Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/keeping-on/5023720/
A favorite poem of mine, “Love,” by May Sarton (1980), aptly voices what doing anti-bias education often feels like. It includes the lines:
“Spiders are patient weavers,
They never give up…
What keeps them at it?
Hunger, no doubt,
And hope.”
In this last article of the anti-bias education series, I share some reflections on what we need to do to keep spinning the web of anti-bias education, until it becomes a reality for all children.
Over the years, people have asked me “What drew you to ABE?” A good question, one that is useful for every anti-bias educator to ask themselves. For the second article in the Exchange ABE series (Derman-Sparks et al, 2016), I asked it of several current anti-bias educators and activists. The following themes emerged from their replies. Anti-bias education:
- Affirms and strengthens their understanding and belief in themselves.
- Illuminates their childhood and young adult experiences and motivates them to work with children in new ways.
- Offers a way to ensure that all children receive the best early childhood education.
- Connects to their social justice values and activism.
Themes three and four have been the primary motivators for my own anti-bias work, additionally fueled by great anger at the harm and pain to ...