Thu, 07/6/2017
Recently, National Head Start Association Chairman Damon Carson wrote a commentary for the Region 9 Head Start Association about a vivid documentary that detailed how Head Start formed the early lives of the leaders of the Girl Scouts of America, the Ford Foundation and the NAACP. What came zinging through their stories was how much as young people they cherished their Head Start experience and, later, the memories of that experience.
We all know how impressionable children are. Early positive and fun experiences are relished for a lifetime. That’s why from all across the country, educators, doctors, lawyers, military personnel, artists, engineers, religious and civic leaders, and scientists—and even members of Congress—remember Head Start as the place where, at an early age, they acquired a life-long love of learning.
So—if children remember their positive experiences, they will also remember the negative ones, as well. And that’s what I want to write about this month: The need to keep our Head Start classrooms joyful places to learn—and a subtlety that threatens this.
New research from the Yale Child Study Center finds that when pre-school teachers expect disruptive behavior from children, they look at the child’s race. Basically, the research showed that the teachers in the study expect black boys to act worse in...
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Categories: General Tags: Implicit Bias, National Head Start, Research
