Hello, my name is Andrea Fernandez. My parents thought for sure I was going to be a boy, and my original name was Danny, until I came out and was a girl. The name Andrea, ironically, means, “Strong, manly, and brave”. My first language is English. I also speak some Spanish, but understand it better than I can speak it. Both of my parents are fluent in Spanish, and growing up we had a Spanish speaking nanny for about ten years. I was born in Orange, Orange County, California. I lived in Fullerton until about five, then lived in Yorba Linda until I was fourteen, then Grass Valley until eighteen, and ever since then been in Sacramento/Rocklin. I would give anything to go back to Yorba Linda! I currently live in Rocklin. I am Caucasian/Spanish.
Many things are important to me. The most important is God and having a personal relationship with Jesus. Next comes family and friends. It is important to me that I live life to the fullest everyday! The most important thing for teachers to provide for young children is a safe environment, a friendly-like personality, and a guided hand in learning. It is important for teachers to help children learn through hands on experience and taking initiative. After reading this week’s readings, it is also important for teachers to teach children that everyone comes from a different culture, it is good to learn and study their culture, but it does not mean that they are different.
I define myself as a family oriented, strong, goal oriented young lady. I come from a large family; a mother, father, two brothers, and three sisters. We are very family oriented. We grew up in the Christian church, but now that we are all mostly grown, we have each made our own decision to continue our faith in Jesus. My father loves to share his Spanish culture through cooking that he learned from his grandfather. I do not have any children of my own yet, but one day!
I currently nanny for a family that has two boys; one is now seven months and the other boy is two. I love it! We love to read and learn together. We do a lot of playing, because I feel children learn best through play. We set up play dates so the children can interact with others. We often go to wacky tacky, a play place, and the children’s museum in Sacramento. We also go to the park a lot.
Learning about culture and diversity has always intrigued me. It is useful in our day to day life. I am very excited how to teach/tell children about diversity both now and in our future. I would love to learn how to teach kids about diversity when they say, “Nanny, why does that person look like that?” Diversity is changing every day. There is more and more diversity as we grow older and soon white will be the minority.
In my free time I love to play with children, hang out with family and friends, travel, play water polo, and tan. I love all kinds of music.
