How Can I Create a Safe and Equitable Classroom for Young Children?

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Answer

As we've learned about trauma, as in the ACEs study, this has become very apparent. One of our basic needs as humans is to feel safe. Young children specifically need to feel safe at school, especially those who grow up in stressful environments. They need reassurance that school is a safe place where they feel loved, protected, and comforted.

There is nothing better than consistency, especially if a child has not had that kind of stability at home. This doesn't mean that teachers need to lower their expectations for behavior or even achievement. However, we do need to go out of our way to make the environment a loving, calm place. This includes using a calm, soft, and even tone of voice and demonstrating care for the child. I'm constantly asking myself, how can I demonstrate to these children in my care that this is a safe place and that I love them, even when I don't necessarily agree with their behavior or if they're having a tantrum. Still showing empathy and care for the child is so important. 

Materials Should Reflect Socio-Economic Diversity

The easiest way is to make sure that all children feel welcome. We all need windows and mirrors, even in literature. We need windows to see how other people live and mirrors that reflect how we live. One of the things that I've noticed is in typical preschools, we don't always have materials that reflect children from all walks of life, specifically socioeconomic walks of life. I'm trying to find books about children who take the bus, who go to the laundromat to wash their clothes, and who live in trailers or apartments. It's fairly rare to find those. We're seeing more and more come out, but children need to see themselves in stories and others need to be exposed to how people live.

Two good examples are Last Stop on Market Street, by Matt de la Peña and A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams. A newer book that's one of my favorites is Those Shoes by Maribeth Boelts. This book talks about a little boy named Jeremy who wants a pair of shoes like everyone at school seems to be wearing. His grandmother tells him that they don't have room for a want, they just have room for needs. She says that what Jeremy needs are new boots for the winter. This is a really important story and one that helps children to grapple with the difference between wants and needs.

The more resources you can bring into the classroom, the better. I'm thrilled that we are focusing so much on race and the inclusion of children with different abilities and languages. We need to make sure that every child is represented, but let's not forget that socioeconomic aspect because we are different. At the university I work at we have children at the center who have been to Paris for spring break and others who have never been outside of their neighborhood. That's okay, there should be room for all of that.

I'll share one more book before I move on related to inclusive classrooms as I just mentioned. Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves by Louise Derman-Sparks, Julie Olsen Edwards, and Catherine M. Goins is a book I highly recommend. There is a beautiful chapter in here on how to help children in your classroom feel included and there's a chapter on socio-economic status. I always recommend this classic book.

Model Equity

Another way that teachers can create a safe and equitable classroom is to model equity and appreciation for all types of people of all different socioeconomic statuses. For example, when we talk about community helpers or when we bring in costumes for the dramatic play center or posters to put on the wall, we don't just want to focus on police, doctors, dentists, or white-collar jobs that many of us in this field traditionally talk about during community helpers week or month. We also want to talk about trash collectors and janitors and the heroes of the pandemic, which have been service workers such as wait staff in restaurants, grocery workers, and gas station attendants.

We want to help children take pride in what their parents do as well and know that everyone in society can contribute in their own way. I think that's one of the joys and beauties of seeing how much we relied on people in the service industry during the pandemic. There are certain jobs that we take for granted that we just could not live without. It is important to model that kind of equity in the classroom by celebrating people that do everything.

One of the other things that I have noticed is that children notice things. When they come into your school, all of your teachers should not be of a certain race or socioeconomic class. The same goes for all of your assistants or service workers. Look at how we model equity from a really large lens and from a child's view. Think like a child and ask what they are seeing in the classroom? How are we using our platform as teachers to be able to model that equity?

De-emphasize the Material 

Another piece is to de-emphasize the material. Many of us in early childhood are trying to rethink the classic activity of show and tell. There are multiple variations for show and tell whether we're having children do this during get to know you time, star student, or even if it's just every Friday. If children are bringing an item from home for show and tell, so often this activity turns into a time for children to show their coolest, newest, or fanciest toy. This is very exclusive and puts a lot of stress on children who don't have the latest and greatest toy. If show and tell is something your class participates in, make sure to focus on meaning and experiences rather than material things.

There are variations to the traditional show and tell that I've seen that are much more equitable. One is asking children to bring in their oldest toy and explain why they still love it.  You could also have them bring in a photo of the item or better yet ask the parent to text a photo to the teacher who can print it instead. We can't assume that everyone has access to printers or even phones. Have multiple options for children and families. Try to rethink through an equity lens, especially around socioeconomic issues, and ask yourself if this is going to be a burden?

Be Mindful of Food

Let's talk about food. We need to be sensitive to issues surrounding food. Years ago I took my daughter, who was in middle school at the time, to see an area of Kenya where I grew up. She was in shock because she had not experienced the kind of poverty that we were seeing when we were visiting. When we returned home she wrote a beautiful report for one of her teachers about how she almost felt like we were the Hunger Games Capitol (from the movie The Hunger Games) because of the way that we have so much food in our culture. The experience of seeing children who really were hungry changed her life.

For children who have experienced hunger, it can be confusing and downright insensitive for us to encourage children to use food to create art or to play with at the sensory table.  Once you've seen that kind of hunger, there's no way you would be filling up tubs or sensory bins full of pasta, rice, marshmallows, or any kind of food. I love sensory play, so please don't think that I'm anti-sensory play. I love it, but once you've seen a child experience hunger or you've experienced it yourself, it shifts for you. Food never becomes something that you use for an art project.

Most people expect to see that kind of hunger in Africa, but it's not as expected in America. When I was a teacher in Texas, I saw it over and over again. But the first time that I thought it was shocking to me, I was riding the bus home because our bus monitors were volunteers and were missing one. So I said, I'll take this class home on the bus. I remember this little boy sitting next to me and we went over a bump and all of a sudden rolls came out of his pocket. I looked at him and I said, "What is this?" He looked a little embarrassed and I kind of got a little grin out of him and he told me that he was taking his momma home some rolls because she liked them. For those of you who work with children living in poverty, you know that these children often come to school on Monday mornings and are so hungry. We would usually make extra food on Mondays for lunch because they were so hungry. This event with the little boy and the rolls falling out of his pocket happened on a Monday when we had made extra.

I'll never forget that. Since then, as a teacher and a director of a school, I have tried to discourage the use of food for art or play. You can adopt a policy that food is exclusively for eating.  It is important that we teach respect for the sanctity of food and avoid sending the message that food is something some people have so much of that they can use it for play. Around one in five of our students have experienced hunger, which is an astronomical number when you think about the fact that we're living in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. 

This Ask the Expert is an edited excerpt from the course, Teaching, Caring, and Advocating for Children and Families Living in Poverty, presented by Kenya Wolff, PhD.