16
C H A N G E S TA R T S W I T H M E
The spring of 2016 was a particularly tense time, and it didn’t surprise me that students were acting out in their play some of what they were hearing in the media or during conversations between adults at home. Young children often act out social issues in their play to make sense of them. Modern interpretations of developmental theory tell us that play is the key method that children use to understand their world (Jones & Reynolds, 2011). It came out later that the student who talked about a war had meant for it to literally be a race, which made me wonder if he hadn’t heard words like presidential race and White House and—picking up on a general sense of tension and conflict, especially around race—conflated terms.
The parents of the Black children involved in the incident were concerned that the White parents would not talk about the incident with their children at home and that the children who chased their kids would not understand how dangerous and problematic is this type of play. They feared that these families would retreat into a silence that would cause further harm to their children.
Start the Conversation When racial incidents happen at your school, what can teachers do to facilitate conversations instead of staying silent? How can you support student understanding and growth, and how can you involve families in this learning in a way that will deepen understanding for all involved? Teachers should provide guidance for students to support them in moving through conflicts, and they should reach out to families in order to communicate about the incident and what the school will do to resolve it.
©️2022 by Solution Tree Press
In the aftermath of the event, families of color took a more proactive approach to addressing the issue than White families did. In response, the administration sent home an email describing how our teaching team had handled the incident: we held a community circle and addressed the dangers of targeted play and exclusion, reinforced the idea of allyship and safe play, and offered resources for parents to continue the discussion at home. The parents of the girls who had been chased, along with other parents of color, requested that the school schedule a mandatory meeting for all students’ parents and guardians to talk about what had happened and make sure it didn’t happen again. In contrast, several of the White parents did not feel the need for any further action. In fact, some said they had been too busy to read the email and felt assured that the school had handled it well.
