African American Head Start Teachers’ Approaches to Police Play in the Era of Black Lives Matter

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Sung Ryung Lyu suggests policymakers, curriculum designers, and the broader field of ECE must carefully consider the approaches of teachers of color and take these approaches seriously.

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Institution: American University

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Sung Ryung Lyu suggests policymakers, curriculum designers, and the broader field of ECE must carefully consider the approaches of teachers of color and take these approaches seriously.

Image courtesy of interviewee. March 26, 2024

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This video discusses the importance of understanding how young children learn about race and racism, referencing historical studies like the Doll Test from 1947, which demonstrated that children are not oblivious to racial differences. It highlights that children, especially ages three to five, receive messages about race from various sources including family, peers, and media, which shape their understanding of themselves and others.

The author points out a disconnect in early childhood education, where discussing race is often viewed as taboo despite its prevalence in children's lives. This video is particularly relevant in racially homogeneous teaching environments, where predominantly white teachers may feel uncomfortable engaging in conversations about race.

The presentation emphasizes a study focusing on African American teachers in Head Start programs, aiming to explore how local contexts influence the implementation of policies and curricula related to race. The research underscores the lived experiences of these teachers and their critical awareness of the sociopolitical factors impacting their students, especially in communities affected by police violence.

Through a qualitative method involving video analysis, the researchers observed that the teachers recognized the significance of race in children's play, particularly in scenarios involving police. The findings reveal a tension between standard child development ideologies, which often depoliticize topics surrounding community helpers like police, and the realities faced by children in racially marginalized communities.

The conclusion stresses the necessity of having teachers of color in education, as they bring essential insights informed by their experiences and understanding of structural inequalities. The research advocates for valuing diverse perspectives in teaching to create a more conscious and inclusive educational environment.

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It's kind of interesting to talk about this one

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because the idea that young children are learning about race

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and race racism, I don't think that's a very new,

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it's not really something new topic.

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Um, honestly, think back to the Doll test by Dr.

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Clarkin, Dr. Clarkin in, 1947, I think. Right?

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And that test was about how to, to, it was,

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it was a phenomenal study

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to see the children are not actually blinded

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to race and racism.

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So it, I think as you know,

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after that amazing study, we've seen a lot

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of research showing how young children age three

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to five really do receive all kinds of ideas

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and messages about race and racism.

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And they use those messages to, to make sense,

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of themselves and others.

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So, they, the children get this from everywhere,

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from their families, from their teachers, from their friends

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and peers, TV medias and movies

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and such, so that children learning about race

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and racism, I don't, it's kind of very familiar topic to us.

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And I think, one of the, well-known studies about

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race, ethnic racial socializations, how,

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African Americans parents

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or, families, Latinx families, Asian families,

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how do they actually talk about race

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and racism to young children?

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And those talk about police,

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among African American families is one of the examples

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to show that,

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children are learning about race in a very young, age.

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So, but here is the thing, so the thing

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that we really wanted to point out,

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that just like I mentioned, it's not really new topic.

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However, in a, in a young children's classroom such

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as preschool or kindergarten,

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somehow very strangely talking about race is somewhat

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considered as inappropriate topic or a very risky topic.

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So it's really somehow strangely,

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and it is, it is, the, the topic of race and racism.

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It's somehow strangely consider as taboo

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because we want somehow, strangely, we want, we want

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to protect the children from risky topics.

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And race is one of the, the risk risky topic

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that we want to protect from children.

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And, teachers, well, given that the most, the,

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the majority of stu teachers

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are racially white, right?

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That is actually very interesting that these, they,

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they do have, some sort of like unsafe or risky feeling.

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They, they are actually very feeling

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scared to talk about race.

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So, that is, that is kind of very interesting point

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that we really want to think about.

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But, as Asian person here, frankly speaking,

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talking about race with young children doesn't really feel

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as risky to me because race

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and racism is the topic

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that I always think about in my everyday life,

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and it's kind of very natural to, to think about it.

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And I think it's kind of very common

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to African American teachers

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and other teachers of color as well.

