Black skin,White theorists: Remembering hidden Black early childhood scholars

Abstract

As US schools become increasingly diverse, the population of teachers who serve them remains predominantly homogeneous. Teacher preparation programs must prepare pre-service teachers to draw from multicultural perspectives or multiple ways of knowing if they truly intend to cultivate effective culturally responsive educators. This article presents a clarion call for the remembering of hidden Black intellectual thoughts on early childhood, while reconceptualizing and expanding conceptions of foundational educational theorists in the field. The findings demonstrate that both the teacher educator and students developed and enhanced their cultural competence and critical consciousness.

Introduction

Foundational child psychological theories have influenced universalistic understandings of children’s learning and development in traditional educational spaces (Lewis and Taylor, 2019; Wilson and Peterson, 2006). For instance, educational professionals, like teachers, counselors, teacher educators, paraprofessionals, researchers, and administrators, who embrace constructivism believe that children construct knowledge through experience (Mills, 2007). This theoretical stance is sustained and reinforced institutionally, as educational professionals are formally trained and evaluated (Educational Testing Service, 2019) on their ability to apply foundational child psychological theories to evaluate all children and to justify their instructional decisions (Wilson and Peterson, 2006). A teacher may justify that an activity is developmentally appropriate because it caters to students in a particular stage according to constructivist theorist Jean Piaget (1952). However, this decision—based on conventional child psychological theories—fails to consider the influences of ethnicity, geography, racism, ableism, and sociopolitical traditions (Cannella, 2002; Lewis and Taylor, 2019). This limitation is a result of scholars’ attempts to interpret all children solely through White middle-class norms (Cannella, 2002).

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) acknowledged this failure following several rounds of solicited feedback on unpublished drafts of the developmentally appropriate practice position statement released in 2019. This draft statement highlighted the ways in which western epistemological perspectives have been privileged in dominant early childhood discourse (Farquhar and White, 2014). Moreover, the statement challenged universalistic views of child development, best practices (Bredekamp, 2014), and developmental appropriateness (Walsh, 1991) by recognizing the nuances of the various contexts that shape each child’s ways of being. Best practices are approaches that are accepted or prescribed through dominant discourse as being correct or most effective for all children (Bredekamp, 2014). Unlike conventional theories, the NAEYC’s position statement is inclusive of multi-ethnic perspectives, which provides a deeper context to what is known as child development.

While the NAEYC’s efforts should be applauded, more work is required in the field since “all over the world, African worldviews and epistemologies have been and are currently being overlooked, undervalued, and delegitimized” (Boutte et al., 2017: 66). The exclusion of perspectives of scholars from traditionally marginalized groups reifies White supremacy because only White middle-class values and perspectives are propagated, institutionalized, and normalized as the official knowledge throughout US schooling (Kincheloe, 2008). This normalization is also maintained in higher education spaces. Mills (2007: 99) reports that: “At most universities and colleges, a form of constructivism based on child psychological theories dominates the stage as the official knowledge pre-service early childhood teachers must know to be proclaimed competent.” This form of institutionalized racism is inherent in most teacher preparation programs, where White supremacist conceptions of knowledge are privileged and non-White perspectives are delegitimized. In essence, non-White teachers must face cultural genocide (Love, 2019) to be deemed competent to teach. In my case, as symbolic in the title of this article—“Black skin, White theorists—I had to analyze my own early childhood development in my Black skin through a White theoretical lens to be deemed competent to teach.

In this article, I make the case for remembering the work of hidden Black scholars who have studied Black early childhood or, in other terms, growing up while Black (Tucker et al., 2010). I make this case as an act of epistemic decolonization (Mungwini et al., 2019) to resist and challenge what is deemed official knowledge. This work challenges universalistic interpretations of childhood by centering Black intellectual thought to situate early childhood in the context of Black communities (Foster, 1994; Hinitz, 2013). Without epistemic decolonization, mainstream interpretations of Black children will continue to amplify their deficits rather than accentuating their “cognitive, academic, psychological, physical, and social skills/competencies” (Wright and Counsell, 2018: 5).

The term “Black early childhood” is not intended to essentialize all Black children as monolithic but to underscore unique and shared experiences, such as African diasporic connections (Boutte, 2016) and direct or indirect encounters with racism on various levels, which should also be viewed from an Afrocentric perspective. Black early childhood experiences are essential because Black children are oftentimes analyzed and portrayed in dominant discourse without historical and sociopolitical contextualization. I begin by highlighting schooling experiences that shaped this work. Second, I use critical race theory as a theoretical frame to make a case for Black intellectual thought (Grant et al., 2015) on Black early childhood studies. Third, I share and discuss a sample of student reflections to contextualize the need to dismantle conventional conceptions of child development.

