All are Welcome: Anti-Bias Curriculum in Today's World

Earlier this month we attended an evening presentation by Debbie Leekeenan on Anti-Bias Education.  This event was part of a series of professional development opportunities offered every year by the Boston Area Reggio Inspired Network (BARIN).  Debbie is a leader in the field of Anti-Bias Education and had written most recently, with John Nimmo and Louise Derman-Sparks, Leading Anti Bias Early Education Programs.   The evening provided a place for all of us to consider what it means to create schools and environments where every single person is honored, welcomed and a part of the whole.  We listened to Debbie share her varied and rich experiences and perspectives and we worked with challenging scenarios in small groups.

An anti-bias program puts diversity and equity goals at the center of all aspects of its organization and daily life. Systemic change requires a leader who takes an intentional and strategic approach. 

In today's world, post election, where groups are being targeted and the world feels more volatile and scary for many, this message and these ways of being with children and families are more important than ever.  Debbie shared this pledge written and distributed by the Child Care Exchange which you can download here.

ANTI-BIAS EDUCATION

EXCHANGE MARCH/APRIL 2017

www.ChildCareExchange.com

All Children Belong Here This is Our Promise to You

•We will build an open, safe, and mutually respectful school community in which each child and each family is an important and equal member.

•We will never allow differences of any kind to be an excuse to make fun of, exclude, or hurt you.

•We will listen carefully and lovingly to what worries you and give you thoughtful, age-appropriate information and support.

•We will nurture you to feel strong and proud about yourself and your family.

•We will facilitate your skills to be friends with classmates who are alike and different from you.

•We will honor your family’s importance to you by building respectful partnerships with them.

•We will provide support to you and your family when they feel stress, anxiety, or fear because of current events or acts of prejudice or hate.

•We will learn about and help your family use legal and community resources to keep you safe.

•We will work to uproot our own personal biases as adults and will speak out against prejudice and bias wherever we encounter it.

•We will mobilize our courage and become active with others to resist and change any policies and practices that threaten to hurt you or your family.

Debbie concluded the evening with these words which we read often and hold dear:

We are all in this together — working for a world where every child is protected and honored, exactly as they are.  We have the responsibility and the opportunity to be proactive in how we support our children and families during these challenging times. Take the long view. Be optimistic. Model resiliency. We need to hold the light.

*images and student work from Buckingham Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge, MA.

Reflections on Aesthetics

The publication, Innovationsis celebrating a birthday...or anniversary.  Many of us have been fortunate enough to read issues of Innovations for 25 years…since 1992.  The articles published inspire and inform us about the innovative, creative work with young children and educators in Reggio Emilia and in North America. Thank you to the editors and the board and all the contributors for their enormous dedication and commitment to this publication.

I was recently asked to reflect on an issue of Innovations published in the fall of 2012 that focuses on the atelier and the hundred languages of children. It includes a lead article by Vea Vecchi from Reggio, a reflection by Judy Graves on hosting the “Wonder of Learning” exhibit in Portland, Oregon, and a description of a project by Barbara Pratt Moser, atelierista from Pittsburgh.  (In my reflections I used some of my thoughts and connections from previous blog posts and I am including them here as well.)

When I read all of these articles I think of the central themes that form the foundation for the work of the atelier and the idea of the 100 languages of children and of human beings.  One theme is what Vea calls poetics and aesthetics.  She often quotes Gregory Bateson who defines aesthetics as “the pattern that connects.”  Rather than being something pretty or pleasing, even though it might include those things, aesthetics points to the fabric of life that holds the world together…the unseen, the seen, the in-betweens, the visible and invisible, the emotions, the sense we make of things, what we are naturally drawn to as humans, and the great mystery of the universe that we inhabit.

The idea that knowledge without emotion and imagination is incomplete, dry and actually not fully true, is a powerful idea.  The pattern that connects must not be disregarded.  The stories of Judy Graves and Barbara Pratt Moser illustrate and reiterate this idea.

Vea was scheduled to come to St. Louis for a conference on the Atelier in the fall of 2001.  She wrote to us that she felt she could not come after the events of 9/11, being a non-English speaker in an uncertain world.  She said that one of her strong beliefs is that engagement in poetics and aesthetics is the antidote to both violence and indifference and that we needed to put all our work into the hope of what the atelier has to offer to children and to all of us.

Vea gave a TEDx talk in Reggio Emilia, Italy in October of 2011.  I quote Vea here as her words and ideas strongly connect to the themes of the articles in this issue of Innovations.  These words seem particularly relevant and meaningful in our world right now.

The atelier (or studio that is not only a central place but also a way of working throughout our schools) has brought many materials and techniques, but also has illuminated a need, not only for children, but for human beings to communicate in a way that rationality and imagination travel together.  We believe in a multiplicity of languages that are integrated and not separated.  We believe that this makes learning and understanding more rich and more complete.  Poetic thought does not separate the imaginative from the cognitive, emotion from the rational, empathy from deep investigation.  It lights up all the senses and perceptions and cultivates an intense relationship with what is all around us.  It constructs thoughts that are not conformist.  And this creates two important elements: solidarity and participation, both of which are the foundation of democracy. To conclude, we believe that identifying and researching beauty and ethics is the indispensable foundation for a livable, sustainable future that everyone speaks about but that seems so difficult to bring about.  It is only with an intelligent heart, with courage and with vision that we can proceed. 