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Race and racism is the topic

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that we do always have in our mind.

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So that's the kind of very beginning of this study about,

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African American teachers in Head Start program.

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From the research, what we wanted to see is

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how different local context affect the way,

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Hester policy and curriculum are putting into practice all

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across the United States.

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So given a little bit of the background of Head Start,

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so Headstart is,

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a federally funded program in the United States.

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And, and thus all Head Start programs, regardless

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of their location, like physical locations in place,

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they have to meet certain standards.

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And one of the standards is to implementation

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of research-based, evidence-based curriculum

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and curriculum and assistant program.

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So, consequently more than 80% of Head Start,

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head Start programs use creative curriculum.

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So, so the, basically the project, I mean, tends to see

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how this head start, teachers having different values have

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different, lived, different lived experiences,

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imp use those experiences, knowledge

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and values implement, this,

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this research-based defacto national curriculum.

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So the key, the key assumption we had, is

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that the teachers can leverage their lived experience

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to implement that, that,

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that cur defecto national curriculum in their local context

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and local community reflecting the local values

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and, you know, lived, lived experience.

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So just like you mentioned this comparative study,

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which is a fascinating part of this project.

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So in the project we looked at four

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different historic sites.

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So one in the Samoa community, one in,

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located in a mainly white community,

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in rural Ian, region.

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Um, the other one is the predominantly African American

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area, nor dc this research.

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And the last one is the one in the largely,

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Latinx immigrant community in Arizona.

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So it'll be kind of interesting to see how those teachers,

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as you see racially, ethnically, culturally, different

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teachers implement that, universal, so to say,

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de facto curriculum in their context.

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I hope that I'm not oversimplifying it, but,

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but basically when we are talking about this ethnographic

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study, that means that we are looking at the understanding

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of, of, or the unspoken cultural beliefs

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or practice and their, the rationale behind those,

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the, original behind those beliefs and the practices.

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So in our study, we really wanted

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to get into the understanding of Head Start,

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the African American teachers understanding of the,

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the video film, the, video that,

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that filmed the very typical day of their, preschool.

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So I think it would be great if I talk about the multivocal

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video, queued ethnographic method.

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So, so that's, that is a method

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that, conceptualized

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by educational anthropologist, Joseph Tobin.

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And originally that method was used to look at,

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young children, socio-emotional development in three

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different cultural con community, one in Japan,

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one in China, and one in the United States.

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It's interesting. So, so how, how it works.

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Um, so basically we film a very,

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just very typical day at a preschool.

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We just film the, those days

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and we cut down into 20 minutes videos,

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and we use the video, to, as a cue

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to elicit their perspective.

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So we show the video to teachers and directors

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and parents, and sometimes children in each community.

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And, it's, the,

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the very fascinating part is

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that we don't really use the video as data,

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but we use the data, as their interview, their talk,

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their responses to the videos.

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So, so when I, when we are talking about, the data

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of this, data of this research,

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we only talk about the interview of the teachers

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after watching this one.

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And the part, we used the, the, teachers,

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the African American teacher response to the video,

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because very interestingly, we showed it that,

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the jail scene, which is the part of the video

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that happened in the very typical day of their playtime,

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we showed it to the diff, the educators in different,

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sides, but the only African American teachers,

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they are the only group who talked about the

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significance of the scene.

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So that's why it, it, it has very interesting,

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it is really meaningful.

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The finding of this research is that the teachers

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feel tensions between the ideology of child development

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and its counter narrative.

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So, within the ideology of child development,

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there are a lot of units

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and sections talk about the topics

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that the children need to learn.

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And one of the unit is community helpers.

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So community helpers is like police and nurse

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and, you know, so, the,

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but then the community helpers are often presented in a

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very, kind of, depoliticized narratives

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to develop children's understanding of citizenship,

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including the consequences of violating laws.

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So we, we all know that, bad guys go to jail, right?

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So that's one of the, hope

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that it's not really oversimplifying it,

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but that's the kind of main message

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of this community about what they do.