Tensions with the textbook

As a Black male teacher educator, I am critical of the texts I use for my courses because I am conscious of how dominant discourse has historically privileged White scholarly perspectives. These perspectives have also been applied to interpret and theorize Black experiences (Cooper, 2017; Gordon, 2007; Grant et al., 2015). Consequently, people of color become victims of epistemic colonization when our experiences are only legitimized through White theorizing (Cooper, 2017; Gordon, 2007). In other terms, the realities of Black children/people are often interpreted and legitimized in academia when told by White scholars. However, most textbooks and curricula fail to highlight that “[t]raditional notions of quality in early childhood education [and development] are exclusionary, rooted in White monolingual and monocultural values and experiences, and apply deficit paradigms to frame the developmental trajectories of multiple minoritized children” (Souto-Manning and Rabadi-Raol, 2018: 204). Therefore, I resisted reinforcing the status quo by refusing to adopt texts that excluded the voices of those who have been traditionally marginalized. My first priority was to evaluate all the required texts for the child development course I inherited. Initially, I was ecstatic to encounter a brief section during my textbook evaluation that mentioned contributions of “African American early childhood leaders” (Bredekamp, 2014: 58). This would have been my first encounter with a teacher education textbook that included the work of Black scholars. However, on reading the statement that follows, I had concerns. Bredekamp admitted:

the previous discussion is dominated by white European Americans because they were the individuals with the most power in the society and their work is most often included in the “official” written history of the field . . . That history is less well known primarily because historical sources are scarce, but also because there is a strong oral rather than written tradition in these communities. (Bredekamp, 2014: 58)

I immediately questioned the scarcity of Black historical sources. I interrogated the willingness of the textbook’s author to elicit oral histories as historical sources. I also interrogated how the horrific nature of power was glossed over without discussions regarding how racism fueled the scarcity of such sources. I was troubled by the author’s failure to acknowledge that European Americans are still “the individuals with the most power in the society.” Bredekamp neglected to name racism and the influence it has had on the early childhood field—more specifically, its impact on Black children. Additionally, the textbook layout relegated the work of Black scholars to a brief supplemental section that is not assessed in the chapter quiz. The textbook layout appended Black scholarship to the back of the chapter—a place where Black people have been historically forced to sit and enter (from the back). This experience compelled me to seek and embed the hidden scholarship of Black early childhood scholars in my course rather than using it as a supplement.

The notion of Black early childhood theories is not intended to essentialize Black children or to embrace conventional child development conceptions of children traversing through stages according to their ages. This work is intended to highlight and give respectability (Cooper, 2017) to Black intellectual thoughts that explore multiple ways of knowing and being a Black child through a Black lens. I was inspired by the work of Carter G. Woodson (1935: 32), which stated: “The education of any people begins with the people themselves.” I had to liberate myself as a Black male educator before stepping into the classroom. I realized that my failure to stimulate my pre-service teachers’ cultural competence and critical consciousness (Ladson-Billings, 2017) could perpetuate what Woodson (1935) referred to as The Mis-education of the Negro, by sustaining White supremacy and promoting assimilation through my curriculum. Therefore, I began to dig for literature written by Black scholars on their perspectives on Black early childhood to counter mainstream early childhood theories and perspectives that pre-service teachers are held accountable for learning institutionally (Kincheloe, 2008).

How can we explain why behavioral scientists who write books on teacher education also avoid issues of racism and group oppression? . . . This failure remains symptomatic of the inability of educators to deal with substantive and sensitive root problems associated with privilege and oppression in education. (Hilliard, 1995: 153)

Twenty-five years on, Hilliard’s (1995) work is still relevant because widely adopted, promoted, and, in many cases, mandated curricula, textbooks, and teacher licensure tests still exclude the pedagogical and theoretical contributions of people of color (Hinitz, 2013; Love, 2019). Therefore, I applied critical race theory to examine the privileging of foundational theorists as contributors to the “root problems associated with privilege and oppression in education.”

As a victim of miseducation (King and Swartz, 2014; Woodson, 1935), I did not always possess the lexicon to name my realities. Earlier in my teacher education process, I passively embraced the work of all foundational theorists without critique. For instance, I never learned about common principles of African systems of education and socialization, such as separation, observing nature, peership, rejection of childhood, and listening to elders, which offer an African perspective on early childhood (Hilliard, 1995). However, I became aware of this knowledge as I began to “change, raise consciousness, interrupt, educate, take a stand, question, and reframe” (Harro, 2000: 464). I used critical race theory to begin this process as I challenged the status quo. This process inspired me to courageously dare to question foundational educational theorists—for whom? By whom?

