But Then Again, They Can Get It from Us

Just read a powerful post on Love Isn't Enough entitled "They Learned It From Watching You," originally posted at CocoaMamas.com. Author LaToya describes exclusionary play at the preschool where her daughter is the only African-American child. She shares her frustration at the school's handling of the incidents which involved responding to the children who were excluded but not addressing the larger problem of the children who were doing the excluding, and what it was they were acting out.

LaToya writes, "(L)et’s please recognize that these children learned this behavior at home... Their parents don’t have friends of other races – they don’t have to. Their kids witness their parents having mono-racial ideas of who is worth hanging out with and who is not... And they make an inference that if Mom and Dad don’t hang out with these people, then I shouldn’t either – for whatever reason."

According to psychologist Krista Aronson, community and dominant cultural norms are indeed stronger than family ones in influencing children's attitudes about race. But when these norms are not only not contradicted in the family but actually upheld through the absence of cross-racial relationships in our lives and our silence about race, children do learn from us.

Absence and silence are powerful teaching tools.

They Didn't Get That From Me!

 

In our joint school visits, as author Margy Burns Knight talks, I often sketch the face of an imagined child in each session, leaving the school with a group of portraits of diverse children. Several years ago, presenting our book Africa is Not a Country at a Maine school, I was sketching a series of children who could be from African countries. As the collection of portraits grew throughout the day, we asked students, "What do you notice about the pictures? What's the same about the children? What's different?" 

A second grade boy pointed to the image of a brown-skinned girl wearing a scarf around her head. "She's so poor," he remarked in a solemn tone. "And she's sad, so, so sad." 

In truth, the portrait was of a smiling girl, at least as happy-looking as any of the other drawings. (To add to the intrigue of the comment, the student making it was brown-skinned himself, an African-American child adopted by a white family.) A conversation ensued, in language appropriate to second graders, about "funny ideas" we sometimes have about Africa, and perhaps brown people - such as that everyone is poor and sad.

Has a child in your care ever burst out with a racial comment that puzzled, embarrassed, or distressed you? The more we explore race with children, the more it's likely to happen. One of the outcomes of getting children to share their observations is that if we're effective, we'll get to hear what children are actually thinking about race - and some of their ideas are not what we might wish. Our first response may be the horrified defense, "S/he couldn't have gotten it from me!" The good news is, you're probably right.

In our presentation, "Books As Bridges" (see previous post), Krista Aronson, psychologist and Bates college professor of psychology, shared research results that "children rely more on community norms than parental norms." As an example, she noted that parents new to a community may speak with an accent, but their children will soon sound like their classmates. 

So where do children's ideas about race come from?

1. Socialized Roles

Children are keen observers. If they see people segregated in distinctly different types of housing, jobs, classrooms, positions of authority, etc., they absorb this information.

2. The Soup

All day long, all of us, including children, are surrounded by and bombarded with images and information. Children notice, without the skills to deconstruct why, who's portrayed and how.

3. Silence

When adults respond to questions and comments about race with discomfort and shushing, or never raise the subject at all, children learn that race is something not to be discussed, like something bad or dangerous.

This is why talking about race is so crucial for children's development. If we don't engage kids in conversations that give them permission and language to say what's on their minds, to voice the associations they're making and the conclusions they're reaching, all of this conditioning goes unchallenged. When we provide a safe place for children to speak, we get the opportunity to engage with them and offer them the skills to break the silence, to interrogate the Soup, and to challenge socialized roles.

How to Talk About Race: A List of Books

Next week I'll be leading an educators workshop and co-leading a community event on talking about race with children. A book sale will accompany the presentations, with a small selection of children's books that are natural catalysts for starting a conversation on race. (Update: Here's a short TV interview about the programs.)

My co-presenter, Bates College psychology professor Krista Aronson, and I have identified three core categories of books that are useful in addressing race, in order of their developmental application:

1.  Celebration of differences (CD)
  Simply naming and appreciating difference is an essential foundation for conversations about race. Children are already making these observations; talking about them gives children permission and language to voice them. The goal of these interactions is not so much to teach as to create an open forum for children to say whatever they see. Supportive adults then have the opportunity to assist children in developing positive racial associations of both themselves and people different from them.

2. Cross-group (CG)
  In psychological research studies, books portraying positive interactions across racial difference have been shown to reduce prejudice (see the work of Rupert Brown). These books show cross-racial friendships which can strengthen children's developing appreciation of and sense of connection to people who look different from them.

3. Racism
  Stories of prejudice, mistreatment and discrimination are an essential part of any reality-based education about race, but not as the only or the first story. Too often, when well-intentioned adults want to introduce concepts of race to children, they start with books about the civil rights movement. This is problematic in several ways: Children learn to associate discussions of race with discomfort, conflict, and possibly guilt, and African-Americans may be seen only in the light of a difficult history. In other words, children may absorb the idea of race as a problem and people of color as victims.
  However, when presented by a relaxed and practiced facilitator in the context of a broader, ongoing conversation, these stories can be powerful catalysts for provocative conversations, memorable learning, and the development of empathy. Again, the focus of discussion should be on eliciting children's thoughts and feelings and on developing their critical thinking skills.

Here are some examples of books in each category (grade levels are suggestions only).

preschool - Gr. 2
All the Colors of the Earth by Sheila Hamanaka  - CD  (Multiracial)
Amazing Faces compiled by Lee Bennett Hopkins - CD, CG (Multiracial)
Bein’ With You This Way by W. Nikola-Lisa  - CD  (Multiracial) 
Come On, Rain by Karen Hesse - CG  (Black/Asian/White)
Jamaica & Brianna  by Juanita Havill  - CG  (Black/Asian)
Shades of People by Shelley Rotner  -  CD  (Multiracial)

Gr. 1 - 4
Baseball Saved Us - R (Japanese-American)
The Bracelet by Yoshiko Uchida - R, CG  (Japanese-American)
Chicken Sunday by Patricia Polacco - CG  (White/Black/Jewish) Jacqueline Woodson
Freedom Summer by Deborah Wiles -  R, CG  (White/Black)
The Other Side  by Jacqueline Woodson - R, CG  (Black/White) 
Ruth and the Green Book by Calvin Alexander Ramsey - R  (Black) 

Gr. 3 - 7
The Basket Counts Matt Christopher -  R, CG  (Black/White)
Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson  - CG, R  (Black/White)
The Friendship by Mildred Taylor  -  R  (Black/White)
The Other Half of My Heart  by Sundee Frazier - CG, R (Black/White/Biracial twins)
Witness by Karen Hesse  -  R, CG  (White/Black/Jewish)

Gr. 7 - 12
The Absolutely True Story of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie - R, CG (Native-American)
American-Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang - R, CG  (Chinese-American)
Face Relations: Eleven Stories About Seeing Beyond Color edited by Marilyn Singer - R, CG (Multiracial)
The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi Durrow - R, CG (Biracial/Black/White) 
I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This by Jacqueline Woodson -  CG, R (Black/White)