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But then, but then these teachers

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Also reflect critically on that significance

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and often, the negative presents

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of police in black community.

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So, the, that, that critical narratives,

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that leads them to provide more nuance perspective on the

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police and the criminal justice system.

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So in the scene, just wanted to make, I think it will,

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it will be more interesting to give the description of the,

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of the, this video scene they watched.

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So the, so, so in the scene,

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it was a very short scene.

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It was by three minutes, and it's very,

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I think it was very typical that children play, police

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and jail play in a classroom, especially

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for three, 4-year-old children.

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Bad guys, good guys. The is one of the,

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universal theme, and it was a police,

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it was about the police and you, the teachers,

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children were playing police,

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and the teachers were teacher, one

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of the teachers in the classroom, the students,

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the young children playing the police,

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which is like a good guy, right guy.

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And then, the, the, the child, child said,

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I'm gonna lock you up, so sit down, lock you up.

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But then the teacher was like, be gentle.

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So the finding was about the tensions between,

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those ideologies of child development

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and that counter narrative of that the depo

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depoliticized narrative of community helpers.

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So you might, you might wonder like, what does

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that actually, like, what does the ambivalent feeling,

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what does that really indicate?

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Right? So what, what what we are trying to say is that,

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when teachers speak of jail play as not being about race

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and simultaneously being about race

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and of children as innocence and knowing

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and without a racial consciousness,

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but also why, also, also they shift between

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and among, positions, not

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because they're unaware of unsure or confused, but

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because they must negotiate what they know as black woman

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and what they are allowed to speak about in the,

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in the field of early childhood education, part

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of the professional identity,

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they must uphold the official ideology embedded in the

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curricula, which is the de politicized,

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narrative of police.

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Um, but, but then, but then again,

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but they leave the reality

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and the experiences of citizenship community

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and the police that do not really fit in that

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official ideology of child development.

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And that doesn't really fit in fit,

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the mainstream universal understanding,

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or ultimately unquestion, I'll be accepting,

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the domain conceptions of police.

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Um, so it's kind of very interesting to see attention as,

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as a way to put, negotiate their positions as a black woman

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and early childhood educa professional

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or childhood education teachers.

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So, so there are two points that,

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that we really want to highlight.

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The first one is that

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The tea, this obviously this research indicates

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that black head, head start, teachers are much more likely

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to recognize racism in children's lives,

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including the effects of incarcerations and arrest

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and child children's talk and play.

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Um, they do have a sociopolitical consciousness,

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and that's really,

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that really critically impacted on their relationship

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with children and, and their families.

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Um, so, so again, don't really want to oversimplify it.

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The community where the black header educators served,

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was the, the community that was highly affected by,

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police violence, and it was after Black Lives Matter.

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So all communities, all teachers, all children

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and families in the community were highly aware of those,

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police violence

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and how that impacted on their everyday life.

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So that makes this research really,

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really interesting and really important.

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And then Diego. Now the point is, the importance

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of a locality or the local context,

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that local context is the space that,

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that produce the knowledge

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that formal education cannot really teach.

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Um, so we believe that their knowledge

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and those con counter narratives,

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emerge from beliefs d emerge from the beliefs developed

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through the relationships with the children,

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and create consciousness of

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how structural inequalities are pro relegated

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for black communities.

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And, so those are two,

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significance or conclusions of this research.

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And just final notes.

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Um, so that's exactly why having teachers of color

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and valuing their insights is so crucial.

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Um, and I believe that teacher education program at au

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the, the university where I'm working on is really highly

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grounded on disbelief.

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So I'm very grateful to share my work with the,

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this wonderful team and, with my, my community here.