Critical race theory

The title of this article is inspired by the seminal work of Frantz Fanon (1952), Black Skin, White Masks. In his book written in French, Fanon applied psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic theories to examine the Black psyche in a White world, nearly 50 years after WEB Du Bois’s (1903) concept of “double consciousness.” Fanon articulated the cognitive tensions of embodying the dual identity of being Black while assimilating to White cultural norms (e.g. language) in France. This phenomenon was not unique to the USA at the time because it also existed in other countries. Unfortunately, educational professionals cannot draw from conventional theories to understand the global phenomenon of double consciousness in early childhood educational contexts (Broughton, 2019). As a result, many educational professionals may be unaware of how the intersectionality of race, gender, class, and other aspects shapes their lives or their students’ realities. Moreover, many educational professionals may not have experienced double consciousness, and those who have may not understand it sufficiently to conceptualize how it may influence their classroom climate (Broughton, 2019).

Oppositional in nature, critical race theory is a theoretical tool that exposes how White supremacist ontologies operate to oppress and disempower people of color (Delgado and Stefancic, 2017). It provides support in analyzing how Whiteness is normalized as what constitutes the standard or what is deemed acceptable or normal (Delgado and Stefancic, 2013). Critical race theory was applied in this work to critique the ways in which curricular practices and assessments—which are influenced by theory—maintain White supremacy on various levels (Solorzano and Yosso, 2001). Educational institutions have policies, practices, curricula, and assessments that are embedded in racist ideologies (Emdin, 2016; Kincheloe, 2008; Love, 2019; Paris 2012). For instance, the persistent and disproportionate suspensions and expulsions of Black children in early and kindergarten–grade 12 educational settings that are devoid of culturally sustaining pedagogies are indicative that racist philosophies, policies, and practices undergird the US education system (Love, 2019).

Since dominant discourse has traditionally illuminated and attributed the perceived deficiencies of Black and Brown children and their families to academic underperformance, poverty, and crime (Boutte et al., 2017; Wright and Counsell, 2018), critical race theory was a necessary theoretical framework for examining the issues of race raised in this article. I mention dominant discourse throughout this article to highlight the ways it normalizes, perpetuates, and disseminates White power and privilege through literature (Kincheloe, 2008). I employed counter-storytelling as a critical race theoretical tool to interrupt racial oppression by naming my reality (Delgado and Stefancic, 2013) to challenge issues of social inequities through my work.

The work of critical race theory scholars provided me with access to a lexicon that cultivated my confidence to finally confront the ways institutionalized racism is reinforced by a perceived consensus about child development (Walsh, 1991). I am also empowered to interrogate who determines who is deemed a prominent theorist. I employ autoethnography to counternarrate and contextualize my work by situating myself in my research (Chang, 2008). I use the word “my” to tell my story and claim my work as I continue to cope with the historical distortion, omission, destruction, and manipulation of Black intellectual thought (Cooper, 2017; Grant et al., 2015; King and Swartz, 2014). The African proverb “Until the lions tell their story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter” reminds me that “there is much power in who is telling a story and from what perspective they are telling it” (Broughton, 2019: 2). Therefore, I seek to remember by “recovering history by putting back together the multiple and shared knowledge bases and experiences that shaped the past” (King and Swartz, 2014: xiii). The process of re-remembering the contributions of many Black scholars to the field of early childhood was a daunting task because their work is hidden and absent from official knowledge (Apple, 2014). I pluralize knowledge in this article to draw on collective knowledges or multiple truths, rather than the universal truths (Kincheloe, 2008) typically endorsed through conventional theories.

Evangeline Ward, the first Black president of the NAEYC, contended that “literature does not speak or refer to the pioneering effects of African-Americans as they have fought, struggled and succeeded in the field of Early Childhood Education” (Hinitz, 2013: 144). As a result, many educational professionals were not exposed to literature that spoke to the “pioneering effects” of African American early childhood scholars. Unfortunately, pre-service teachers will be underprepared (Gay, 2002) and White supremacy will be sustained if they are only exposed to the “pioneering effects” of White early childhood scholars. Critical race theory legitimizes experiential knowledge and provides a framework that justifies the need for Black intellectual thought in traditional Whites-only intellectual spaces (Kincheloe, 2008).

