Reflections on Racism in My Early Childhood Classroom
I’m an early childhood teacher who has worked for over 15 years in learner-centered, progressive educational spaces. And my approach to teaching our youngest learners about systemic racism has been wholly inadequate. Coming to terms with this inadequacy has demanded that I reevaluate my instructional practices moving forward. I apologize that it has taken me until now to acknowledge this responsibility as an educator, and I now commit to actively disrupt these racist systems that exist in early childhood education.
As a Transitional Kindergarten teacher in Los Angeles, I spent last weekend beginning to work through my assumptions and beliefs to determine how, when, where, and why to talk about racism with my young students. As a white woman, I realized (for the first time) that answering these questions and making instructional choices was actually a privilege. Historically, I think I mentally checked the “covered it” box in my head when I had the annual “racism” discussion with my students in the months of January and February when we studied civil rights and Black History month. Although I consider myself an educator who works toward equity on a daily basis, upon reflection I realized I have been afraid to tell my students about the racism that exists today and truly embody anti-racist practices.
By Tuesday, I was searching for anything that could help me learn and explore more about dismantling racism in an early childhood classroom. As a Project Based Learning teacher, it is essential to bring student voice, choice, authenticity and agency into my classroom. I needed to see where anti-racist work lived in the context of a learner-centered, PBL environment. Although I was committed to take immediate steps, I wondered about the developmental appropriateness of recommended books and Morning Meeting topics that colleagues were sharing through social media. Then, I read this article by Kelly Matthews and Ijumaa Jordan and was stung by their words.
Circle time is filled with cultural rules such as children sit and listen quietly while the teacher reads the book... We add materials to our room which are racially diverse and leave it at that…White people, in particular white women, hold the power in early childhood education… Children are innocent and do not need to deal with these hard things.
The truths they laid out in the article reflected me, my classroom and my teaching. I was astonished to learn that some of my classroom practices were unintentionally contributing to a racist ideology and immediately challenged myself to shift my thinking. I realized I needed to reflect upon these practices and do the work to change.
On Friday, I showed my class a video of a local protest in our school’s neighborhood. We noticed the signs “Black Girls Matter” and “Black Lives Matter.” Kaia, a Black child in my class said, “I know why the sign says ‘Black Girls Matter.’ It’s because they are celebrating Rosa Parks and what she said and did and how in the olden days black girls couldn’t be friends with white girls or go to school together or sit on the bus together.”
In the past, I may have chosen not to go deeper, or I probably would have said, “Right, things are different now. Kids can go to school together like ours, and be friends.” Read: Don’t worry. Racism is solved today. That was “back then.” But on that day I said, “Kaia, actually, people are angry and protesting because those things Rosa Parks stood up against – they are still problems today. Racism is still a problem today.”
This article had a quick and direct impact on my teaching last week, and will continue to challenge me going forward. My hope is that it will inspire you to confront your own assumptions and unintentional yet problematic racial classroom practices (as I am just beginning to do) and make changes, even with our youngest learners.