Exploring Race Education in Early Childhood

00:00:00 - It's kind of interesting to talk about this one because the idea that young children are learning about race and race racism, I don't think that's a very new, it's not really something new topic. honestly, think back to the Doll test by Dr. Clarkin, Dr. Clarkin in, 1947, I think. Right? And that test was about how to, to, it was, it was a phenomenal study to see the children are not actually blinded to race and racism. So it, I think as you know,
00:00:35 - of research showing how young children age three to five really do receive all kinds of ideas and messages about race and racism. And they use those messages to, to make sense, of themselves and others. So, they, the children get this from everywhere, from their families, from their teachers, from their friends and peers, TV medias and movies and such, so that children learning about race
00:01:08 - And I think, one of the, well-known studies about race, ethnic racial socializations, how, African Americans parents or, families, Latinx families, Asian families, how do they actually talk about race and racism to young children? And those talk about police, among African American families is one of the examples to show that,
00:01:38 - So, but here is the thing, so the thing that we really wanted to point out, that just like I mentioned, it's not really new topic. However, in a, in a young children's classroom such as preschool or kindergarten, somehow very strangely talking about race is somewhat considered as inappropriate topic or a very risky topic. So it's really somehow strangely, and it is, it is, the, the topic of race and racism. It's somehow strangely consider as taboo
00:02:10 - to protect the children from risky topics. And race is one of the, the risk risky topic that we want to protect from children. And, teachers, well, given that the most, the, the majority of stu teachers are racially white, right? That is actually very interesting that these, they, they do have, some sort of like unsafe or risky feeling. They, they are actually very feeling
00:02:39 - So, that is, that is kind of very interesting point that we really want to think about. But, as Asian person here, frankly speaking, talking about race with young children doesn't really feel as risky to me because race and racism is the topic that I always think about in my everyday life, and it's kind of very natural to, to think about it. And I think it's kind of very common to African American teachers and other teachers of color as well.

Understanding Racial Context in Head Start

00:03:08 - that we do always have in our mind. So that's the kind of very beginning of this study about, African American teachers in Head Start program. From the research, what we wanted to see is how different local context affect the way, Hester policy and curriculum are putting into practice all across the United States. So given a little bit of the background of Head Start, so Headstart is, a federally funded program in the United States.
00:03:41 - of their location, like physical locations in place, they have to meet certain standards. And one of the standards is to implementation of research-based, evidence-based curriculum and curriculum and assistant program. So, consequently more than 80% of Head Start, head Start programs use creative curriculum. So, so the, basically the project, I mean, tends to see how this head start, teachers having different values have
00:04:14 - imp use those experiences, knowledge and values implement, this, this research-based defacto national curriculum. So the key, the key assumption we had, is that the teachers can leverage their lived experience to implement that, that, that cur defecto national curriculum in their local context and local community reflecting the local values
00:04:45 - So just like you mentioned this comparative study, which is a fascinating part of this project. So in the project we looked at four different historic sites. So one in the Samoa community, one in, located in a mainly white community, in rural Ian, region. the other one is the predominantly African American area, nor dc this research. And the last one is the one in the largely,
00:05:17 - So it'll be kind of interesting to see how those teachers, as you see racially, ethnically, culturally, different teachers implement that, universal, so to say, de facto curriculum in their context. I hope that I'm not oversimplifying it, but, but basically when we are talking about this ethnographic study, that means that we are looking at the understanding of, of, or the unspoken cultural beliefs or practice and their, the rationale behind those,
00:05:50 - So in our study, we really wanted to get into the understanding of Head Start, the African American teachers understanding of the, the video film, the, video that, that filmed the very typical day of their, preschool. So I think it would be great if I talk about the multivocal video, queued ethnographic method. So, so that's, that is a method

