As early childhood educators, we embrace our role as caregivers. In our practice, we design and re-design systems of care to make them more people/child-centric. Our priority is to increase the well-being of all children through a strength-based approach. All educators must counter societal racism with special attention to Black children, whether they be girls, boys, or trans children – because we have that opportunity and duty. These children “belong” to us in the best sense of the word. We create and celebrate community.
Much to our dismay, our students grow up and face a world where they may be in harm’s way, and we can’t protect them. In particular, we want to protect them from violence against their bodies that is so deeply embedded in the structure of our society founded on racism and supportive of white supremacy.
Since society designed the reality we currently live in, we can design a different one. What could we envision and perhaps bring to the world we know? In this poem, Junauda Petrus, in all her wisdom and compassion, movingly offers a spark of hope – a policing situation that comes right out of early care and education – “Give the Police Department to the Grandmothers.” The idea she births shows care for those whom society disporportionately punishes. She imagines changing an institution in a way that implies we all belong together.
If we rethink our priorities, we increase the well-being of all.
Please share your thoughts on Petrus’s dream in the comments section below.
Jim Clay is the former long-term director of a Quaker preschool in Washington, DC. He is currently on the training team for Gender, Sexuality and Families in Early Childhood at the New York Early Childhood Professional Development Institute.
As a former classroom teacher for First & Second Graders, I know how important the role of a Teacher is to the students. We fill all-encompassing roles for our charges, many of which are missing one parent or both, are living in foster care system, and are using their behaviors to show the void inside their beings. At the same time, it is a real struggle for teachers to have less than adequate resources to do the most important job. The answer is to engage the communities, and the Grandmothers can share their time and wisdom to give one-on-one attention to our students and love them up!!
Beautiful!!
I’ve been entrenched in Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech recently. I happened to be alive and living the situation in 1963. As part of the Children’s Crusade in Birmingham AL, I helped to express the need to recognize that black and brown children need the same loving, nurturing educational and life experiences as white children. I experienced the police sicking the dogs on us and high pressure water hoses to squelch our cries for freedom as we peacefully expressed how we were feeling. Yes, Junauda Petrus, I love your vision of what policing could look like… It is our role as early childhood educators to provide the learning foundations of equity for all children, love and peace for this generation and for generations to come; also done in ‘grandma’ mode ;o}}.
Although my purpose in writing was to lift up and celebrate the wonderful work that early childhood educators do, I also feel I need to acknowledge, as a peer has pointed out to me, that black and brown children are often disciplined more harshly and suspended and expelled at a higher rate than white children – even in preschool. Educators need to make sure that black and brown children, just like their white peers, are treated as children who are learning – they are not little adults who need to be punished.
Thank you Mr. Clay for putting into perspective our role as early childhood educators during these sensitive times. As a preschool teacher I will pour all that I’ve got into these precious little ones with the hope of them carrying the thought, that they are enough and can be a force for good.
Love this
Jim, I’m so moved by your words. Yes, in early childhood we are creating systems of care that demonstrate the community of loving support for the potential of each and every child. Safe, smart talented, caring little people who will grow up and make the world better, creating the caring communities that value each and every person.
And many thanks for sharing Junauda Petrus powerful imagery. Grandma’s in hot cars, loving, feeding, caring, making beautiful gardens and stargazing. That’s the world we need! Imagine if police treated everyone like grandmas do. That’s mind bending.
What a wonderful reimagining of policing; That care and love replace criminalization and harm.
I love how you grounded this piece in community by creating a sense of “belonging” for all students while placing a special emphasis on Black children. I am drawn to the idea of giving special attention to the kids who need it and being intentional about confronting and dismantling our preconceived notions about who needs special attention. Junauda discusses kids acting out and the grandmothers realizing that they’re just hungry (physically, yes, but also spiritually, mentally, emotionally, etc.). What a beautiful community we have the opportunity to make by paying special attention to the children who need extra love.
This is beautiful and so powerful. Since my childhood, I look at adults and think that they all were once children. Then I wonder how they each looked as little people. Their smile or their angry face. As a mother of a biracial boy, I know my son is growing up and for others, he will not look cute and cuddly on the outside once his body grows bigger and taller. We can only protect them by leaving them a better world. We can help each other unlearn all the wrong things we know and learn to love one another no matter what we look like on the outside. Educators have so much power to make this change possible.