Note from Mai: This article really got me thinking, as the parent of a preschooler. In work and adult learning spaces, vague group agreements like "be kind" and "respect others" have always struck me as hollow. But I haven't considered the damage those simple rules can have in classrooms, with young children. I really appreciate Bret Turner's deeper exploration of this and hope everyone working with kids (parents, teachers, afterschool program providers, etc.) will apply some of his ideas.
---
Teaching Kindness Isn’t Enough
Teaching kindness is a staple of elementary practice, but that isn’t the same as teaching justice.
By Bret Turner, Fall 2019
Dr. Seuss books have long been held up as parables. For years, we’ve celebrated when Sam-I-Am’s persistence pays off and felt our hearts grow three sizes right along with the Grinch. But in February 2019, a groundbreaking study pinpointed in depth what people had been saying for years: White supremacy lurks in the pages of many Seuss books. The foundation of the easy-to-spot morals of the stories were disturbing depictions of people of color and racialized nonhuman characters. The study led a number of educators to wonder, How could these racist ideas exist alongside such valuable lessons? Alongside such kindness?
Educators, particularly elementary educators like me, are good at talking and teaching about kindness. It’s at the core of elementary pedagogy, after all: those lessons and teachable moments related to being a good friend, being generous and acting thoughtfully. But when being considerate, nice and friendly is all children learn about how to treat one another, we risk losing something fundamental.
Young children are not only developing a sense of morality; they are developing a sense of who they are. This includes their race, gender, class and more. These identities have never been treated or represented equally in our society, so when we teach about love, acceptance and kindness without addressing this inequity, we gloss over crucial differences in the ways our students experience the world.
The harm done by long-term exposure to injustice—to the kind of imagery found in racist books, microaggressions and discrimination—calls for more than a simple understanding of kindness. It demands that kindness be interwoven with substantial notions of true justice. That’s why, in my first-grade classroom, my goal was to guide students’ thinking in terms of real justice. I used a set of principles that went beyond kindness and moved toward specific actions students could take to counter bias and stereotypes and work for a more equitable future.
Comments (0)