Understanding Racial Dynamics in Early Education

00:06:19 - by educational anthropologist, Joseph Tobin. And originally that method was used to look at, young children, socio-emotional development in three different cultural con community, one in Japan, one in China, and one in the United States. It's interesting. So, so how, how it works. so basically we film a very, just very typical day at a preschool. We just film the, those days and we cut down into 20 minutes videos,
00:06:54 - to elicit their perspective. So we show the video to teachers and directors and parents, and sometimes children in each community. And, it's, the, the very fascinating part is that we don't really use the video as data, but we use the data, as their interview, their talk, their responses to the videos. So, so when I, when we are talking about, the data
00:07:26 - we only talk about the interview of the teachers after watching this one. And the part, we used the, the, teachers, the African American teacher response to the video, because very interestingly, we showed it that, the jail scene, which is the part of the video that happened in the very typical day of their playtime, we showed it to the diff, the educators in different, sides, but the only African American teachers, they are the only group who talked about the
00:07:57 - So that's why it, it, it has very interesting, it is really meaningful. The finding of this research is that the teachers feel tensions between the ideology of child development and its counter narrative. So, within the ideology of child development, there are a lot of units and sections talk about the topics that the children need to learn. And one of the unit is community helpers. So community helpers is like police and nurse and, you know, so, the,
00:08:30 - very, kind of, depoliticized narratives to develop children's understanding of citizenship, including the consequences of violating laws. So we, we all know that, bad guys go to jail, right? So that's one of the, hope that it's not really oversimplifying it, but that's the kind of main message of this community about what they do. But then, but then these teachers Also reflect critically on that significance and often, the negative presents
00:09:02 - So, the, that, that critical narratives, that leads them to provide more nuance perspective on the police and the criminal justice system. So in the scene, just wanted to make, I think it will, it will be more interesting to give the description of the, of the, this video scene they watched. So the, so, so in the scene, it was a very short scene. It was by three minutes, and it's very,

Exploring Race and Play in Early Education

00:09:36 - and jail play in a classroom, especially for three, 4-year-old children. Bad guys, good guys. The is one of the, universal theme, and it was a police, it was about the police and you, the teachers, children were playing police, and the teachers were teacher, one of the teachers in the classroom, the students, the young children playing the police, which is like a good guy, right guy. And then, the, the, the child, child said,
00:10:07 - But then the teacher was like, be gentle. So the finding was about the tensions between, those ideologies of child development and that counter narrative of that the depo depoliticized narrative of community helpers. So you might, you might wonder like, what does that actually, like, what does the ambivalent feeling, what does that really indicate? Right? So what, what what we are trying to say is that, when teachers speak of jail play as not being about race
00:10:38 - and of children as innocence and knowing and without a racial consciousness, but also why, also, also they shift between and among, positions, not because they're unaware of unsure or confused, but because they must negotiate what they know as black woman and what they are allowed to speak about in the, in the field of early childhood education, part of the professional identity, they must uphold the official ideology embedded in the
00:11:10 - narrative of police. but, but then, but then again, but they leave the reality and the experiences of citizenship community and the police that do not really fit in that official ideology of child development. And that doesn't really fit in fit, the mainstream universal understanding, or ultimately unquestion, I'll be accepting, the domain conceptions of police. so it's kind of very interesting to see attention as,
00:11:42 - and early childhood educa professional or childhood education teachers. So, so there are two points that, that we really want to highlight. The first one is that The tea, this obviously this research indicates that black head, head start, teachers are much more likely to recognize racism in children's lives, including the effects of incarcerations and arrest and child children's talk and play. they do have a sociopolitical consciousness,
00:12:12 - that really critically impacted on their relationship with children and, and their families. so, so again, don't really want to oversimplify it. The community where the black header educators served, was the, the community that was highly affected by, police violence, and it was after Black Lives Matter. So all communities, all teachers, all children and families in the community were highly aware of those,

Local Context and Teacher Insights on Inequality

00:12:44 - and how that impacted on their everyday life. So that makes this research really, really interesting and really important. And then Diego. Now the point is, the importance of a locality or the local context, that local context is the space that, that produce the knowledge that formal education cannot really teach. so we believe that their knowledge and those con counter narratives, emerge from beliefs d emerge from the beliefs developed
00:13:16 - and create consciousness of how structural inequalities are pro relegated for black communities. And, so those are two, significance or conclusions of this research. And just final notes. so that's exactly why having teachers of color and valuing their insights is so crucial. and I believe that teacher education program at au
00:13:54 - grounded on disbelief. So I'm very grateful to share my work with the, this wonderful team and, with my, my community here.

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