When we start to think about children, and programs,
and, particularly, infants and toddlers,
the biggest issue is how we respond to them in ways
that are consistent with the ways in which their families respond to them.
Early childhood educators were, I think, the first en masse
to embrace the notion of anti-bias education in early childhood.
A way of looking at growth and development potential
of children--
that took into account their cultural being,
their cultural selves with families, of course.
And raising issues of bias
and how culture gets responded to
by the institutions that serve those children.
There is an interesting thing, so many people feel,
"That's not me. I don't have a bias".
But implicit bias means that it is unconscious.
We tend to allow that lens
to be a part of the way that we view our relationships
or the way we interact with children and families.
Too often, teachers see children as lacking,
when they come from a variety of culture groups.
So, for example, if families don't speak English
we see that as a limitation for children.
When, in fact, we know from a developmental standpoint
that development occurs in all languages
and, indeed, if children come to school
from a family that speak Spanish
if we are able to provide a continuous experience in Spanish,
we'll not have any disruption in the cultural continuity for that child.
But in our programs when that disruption occurs,
we often blame the kids and the families for not being able to keep up
or not becoming fluent as quickly as we would like in English.
Without looking at the other side of the coin
which is our responses to what they bring to the setting.
It makes more sense to me to think about how we can provide environments
that are more continuous in terms of the cultural continuity
for these children
so that there is no disruption and expectations,
there is no disruption in their developmental progression.
Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health
is really about supporting and building the adult's capacity
to support children's health and wellness.
It's not about fixing kids but it's about supporting adults
to really be able to help facilitate healthy growth and development
for social-emotional growth for children.
I will argue that our expectations for children
are often a function of society's expectations.
So, we know for example that Native American children
are behind in their school achievement.
And African-American kids are behind,
and children whose first language is not English, they are behind in school.
So what does that mean, then, about what our responsibilities are
to change those outcomes for kids.
How do we really get to a level where we can focus on the core,
the essence of their problem.
In my view, the essence of the problem is the way in which we respond to kids.
Our expectations for them, our beliefs,
fundamentally about their ability to achieve and to thrive in society.
There is this intersection between race, social class, and gender.
A great example of that is a teacher, she is a preschool teacher,
and she is an African-American woman.
And she realized,
"Wow, all this time I'm thinking that I'm an African-American woman,
I'm teaching, and I'm educating, and nurturing African-American children
so I get it, I get their culture, I get who they are.
But what I didn't realize is I didn't get the boys in my classroom,
I didn't get their behavior.
As a woman, I look at the behavior of boys as being roughhousing,
maybe being too aggressive when yet, it was just typical play for boys.
And yet, what that resulted in is more punitive types of approaches
in terms of my interaction with my boys, in my classroom."
And she said, "Wow, I've got a bias, and I didn't even realize it."
In terms of what we can do to address issues of equity and implicit bias,
the first is really building awareness,
and [adding to an awareness that exists].
It allows us to step back and begin to really evaluate
our relationships that we have with children and families,
the reasons for some of our beliefs and our understandings
that maybe are distorting our relationships.
And so with the Mental Health Consultation
it allows us to really have an opportunity to talk about
our understandings about relationships
and get deeper into the why behind it.