Teach the Children

I am reading Mary Oliver's beautiful collection of essays entitled Upstream, a gift to me from a dear friend.My very favorite piece so far is very short and the last section in the first essay entitled also, "Upstream."  I quote it here in hopes of sending out a bright spot for you on this last day of February.  Indeed, let us teach the children how we love and cherish our blue green planet.  And let them teach us how to notice everything. Every day.

Teach the children. We don't matter so much, but the children do. Show them the daisies and the pale hepatica. Teach them the taste of sassafras and wintergreen. The lives of blue sailors, mallow, sunbursts, the moccasin flowers. And the frisky ones-inkberry, lamb's-quarters, blueberries.  And the aromatic ones-rosemary, oregano. Give them peppermint to put in their pockets as they go to school. Give them the fields and the woods and the possibility of a world salvaged from the lords of profit. Stand them in the stream, head them upstream, rejoice as the learn to love this green space they live in, in sticks and leaves and then the silent, beautiful blossoms. 

Attention is the beginning of devotion. 

"We Have These Precious Rights and We Should Use Them"

Today it is snowing... still, after snowing all day yesterday and all through last night. We have a foot and a half of soft, white, peaceful snow.  This morning as I was catching up on things at my desk I read an article in our local paper from last week, The Addison Independent..."Trump order strands Weybridge family in Iran."  Middlebury College Professor Ata Anzali, his wife, Fahimeh and daughters, Esra and Narges have been in Iran for a sabbatical year.  Both Ata and Fahimeh were engaged in research and their children were in school. They had rented a house and purchased a car. They were spending time with grandparents and cousins.  Fahimeh was caring for her father who had a stroke a couple of months ago.  With Trump's travel ban, they were thrown into panic about returning to the U.S.  In the end, with help from Vermont Senator Leahy's office and also Middlebury College they were able to return.  But they abruptly left behind their research plans, their friends and family.

Professor Anzali said,

"My case was probably among the easiest ones. There are refugees who have been waiting for 20 years to get the clearance to come into the United States from refugee camps, and then in one night their life is upside down," he said.

This is a tough time we are living through.   One of the things that Ashley and I believe is so critical to authentic and lasting learning is to hear, nurture, develop and feature children's voices in words, graphics, dance, song.  Learning to be a local and global citizen, valuing multiple perspectives, contributing to a healthy, hopeful future...these are among the central themes of our work with teachers and schools.   I would like to quote Narges, one of Professor Anzali's daughters, because she speaks so clearly as she embodies her life and her beliefs in her voice.

Salam, Hello. I am Narges Anzali. I am eleven years old. I am living for a year in Iran. Me and my family were hoping that this new law would not apply to green card holders. I was shocked when I first heard of this law.  I have lived in the United States for nine years. Does that make me different from the people who are around me and are citizens? I consider myself just as American.  Does it make a difference that I am Muslim? Is that wrong? I have lived and talked and laughed with people who have supported this law. I can not believe that they would do this to me.

So I ask you to reach out. Reach out to the people and tell them our stories. The problems are appearing in our lifetime and it is our responsibility to solve them. Isn't the first amendment of the Constitution the right to free speech, free press and free religion? We should start to pay attention to these things and make sure that we use them to their full potential. We have these precious rights and we should use them.

I do not believe that what religion you are, or how many years you have lived in America, whether you have a green card or a visa make you any more or less American.

So I ask you do DO something about it, to help these people who have done no wrong to come home. It is not the time to stand on the sidelines and watch other people do our work for us. And I hope with all my heart that the people who are stuck with nowhere to go will soon find their way home.

A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall…and my emotions will overwhelm me…and I will fail…then, survive…even thrive.

cad collab

A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall…and my emotions will overwhelm me…and I will fail…then, survive…even thrive. That was Patti Smith’s description of her experience at the Nobel Prize ceremony, honoring Bob Dylan by singing his great song, A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall, that evokes a cultural dystopia not unlike what we’re experiencing now in the U.S.

Even though she had the song down cold; even though she knew in her heart it was the right song to sing; even though she is a veteran performer (she celebrated her 70th birthday on December 30th); even though everything leading up to the ceremony had gone perfectly; when her moment came, she was overwhelmed by the second verse.  She had to stop, apologize, and start over.  For her it was beyond embarrassing…she felt the humiliating sting of failure….

Yet, she also felt the strange realization that I had somehow entered and truly lived in the world of the lyrics.  As in the opening words: I stumbled alongside twelve misty mountains….; and the ending line to the verse: And I’ll know my song well before I start singing.

Her profound communication through her performance of the song, it’s visceral message and haunting beauty wrapped in her stumbling, was deeply appreciated by all.  She writes that the next morning, in the breakfast room she was greeted by many of the Nobel scientists.  They showed appreciation for my very public struggle.  They told me I did a good job.  I wish I had done better, I said.  No, no, they replied, none of us wish that.  For us, your performance seemed a metaphor for our own struggles.

Aye, a metaphor for us ALL.  In the world of our classrooms, in the world of our families, our communities, our country, our world, a hard rain’s gonna fall…it always has and it always will.  ’Tis the human condition that Dylan describes so poignantly and that Patti Smith performed so unintentionally perfectly in her “failure”.  AND, ’tis the human possibility that from or after that hard rain we can learn, make meaning, gain perspective, persevere, make things right, discover, create, love one another.  Love you, Patti Smith.  And a deep bow of gratitude for your public reflection.

May will all learn from you, and pay it forward to our children.

*children's work in this post is from Buckingham Browne & Nichols