Moving Forward and
Sustaining Hope
The justice journey can be overwhelming on every level: personal,
classroom, organizational, and in the greater society. This chapter will
identify ideas for staying connected, energized, and hopeful for the
long haul. Hint: One of the keys is staying in tune with children’s natu-
al sense of curiosity and joy in learning about differences and their
inclination towards fairness and justice.
We live in a world and a time when cynicism and pessimism could
e easy partners in our path. When I fi rst joined the movement for
social justice, I was a
ight-eyed teenager who believed we might
eradicate racism by the time I had grandchildren. My oldest grandchil-
dren are now teenagers, and my greatest hope is that they are prepared
and passionate enough to ca
y on with the struggle. My greatest joy
comes from knowing the people I have met along the way who share
this vision of a kinder, more just world: the people who have given
me glimmers of the deepest human connections across differences,
that place refe
ed to in the Civil Rights Movement as the Beloved
Community.
In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger, and homeless-
ness will not be tolerated because international standards of
human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of
10
146 ◆ Moving Forward and Sustaining Hope
discrimination, bigotry, and prejudice will be replaced by an
all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and
otherhood.
(King, n.d.)
Beloved community is formed not by the eradication of differ-
ence but by its affi rmation, by each of us claiming the identities
and cultural legacies that shape who we are and how we live in
the world. To form beloved community, we do not su
ender
ties to precious origins. We deepen those bondings by connect-
ing them with an anti-racist struggle.
(hooks, 1995)
I believe we can create Beloved Community every day in our early
childhood environments. Anti-bias/anti-oppression efforts are at the
heart of Beloved Community. Young children remind us of how curi-
osity and authenticity sound and feel. They teach us every day what
it means to notice, wonder, and ask about our similarities and differ-
ences as human beings. They have not yet been hushed or shamed into
silence.
Staying Connected
Even if you are unable to participate in a support or study group for
anti-bias work, you will need to stay connected in some way to at least
one or two other people you know in your life who are willing to travel
this journey with you. Isolation from other people committed to work-
ing for change can lead to despair and burnout. This is a challenging
task, and as we looked at in Chapter 9 , can be full of ba
iers. When
we can share the company and comradeship of other people who
are also passionate about social justice, we are much less likely to get
discouraged and side-tracked. Ask yourself: Who is someone in your
life who might want to spend time with you reading, refl ecting, and
struggling with these issues? If you can fi nd another person in your
same early childhood program or school, that is ideal for strategizing
together and supporting each other’s efforts. Having at least one ally in
your place of work will make a huge difference in your ability to stick
with anti-bias/anti-oppression work for the long haul. As I have said
many times in this book, we are all in this together. When we can fi nd
Moving Forward and Sustaining Hope ◆ 147
people along the way who also see and want to share the experience of
anti-bias/anti-oppression study and awareness as a life-long learning
process, we will not have to travel this long path alone.
Support Groups
Thirty years ago, I taught a weekend workshop in the winter titled
“How Children Develop Attitudes About Race.” Five white women
came to the session. I remember that we met in the basement of a big,
old church and when it got freezing cold, we turned on the oven in the
kitchen and sat our chairs in a circle near it to keep warm. At the end
of the workshop the group wanted very much to continue our discus-
sions and learning with each other so we decided to form an ongoing
study group. We called it the “Anti-Racism Advocacy Group.” Later, it
was fondly refe
ed by us as ARAG. We met once a month for about six
years and added a few new group members here and there.
As I have mentioned in earlier chapters, I cu
ently attend a local
anti-bias support group for early childhood teachers in the Portland
area. That group has been instrumental in keeping me connected to
everyday challenges and joys in the implementation of anti-bias
anti-oppression education in early childhood classrooms. It has also
een useful in providing stimulating questions and shared investiga-
tion of the new frontiers of our work, like gender justice and the Black
Lives Matter movement. We meet once a month and occasionally share
emails and resources in between the face-to-face meetings.
I believe the value of support and study group work lies in the fol-
lowing elements.
◆ Informality: Meetings are informal in process, in language,
and in the expectation that you come as you are in this shared
journey.
◆ Shared leadership: The roles of convening the group and
facilitating the conversation rotate; anyone can suggest
direction or topics for the group.
◆ Cu
ent issues and feelings: There is consensus that anyone
can raise issues with urgent need for processing or
ing
up feelings about recent experiences or events related to
anti-bias/anti-oppression work, even if we had previously
identifi ed a different focus for the meeting.
148 ◆ Moving Forward and Sustaining Hope
◆ Respect and accountability: Group members hold respect for
one another as allies in the anti-oppression journey, which
also means that we hold each other accountable for what we
say and do.
◆ Shared resources: Group members make an effort to share
esources for classrooms, for reference, and for continued
study.
◆ Collective strategizing: Group members support each other
y working together to identify strategies for continued
action and exploration in anti-bias/anti-oppression work
with children, families, and ourselves.
Inquiry to Action Groups
Inquiry to Action Groups (ITAGs) are used by many progressive
teacher action groups around the country. One such group is the New
York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCORE). This is the way they
describe an ITAG: “It’s similar to a study group, but the goal is that
after the group inquiries into a particular topic, they will together cre-
ate action around their area of study, making it a true community of
praxis” (NYCORE, n.d.).