Wilson (1978: 8) contended that the omission of theories of Black early childhood “has been the greatest failure of American developmental, educational, and clinical psychology.” Some scholars may agree with this claim because of the intended or unintended consequences that stem from drawing from solely western epistemological views. For instance, prominent educational figures such as Edward Thorndike and G Stanley supported the usage of IQ tests to falsely prove Black people as intellectually inferior (Hilliard, 1995; Woodson, 1935). In spite of their racist history, most educational professionals still draw from their epistemological views using IQ tests (i.e. praxis tests, public school testing) to measure learning and a person’s competency to teach. Instead, scholars could draw from relational cognitive styles which provide a space for intelligence to be demonstrated through other mediums, such as performing arts (Boutte, 2016). Many scholars and culturally responsive educators have highlighted the biases of standardized tests, reporting that children know more than test data reflects (Long et al., 2018; Ladson-Billings, 2017; Mills, 2005). Critical race theory illuminates how many educational professionals still embrace deficit theoretical frameworks (Wright and Counsell, 2018), which results in silencing the brilliance of Black children, who are alienated in educational spaces that ban intelligence when it manifests in non-European ways (e.g. hip-hop pedagogy/play; see Broughton, 2019; Emdin, 2016; Hill, 2009). As a result, students of color continue to be impaired by the implicit biases of educational professionals.

Impaired by implicit biases

Growing up Black presents unique early childhood experiences, circumstances, and challenges (e.g. racism, oppression) that are oftentimes not accurately conveyed from the etic perspectives applied in conventional educational theories through dominant educational discourses (David, 1992; Tucker et al., 2010). Black and Brown children are at a disadvantage when they are studied and interpreted solely from etic perspectives. From an etic perspective, scholars are outsiders looking into a culture, making meaning of what they think they see. Consequently, research is devoid of experiential and heritage knowledge (King and Swartz, 2014) that could provide researchers with context and depth. Without counternarratives to dominant discourse, deficit paradigms will perpetually shape the implicit biases of educational professionals (Wright and Counsell, 2018).

Hale-Benson (1986) cautioned that teachers must conceptualize the cultural contexts of Black children’s behavior before they can truly interpret their behavior. Educational professionals still run the risk of misinterpreting, mislabeling (Eide and Eide, 2006; Levy, 2018), inappropriately disciplining (Noguera, 2008), and consequently miseducating students when they fail to conceptualize the cultural context of children’s behavior through an indigenous lens (Hilliard, 1995; Wright and Counsell, 2018). Implicit biases shape how educational professionals perceive and respond to children and members of their communities. For instance, scholars (Emdin, 2016; Wright and Counsell, 2018) found that educational professionals who predicted that Black children would be disrespectful, defiant, and dumb, with a dim future, tended to monitor them more closely, treating them according to their stereotypes. Black children’s melanin is thereby weaponized and used to criminalize them, contributing to a national crisis—the preschool-to-prison pipeline (Adamu and Hogan, 2015; Gilliam, 2005; Noguero, 2008; Tucker et al., 2010; Wright and Counsell, 2018). On the one hand, Black children are portrayed by some teachers as troublemakers (Boutte, 2016; Wright and Counsell, 2018); on the other, they are portrayed as brilliant and gifted by culturally responsive educators (Boutte, 2016; Hale-Benson, 1986; Paris, 2012; Wright and Counsell, 2018). Hale-Benson’s (1986) work remains relevant in a field that still ignores the contributions of African American leaders and applies conventional child development theories to all children (Lewis and Taylor, 2019), rather than drawing from multiple disciplines to inform its work.

“Race-centered violence kills Black children on a daily basis by either murdering them in the streets—taking their bodies, or murdering their spirits—taking their souls” (Love, 2016: 6). There are countless stories of Black children being told implicitly or explicitly that they are insufficient and incapable of learning (Boutte, 2016; Broughton, 2019; Emdin, 2016). Although words hurt, there are children like six-year-old Salecia Johnson, who experienced spirit-murdering (Love, 2016: 2) beyond words when she was handcuffed in school and taken into police custody. This has detrimental implications in a society where unarmed Black and Brown people (including children) are murdered at the hands of police officers and spirit-murdered at the hands of educational professionals who lack cross-cultural competence (Love, 2016). To make matters worse, there are also children like four-year-old Dae’Anna Reynolds, who witnessed a police officer shoot her mother’s boyfriend, Philando Castile, during a traffic stop. What conventional theories do educational professionals draw from to make meaning of these realities of Black children? Are there early childhood theories that speak to these experiences?

