By Bridget Fuller

On February 26, the Anti-Bias Early Childhood Educator working group met to connect as a community, discuss challenges and successes with the Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action, and share ideas on using biographies in early childhood classrooms. 

They began by sharing why they were drawn to the teaching profession and what gives us hope for education in the future. Many teachers chose to go into education because of their desire to work with children and their desire to address inequities in our system. Even with the challenges that teachers are currently facing, they are often able to find hope in small moments where they see that they are making an impact on a child. 

The group then discussed the different approaches they took to explore the 13 guiding principles of Black Lives Matter at School. Sara Beshegan, part of the advisory of this group, is planning to teach a lesson around empathy, diversity, and collective value with the help of The Me I Choose to Be. Her class will create their own book that celebrates who they choose to be. Arts educator Karen O. Brown visited a class of students learning about landforms in Africa. To help the students connect with the material better, she broke the continent down into regions and cities and invited her friend from Kenya to share pictures and stories about her life there.

Discussion then delved into exploring biographies with young children. Social Justice Books recently published a critique of the Little People, BIG DREAMS series. The group brought up that the books are “single story” focused, perpetuate stereotypes, do not share about collective activism, and seem too wordy for younger students. In order to teach about prominent historical figures in a way that children can understand, some teachers use other biographies as only part of their lesson and then connect the themes to the real world. Others use them to begin a discussion of a movement, then go on to talk about collective action and how movements are made up of many people over a long period. Colleen Massaquoi used Sing a Song, the story of the Black National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” in her classroom. The book highlights a story of collective action and provides for a class discussion on anthems and who gets to write them.

In some cases, biographies can be rewritten to offer a fuller story. Pies from Nowhere: How Georgia Gilmore Sustained the Montgomery Bus Boycott was revised by its author Dee Romito based on feedback from SNCC veteran and Eyes on the Prize series associate Judy Richardson. The edited version utilizes an active rather than passive voice to detail the activism, names lesser-known organizers, clarifies the motives of white participants, and clarifies the systemic nature of racist practices.

After a fishbowl discussion where the group shared questions or ideas for collective brainstorming, they completed evaluations. Participants left the meeting feeling restored by the community and armed with more ideas on how to include biographies in their curriculum and incorporate the principles of Black Lives Matter throughout the school year. 

One participant commented that they appreciated the conversation about biographies and were motivated to:

Be more reflective about this and really curate good collections.

Bridget Fuller is an intern with Teaching for Change in Spring 2022 while studying sociology and education at the University of Notre Dame.