is constantly performing a balancing act to stay afloat. She worries about raising her children in a rougher part of town. She has to shop for her children at the thrift shop, and she worries they will be embarrassed and ashamed if or when they realize they are in the free lunch / free sports program at school.

As a preschool teacher, her students would probably feel some negative effects of her poverty, depression, and constant stress. Struggling to get basic needs met for herself and her family would make it very difficult to devote the time and attention necessary to meet her student’s needs. In addition, it would be hard to support parents who seemed to have a much better life than her. For instance, she would feel some real anger and resentment towards mothers who didn’t have to work - but still couldn’t manage to pick up their children on time. This would interfere with her ability to develop a good working relationship with the families. Also, the resentment might carry over into her relationship with the children. She might feel they are spoiled or being raised to feel entitled – or even that they look down on her because she's not as wealthy as their parents are. In some cases, higher-income families may reflect social attitudes about income and professionalism and may not treat staff with respect or recognize their educational background or their high level of skills (Derman – Sparks & Edwards, 2010, p. 110).

I think it would be next to impossible for this preschool teacher to overcome these negative feelings and stay focused on providing the best educational experience possible for the children in her care.

Derman-Sparks, L., & Olsen Edwards, J. (2010). “Anti-bias education for young children and
ourselves.” Washington, D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children
(NAEYC).