Shana DeVlieger

In my previous blog post, I shared my hope for our renewed commitment to challenging conversations with young children (and ourselves). Here, I will discuss what I think can support us in approaching these honest, imperfect conversations. In addition to learning from wisdom about our outer world, we can start first with our own inner worlds.

Starting with our inner worlds

When a child asks “why?” and my mind wishes I had the comfort of a worksheet or script to tell me what to say, I have been learning to pause and actually feel my resistance. From a place of groundedness and humility, I can start to meet that child on a human level, not one that is so hierarchical and perfectionistic. We can explore together and open new lines of thought, instead of shutting them down out of fear. So much of this growing practice has come from wisdom that Rhonda Magee writes about in The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness. Not always being a ‘mindfulness person’ myself, she helped me reconsider. “Simple mindfulness shows that the air that we breathe depends on the actions not only of ourselves, but of those around us, and of the natural world,” she says. “Knowing this, our hardened sense of ourselves as separate (and too often, alone) begins to soften. We see that everyone and everything is connected, and we learn to better respond to the interpersonal and environmental conditions, policies, and structures that cause distress and suffering.” Her mediations, like the one below, have helped me consider how to challenge what I was socialized to believe: that we are separate from each other and from the other-than-human world.

Take a moment to pause. 
Imagine the people in your social circle who are actively working to minimize social distances, bias, and racism.
Think of those around the world working toward the same goals.
Now expand your reflection to include the ancestors on whose shoulders we all stand. 
Imagine linking arms/hands with all of these people. 
You are not alone in your aspirations for a more just world in which we remember our common humanity. 
Allow the image of this circle to further support you through the challenges to come. 

-Rhonda Magee, The Inner Work of Racial Justice

Once we reconcile with our resistance, we can better access the abundance of learning resources available. 

Holding honest, imperfect conversations with those who will inherit this world 

When it comes to honest conversations about the state of our world, developmental science tells us that children are not too young to talk about race, gender, capitalism, colonialism, and climate collapse. The misconception that these topics are not ‘developmentally appropriate’ comes from norms that were constructed with a blinkered view on European and Euro-American children. As the narrative goes, we are ‘preserving innocence’ by refraining from telling children about that which makes us uncomfortable. However, whose innocence are we protecting? Black parents in America know all too well that talking truthfully about police brutality is protective in a society that affords white children “innocence” until their late 20’s but adultifies Black children by the time they are 13. Especially for those of us holding positions of power, we have to remember that when we cling to the ‘cute and comfortable’ and circumvent the rest, we further injustice. Scholars like NYU Metro Center Executive Director Dr. Doucet have long called for us to move beyond the ‘diversity celebration’ approach and toward true anti-racism in early childhood classrooms. This means ditching the focus only on feel-good Earth dialogue and instead embracing conversation about the complexities of how we got here, at our tipping point and on the brink of climate “doom loop.”

As many before me have pointed out, white supremacy and colonialism directly contribute to our planet’s destruction, even when we don’t see it. It seeps into our perspectives by doing environmentalist book reports for Earth Day on John Muir and not Hazel Johnson, June Bacon-Bercey, Hattie Carthan, Rue Mapp, and Dr. Mamie Parker. It shows up by talking about conserving resources and cleaning waterways without acknowledging the colonial histories that destroyed the environment in the first place. It is furthered by liberal white women like me with the platform to write pieces like this without acknowledging that Indigenous and people of Color are the ones who pioneered the environmental movement. As Drs. Oziewicz and Saguisag assert, “To confront the climate crisis is to recognize it as culminating from a long history of capitalist, colonialist expansionism—a system that equates progress to extraction of natural resources; exploitation of peoples, flora, and fauna; invention and reinforcement of hierarchies among and within species; and conquest and erasure of cultures and ecosystems.” We need to see and talk about the whole picture; only then, can we work toward environmental change to benefit all living beings.

It’s tough to reconcile with our country and our world’s past, the insidious ways we protect ourselves from it, but others are showing us the way. 

Right here at NYU, we have incredible scholars like Dr. Saguisag, who have created resources like ClimateLit.org to help us navigate climate justice conversations through children’s and young adult literature. A powerful tool for starting critical conversations and growing consciousness, children’s literature is even being evaluated in other countries like Australia based on its alignment with a framework for ‘a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice and a culture of peace.’ New Zealand has worked to ‘weave’ Māori principles of Te Whāriki, or woven mat, within its early childhood curriculum, a reconciliation with its colonial past and indigenous wisdom and future. These give me hope. At the same time, we see a rise of well-funded climate change deniers like the Heartland Institute, and  “The Disneyfication of Climate Crisis” battling back for children’s minds to undermine these efforts and keep us complacent within a capitalist, anthropocentric, pressure cooker. When I get drawn too far into dwelling on this side of the equation, Nikita Gill’s reframe keeps me going.

Everything is on fire,
but everyone I love is doing beautiful things
and trying to make life worth living,
and I know I don’t have to believe in everything,
but I believe in that.

- Nikita Gill, Prompt 18: Beautiful Things

In the moments where I want to walk and talk the easier, paved path, Dr. Sultana’s words help me course correct. “Feeling, embodying, and experiencing the heaviness of climate coloniality is a steep price to pay for knowing it. However, speaking about it is an essential component to confronting it and pursuing decolonial futures of abundance and flourishing,” she reminds us.

As children discuss butterflies and biodiversity, plant seeds and pick up litter. Perhaps they’ll make up a Reduce-Reuse-Recycle Rap. Don’t get me wrong -- let us celebrate in these ways! AND, let’s push forward. Sticking within our comfort zones of reading The Lorax (which I definitely relied on during my first year of teaching) just won’t get us where we need to go. Let’s give preschoolers opportunities to make critical, regenerative changes to the environment, like research has shown us they can. And let’s find creative ways to keep talking and acting in ways that disrupt the interlocking systems of oppression sourcing the destruction. 

Unlike the eclipse that unified us earlier this month, when it comes to the destruction of Earth, we should not shield our eyes from the glaring source. Looking directly at contributors to our climate’s collapse might even be what is healthiest for our long-term vision. And when the children want to know “why” but words seem to fail us, we have permission to take a mindful pause and listen to the original guardians. Wishing you brave and fruitful conversations with the young ones in your lives, as you discuss the danger of the climate crisis, as well as the importance of anti-racism. 

Shana DeVlieger, MAT, Ed.M, is a PhD student in Urban & Early Childhood Education in the NYU Steinhardt Department of Teaching & Learning.