New Years Resolutions?

Dear Joy,

I'm sorry I didn't keep up my side of this blog-bargain. Will you give me another chance? I just finished reading what we wrote last year, and I really liked the way we started out. My intention for this year is to finish things I start (ahem) so the first step is to look at things I started before and see if I want to recommit to them. This blog is definitely one of the things I'd like to continue working on.

Real Learning for Adults or Preaching to the Choir

Tonight I went to a panel discussion about "Confronting the Roots of Bias in Early Childhood". It was a panel of three reasonably intelligent people; one was from the Anti-Defamation League, one is a civil-rights leader, Harvard Medical School professor, and personal friend of Bill Cosby (?!) and the last is a personal hero who has done really cool work with young children. Now, I was very late because I got lost (upon arriving a half hour late, I was told that many people couldn't find the place) so I missed the professor, who I gather spoke (at length in a way only people still working in their profession at 76 years old can do) about the impacts of dominant culture media upon children. The Anti-Defamation League woman provided the most superficial gloss of Anti-Bias Curriculum possible, then the hero shared documentation of an investigation into spiritual beliefs that he did with some Kindergartners. Finally, people asked three questions of the panel; to the Dr. "What do you think of Disney's newest "princesses of color" like Mulan and the one in the movie about the princess and the frog?", "How do you help children achieve their potential when you have a conflict with parents about that potential i.e. "Why are you letting my son pretend to be a hair dresser at school?!" and finally, again to the Dr. "Even though I know it doesn't impact early childhood, what do you think of the new, N-word-less edition of Huck Finn?"

In this discussion, I was very glad for the constructivist approach to learning that our mentor took when working with these difficult questions. This panel was especially relevant to me because the staff at my center are grappling with Anti-Bias Curriculum for the first time this year. I have been so moved by how deep teachers are willing to go, and the risks they are able to take together in sharing their ideas and beliefs and histories. Sometimes I feel as though experiences like these have ruined me for panels and other events like the one I witnessed tonight. What did I think I was going to see? I guess I expected real dialog among the panelists with real conflict. I expected some admission that this is hard! The dad who is concerned about his hair dressing son has some real concerns, about what masculinity is in his contexts and culture, and what I heard in the response was "to open a dialog". What I projected on the asker and the answerer was a surety that the dad's biased view was fundamentally wrong and that the liberated teacher was right.

Here are some questions:
How do we admit something is hard without scaring new-comers away?
What is the worth of an event that brings together strangers to listen to other strangers talk about a topic?
What would this event look like if it was designed in a way that was learner-centered and constructivist?
How do we honor parents and families authentically AND allow children freedom of expression at school?

In other news, of course... you just moved! Tell me about the outsider-insider stuff you are encountering in your new digs and all the other stuff too!

Bloggily yours,
Kendra