“’I Can’t Really Do That Here’: Maintaining Our Ethical Responsibilities, Even When It’s Against the Rules"

Location: Room W414AB

Session description:

Anti-bias education is now established as a hallmark of developmentally appropriate practice and is widely understood to be an essential tool for advancing equity throughout the field of early childhood education. Unfortunately, our right to implement these teaching practices is under attack. Although many are fearful about practicing anti-bias values, if we are serious about upholding our commitments, we must resist attempts to erode our individual or collective capacity to teach toward NAEYC’s vision of a world where every child can thrive.

In this session, anti-bias early childhood educators who work in different regions of the country and varied sociopolitical contexts will model strategies they use to fortify their own anti-racist, anti-bias teaching and activism in the face of everyday resistance. Participants will learn the four core goals of anti-bias education for children and adults alongside other concepts essential to the practice of critical pedagogy. Most of the time will be spent practicing strategies that call for building one’s reflective capacity, working in community, and heeding the will to act. Participants will take one immediate action to build community within the NAEYC conference and plan for one action they will take in their home communities.