NYCORE chooses topics and themes that are consistent with their
“points of unity,” which have to do with issues of education and social
justice. The group’s website explains that ITAGs are spaces for teachers
to build community and develop as activists, and that educators can
participate in linking social justice issues with classroom practice. The
small groups meet weekly (for a total of six, two-hour sessions plus
a kick-off and possible conference workshop) to share experiences,
espond to readings, exchange ideas, and develop action plans.
Other local groups hosting ITAGs for teachers include:
◆ Teachers’ Democracy Group Baltimore
◆ Teachers’ for Social Justice Chicago
◆ Teacher Action Group Philadelphia, which listed this year’s
ITAG topics as:
– African American History Cu
iculum
– Countering Racial Capitalism for a Just City
– Creating Grassroots Cu
iculum
Moving Forward and Sustaining Hope ◆ 149
– Cultivating a Mindful Classroom
– Feminism Is for Everybody
– History and Memory of the 1981 Teachers’ Strike
– Math and Social Justice
– Questioning the World
– Reclaiming Assessment, Classrooms, and Leadership:
Responding to High-Stakes Testing and the Future of
Assessment Reforms
The ITAG model seems mostly to be used by teacher action groups in
the K–12 arena, but there is no reason why this would not also work
for teachers in pre-K classrooms and schools. We formed an ITAG
here in Portland for early childhood educators that attracted mostly
kindergarten, fi rst-, and second-grade teachers, plus a few preschool
teachers. The challenges are somewhat different in those contexts,
ut the connection and quality of spending time with other educators
who care deeply about anti-bias/social justice/anti-oppression work
is powerful. One of the very positive outcomes for me of attending this
group was meeting and feeling inspired to know grade-school teachers
doing this work.
A National Gathering of the Local Groups
For about four years, I participated on the board of a national organiza-
tion called the Early Childhood Equity Alliance (ECEA). One effort of
ECEA was to identify and then build a national network of local early
childhood groups that are organizing for social justice and change in
the lives of children and families in their communities. I had the privi-
lege of helping to coordinate this effort. In the fall of 2003, we had a
face-to-face gathering (funded by the Peppercorn Foundation) includ-
ing 18 participants representing 10 local groups. The local groups
had varied models for their work, including non-profi t organizations
structured to support early childhood educators and providers, local
networks informally structured to come together to impact systems,
support groups organizing for action, and committees formed to create
esources and/or address institutional oppression. We met for three
days to hear each other’s stories, and to strategize and organize.
Although the groups had a variety of structures, there was consen-
sus around many of the strategies being used to impact change and
150 ◆ Moving Forward and Sustaining Hope
promote equity and justice in early childhood arenas. The strategies
highlighted in our time together included reaching and nurturing
diverse voices in early childhood, fi ghting for quality care that pro-
motes social justice, working to transform early childhood institu-
tions, providing training and technical assistance related to anti-bias
anti-oppression education, developing internal group skills and pro-
cess to refl ect equity and justice, and writing and publishing about
our anti-bias/anti-oppression work. Our time together was magical.
One of the participants in that gathering described the experience like
this: “It’s like connecting a circuit of bulbs that could light the world”
(Kissinger, XXXXXXXXXXThese diverse local groups represented Alabama,
Mississippi, California, Illinois, Louisiana, Minnesota, Oregon, and
Washington. One thing we all had in common was our commitment to
these shared goals:
◆ Promoting healthy identity development for all children
(addressing bias)
◆ Supporting early childhood educators and care providers in
opportunities to heal from bias and oppression
◆ Creating processes where communities (particularly those
marginalized in our society) help to defi ne and create quality
care
I have included more information about some of these state and
egional organizations in Chapter 11 .
Amazing Grace—Ally-Ship and Activism: Tedious, Incremental,
and Repetitive
The movie Amazing Grace is one of my favorites because it depicts the
story of the anti-slavery activist, white ally, and abolitionist William
Wilberforce. Wilberforce, who lived from 1759 to 1833, was an English
politician and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade in
Britain (Apted, XXXXXXXXXXThe reason I love this movie and story so much
is because it chronicles critical elements of ally-ship and activism: It is
not glorious; it is tedious. Wilberforce and his allies worked for more
than 20 years on the passage of the Slave Trade Act in 1807. Then, they
continued to work another 20 years on the campaign to completely
abolish slavery, which was fi nally accomplished in Britain in 1833.
Wilberforce died just three days after hearing that the passage of the
Moving Forward and Sustaining Hope ◆ 151
Act through Parliament was assured. This is important history for us
to know. These are important lessons for us to aspire to, and these are
footsteps for us to take courage from and follow. There are many such
struggles for freedom and justice. Part of staying hopeful is knowing
about them, learning from them, and teaching children about the long
legacy of people of every skin color, language, culture, gender expres-
sion and sexuality, able-ness, age, religion, and economic status that
have resisted injustice and oppression.
Be a Provocateur
Be the person who speaks up. Be the person who asks questions. Be the
person who will tell people the truth about hard topics. Be the