ExchangeEveryDay Past Issues

In You Can’t Celebrate That! Navigating the Deep Waters of Social Justice Teaching, Nadia Jaboneta reflects on and recounts how her need to respond to a child’s naive but biased comment expanded into a rich journey to address religious bias and racism with the children, families and coworkers in her program. She distills some of what she learned along the way:

“To prepare myself for those moments when issues of race and religion surface in my classroom, I’ve crafted a set of questions to guide my response—questions that replaced the cacophony of voices that jostled for my attention at the lunch table with Harry and Kiley. I keep in mind questions like:

• What touches my heart about this situation?
• What in my background or personal life is influencing my feeling and thinking right now?
• What might the children’s families hope I’ll say or do?
• How do my values about diversity and equity play into this situation?”

Jaboneta later writes:

“We have to have these conversations across the identity lines that too often divide us. We can create inclusive and respectful cultures that honor differences. By learning and talking about our similarities and differences, about actions to counter unfairness, we are providing children with a strong foundation to create a different world, one brave, heartfelt conversation at a time!

Or, as the children declared:
‘We can spread kindness all over our neighborhood!
‘All over San Francisco!
‘All the way to the White House!
‘All over the Universe! To Infinity!’”

You Can’t Celebrate That! is part of the Reimagining Our Work (ROW) book collection.