Webinar “The Key Role of Educators in the Emerging Field of Children’s Racial Learning”
The headlines tell us that in recent years our schools have become a battleground over whether and how to teach our children about race and racism. In EmbraceRace’s recent Reflections report, they begin to chronicle the counter-narrative, highlighting the emergence of a multi-sectoral field of learning and practice centered on children’s racial learning. The Reflections report provides insights from leading experts in education, parenting, children’s media, healthcare, and social science research on the critical work being done in this emerging field, and on what more can be done to teach children about race in healthy, affirming ways.
During this edWebinar, you’ll learn about why effective guidance and modeling from adults are necessary to help kids overcome the odds of developing racial biases and anxieties and be more prepared to act in ways that help dismantle structural racism. The presenters will invite educators to consider how they can join the diverse and growing group of educators, parents, media professionals, healthcare providers, and others who are planting the seeds of healthy racial learning for children across America. In addition, they will share ideas and resources for educators who are motivated to help build the field of children’s racial learning.
This edWebinar will interest PreK-12 teachers, librarians, and school and district leaders. There will be time for questions at the end of the presentation.
About the Presenters
As Co-founder and Co-director, Andrew Grant-Thomas, Ph.D. (he/him) lead efforts to support parents, educators, and other caregivers to raise children who are thoughtful, informed, and brave about race. Dr. Grant-Thomas is a dad to Lola and Lena, a partner to Melissa, an only child, a long-time racial justice guy, and a Black man of Jamaican origins in the United States, born on the 4th of July. His main commitments are to promoting racial and social justice and he is grateful to have worked with or otherwise had his thinking shaped by such brilliant, fierce advocates as Michelle Alexander, Cathy Cohen, Angela Davis, Christopher Edley, Gary Orfield, bell hooks, and john powell. In stops that include the Harvard Civil Rights Project, the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race & Ethnicity, and the Proteus Fund, he has worked on issues from mass incarceration to PK-12 educational segregation, immigration to death penalty abolition, and race and redistricting to structural racialization. Through it all, and now at EmbraceRace, he champions efforts he believes can make a meaningful difference for real people and communities—not 100 years from now, but in his lifetime and the lifetimes of his two tween children. Dr. Grant-Thomas earned his BA in literature from Yale University, his MA in international relations from the University of Chicago, and his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago.
Debbie LeeKeenan is a long-time social justice educator, lecturer, consultant, and author. She has been in the field of early education for over 50 years. She is a former preschool, special education, and elementary school, teacher. She was director of the Eliot-Pearson Children’s School at Tufts University from 1996 to 2013. She has been a member of the early childhood faculty at Tufts University, Lesley University, and the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Debbie is a producer of the award-winning film, Reflecting on Anti-bias Education in Action: The Early Years, released in April 2021. Her work has been published in numerous journals and books, including Young Children, Exchange, and Theory into Practice. Her most recent co-authored books include: From Survive to Thrive: A Director’s Guide for Leading an Early Childhood Program and Leading Anti-bias Early Childhood Programs: A Guide for Change. Debbie was awarded the 2022 National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) Asian Interest Forum Leadership Award for demonstrating professional excellence, integrity, and social responsibility to better the lives of many children, families, the ECE workforce of Asian descent, and the ECE field as a whole. Debbie is Chinese-American, the child of immigrant working-class parents, and is part of a multi-racial family.
Christina Rucinski, Ph.D. (she/her) is a White former educator and academic, serving as the Research-to-Practice Program Manager at EmbraceRace. In this role, she translates insights from scientific research to inform caregiver and educator practices to support healthy racial learning in young children. Dr. Rucinski has worked with children for most of her life, including as an early childhood educator and in collaboration with the content research team at Sesame Workshop. She holds a Ph.D. and MA in applied developmental psychology from Fordham University and a BS in psychology from Tufts University. As a developmental scientist, she has conducted research on children’s social-emotional learning, classroom racial and ethnic diversity, and teacher-student relationships across racial lines. She brings this evidence-based lens to her work with EmbraceRace, in translating from research to practice and back again. Outside work, Dr. Rucinski is often watching and reading sci-fi, collaging, and birding with her partner.
About the Moderator
Melissa Giraud (she/her) is co-founder and co-director of EmbraceRace. She has spent a lifetime trying to center the voices, experiences, and concerns of children and families, with a particular interest in immigrant kids of color and first-generation children. She is the multiracial (Black/White) daughter of immigrants from Dominica and Quebec. Professionally, Melissa has sought to empower marginalized kids and families, first as an elementary school educator teaching in a bilingual (Spanish/English) program in a predominantly Mexican and Mexican American neighborhood in Chicago, then as an NPR producer in DC driven to recruit voices and perspectives from communities of color in the newsroom, and later as a radio reporter who collaborated with her former elementary students as they were coming of age to capture the experience of living biculturally and transnationally for NPR. Melissa earned a BA in history from the University of Chicago and an MA in education from The Ohio State University.
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Time: 1:00 pm — 2:00 pm EDT
Free!
