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Black Lives Matter | inspiring and empowering young children to talk about anti-racism through picture books




[Image from Teaching Tolerance at tolerance.org, helping teachers educate children to be active participants in a diverse democracy, and providing free resources to educators from early years onwards]

I will start by saying that  am no expert in this.  So what I am writing is inspired by the reading I have been doing.  And the selection of picture books I am sharing is by no means exhaustive, it's just what I had on my shelf.  But we've got to start somewhere.

Sources of information and inspiration

  • Wellness for all - anti-racism in the Early Years - https://wellnessforall.org.uk/2020/06/03/anti-racism-in-the-early-years/ - I'll start with this because it was the first article I was signposted to and it resonated with me.   It's a brilliant article, well thought out, showing us that we need to be anti-racist (as opposed to just not racist), educate ourselves about white privilege and talk about and celebrate differences and cultures.  We also need to recognise the rich experiences this adds to the lives of us all, so no token gestures of a book or a poster in the setting, we have a responsibility to recognise the unconscious bias that we all have within us and then do better, we mustn’t feel afraid to speak out in case we might get something wrong, rather we must start a discussion and raise awareness, summed up in this quote “I/we can do more than post on social media or talk behind closed doors, I am now understanding we can become allies to people of colour by standing alongside them and committing to anti-racism.”  As we talk about it we should be prepared to risk getting it wrong and learn from it rather than remain silent.
Here's a quote I liked - “The beauty of anti-racism is that you don’t have to pretend to be free of racism to be anti-racist. Anti-racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it, including in yourself. And it’s the only way forward.” Ljeoma Oluo

  • David Cahn on internalised racial superiority and the early years - https://childcarebrofessional.wordpress.com/2020/07/27/internalised-racial-superiority-and-the-early-years-yes-read-it/ - he sets the article out with an audience in mind - in his words “the campaign-y set” of early years educators who want to change things for the better, with the belief that we have the power and responsibility to make early childhood education and care the best it can be.  He says we must “learn to apply an anti-racist, intersectional lens to our lives as well as the work we set out to do”  But how? First, we must take the time to understand the issues and our own unconscious biases properly, get to know our families and communities, and embed an anti-racist ethos through all we do. 
  • Nursery world article Laura Henry Allain - https://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/opinion/article/actually-it-does-matter - the creator of JoJo and GranGran, the first animation in the UK featuring a black British family, talks about how change is needed, how we need to check our practice for diversity and inclusivity, and the tokenism of a few picture books.  She says that change must start with educators and our attitudes and beliefs, ensuring we as educators have time to reflect and recognise our own privileges and prejudices, or even unconscious racist behaviour.  The last bit is worth quoting, as she tells us that the Early Years are "where we can make a lasting difference to children’s view of race. This needs systematic change and the support of the Department for Education, Ofsted, and Government and shadow ministers. This includes the sector organisations and I am willing to work with them and others on this, exploring areas of initial qualifications, ongoing CPD and pedagogy practice and decolonising the EYFS. This means investment and not a one-off training day that ticks a box so that colleagues can say that they have done it. It is about ongoing dialogue, and respectful and honest conversations. We all need to stop, look and listen, for the sake of the children, in order that the next generation does not need to experience racism, and so that educators have the tools to effectively challenge racism and make sure that their practice is indeed anti-racist."

Action for Children, on their facebook page, give us some tips for talking to children about race.
  • Openly talk about race with your child. Adults often worry that talking about race will encourage racial bias in children, but the opposite is true. Silence about race reinforces racism by allowing children to draw on their own conclusions based on things they may not understand.
  • It is never too early to start talking positively to your child about race. At birth babies look equally at faces of all races. At three months babies look more at faces that match their caregivers, showing that skin colour is something that they recognise.
  • Be mindful. Recognise the books and toys you choose for your child. Are they reflective of the different kinds of people and cultures within our society? Introduce your child to cultural and racial differences through the toys they play with and the books they read.
  • It's OK to answer your child’s questions about why other people may look different to them ie gender, race, disability, etc. It is also OK to say ‘I’m not sure’ and come back to a topic when you have done your own learning, but ensure you do come back to it.
  • If you would like to know more about having conversations and learning about race with children, please visit:  https://www.embracerace.org/resources/teaching-and-talking-to-kids

Here are a few more links with information and resources - 

  • "a respect for diversity, which relates to the ethics of an encounter: such a relational ethics was foregrounded by Dahlberg and Moss (2005) in their discussion of ethics in early childhood education. (It may help to know that a relational ethic is knowing what the right thing to do would be);
  • a recognition of multiple perspectives and diverse paradigms – which means that there is more than one answer to most questions and that there are many ways of viewing and understanding the world, a point to which I shall return;
  • welcoming curiosity, uncertainty and subjectivity and accept the responsibility that they require of us; making sure that children know that they can ask questions and are entitled to a serious and meaningful response.
  • critical thinking which requires “introducing a critical attitude towards those things that are given to our present experience as if they were fixed or timeless, natural and unquestionable”. It means being able to challenge the sayings, values, practices of one’s time and received wisdom … What this means, put more simply, is that children should be enabled to question things that might seem obvious or right in terms of their experience."

    I also emailed my MP - they have the power to change legislation after all - to ask specifically what she was going to be doing to support #BlackLivesMatter and regarding decolonising the curriculum to address the lack of black British history / literature there.  Sadly not much forthcoming, but we live in hope.

    I think that's enough, I don't want to overwhelm...

    Picture books from my shelf

    This is not at all an exhaustive selection, there are many, many great picture books that we can share in order to start a conversation, lots of which can be found by looking at some of the resources I have linked to above.  Here are some of mine - 





    A bit of thinking and writing...
    I will finish by saying this.  I have been doing a lot of thinking...and one thing came to me while watching the great David Attenborough on the TV the other day.  There is a thread that is woven (or needs to be where it is missing) through a lot of the issues that we face today, from racism to climate change, to biodiversity loss, to the rise of the far right.  And that thread is empathy and kindness.  If we can make links (or be helped to make links by sensitive newspaper and TV headlines) between these issues, then we will begin to see how all life is connected, and then we will be able to see why we need to make changes.  Such as eating less chicken, not because we want to tell you what you cannot have, but because we will lose all the rainforest animals of South America, insects to pollinate crops and eventually the ability to grow plants for food.  Because just preaching (or ranting as I tend to do...) about what we need to change does not help a lot of people to change, but if we explain why, in a kind and empathetic way, and we foster kindness and empathy in our youngest children, we will begin to build those links in the hearts and minds of greater numbers of people.  And that will be how we begin to make change happen. 

    Thank you to my friend whose t-shirt today at work said "kindness matters".  Because it does. 💚

    And thank you to Hannah who talks through all this hard stuff with me and helps me understand a bit better 💚





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