Since conventional theories avoid race identity and multicultural insight, educational professionals may not fully understand their role in spirit-murdering (Love, 2016: 2) and how their learning spaces could be toxic (Emdin, 2016). Many educational professionals lack cross-cultural competence, which is the knowledge, skills, and abilities (Ladson-Billings, 2006; Matsumoto and Hwang, 2013; Paris, 2012) that support “informed empathy” (King, 2015: 258). Informed empathy is “an understanding of the effects of white supremacy/racism on themselves as well as on diverse others” (King, 2015: 258). At the root of educational professionals’ lack of cross-cultural competence is a deficiency of cultural knowledge regarding their students (Hale-Benson, 1986; Hilliard, 1995). For instance, Boykin (1994) found key distinctions in Black culture referred to as dimensions, while Hale-Benson (1986) found that Black children possess an affective orientation, with more proficiency in non-verbal communication. I have not encountered either of their work throughout my schooling, which could have shaped how I analyzed my own childhood experiences and the experiences of others growing up Black. Thus, I share my story to demonstrate how many educational professionals maintained White supremacy through my schooling (Boutte, 2016). I also share how I have taken on an abolitionist approach (Love, 2019) to boldly resist oppression through this work by calling for the respectability (Cooper, 2017) of the scholarship of hidden Black early childhood scholars. This type of work is risky, but I am willing to take small and big risks in the collective fight for liberation. Love’s conception of abolitionist teaching best describes my work:

Abolitionist teaching is not a teaching approach: It is a way of life, a way of seeing the world, and a way of taking action against injustice. It seeks to resist, agitate, and tear down the educational survival complex through teachers who work in solidarity with their schools’ community to achieve incremental changes in their classroom and school for students in the present day, while simultaneously freedom dreaming and vigorously creating a vision for what school will be when the educational survival complex is destroyed. (Love, 2109: 89)

My story

My experiences have shaped my indomitable spirit to fight relentlessly to uplift humanity through my decisions as an educator. This is the ultimate goal of abolitionist teaching (Love, 2019). Abolitionist teaching has become a way of life (Love, 2019) as a Black male teacher educator at a historically Black college and university in the south-east of the USA. My students embrace me as a father figure or an elder in the African tradition. Students refer to me as pops, dad, or doc. These terms of endearment inspired me to take full ownership of ensuring that I “provide opportunities for Black students to learn about their culture in a positive and substantive way” (Boutte, 2016: 63). I wanted to provide my students with experiences and information that were not provided to me. Throughout my schooling, the nature of Eurocentric curricula (Delpit, 2006) always puzzled me, but I was unable to name my emotions and internal discrepancies. I pondered on why I only saw myself reflected in the curriculum during February—Black History Month. I also pondered on why the contributions of Black people were not embedded in the curriculum. Textbooks led me to believe that my cultural heritage began with slavery, until Abraham Lincoln freed the enslaved Africans. The textbooks also led me to believe that my cultural heritage ended with the civil rights movement and that racism was over. Later on, I was encouraged to enroll in a high school course that was designed to recruit students into the teaching profession, where I learned about educational theorists like Piaget and Vygotsky, and the work of other White men. I was appalled that Mary McLeod Bethune, WEB Du Bois, and Booker T Washington were excluded from the list of educational theorists, even though their works earned respectability (Cooper, 2017) during Black History Month.

I did not interrogate the curriculum flaw because I believed that the omission was normal. Again, I did not possess the language to name my experiences internalizing racialized master scripts that positioned the epistemologies and experiences of White people at the forefront of the curriculum (Kincheloe, 2008). Thankfully, my grandmother shared stories of several educators in my family who were highly revered in my community for their effective culturally responsive approaches (Broughton, 2019; Foster, 1994; Long et al., 2016). These stories empowered me to recognize my responsibility to uphold our cultural legacy in spite of the oppressive nature of the curriculum.

I was revisited by the works of Piaget, Vygotsky, and others later on during initial coursework in my teacher education program. I learned that I would be tested on my ability to apply the theories of foundational educational theorists to classroom scenarios and child development case studies. Although Du Bois and other Black perspectives on education came to mind, the bulletin provided by Educational Testing Service (2019) and the content provided by course textbooks reminded me that Black perspectives did not matter. A conversation with my professor further reminded me of how I was a victim of cultural genocide, which results in people relinquishing their cultural values and practices as a mode of survival (Love, 2019). My professor cautioned me prior to my test: “If you don’t think White, you won’t get the answers right. Those certification test companies couldn’t care less about what Black people think.” I conformed to the ideologies of the White theorists and applied their theories to my Black skin without question. I metaphorically wore a White mask and thought like a White theorist during my test date. I took my professor’s advice, used her survival tactic, and she was correct. I earned my teaching license as a result of my assimilation. Later on, while pursuing my doctoral studies, I became liberated on reading the following words in a required text: “Indeed, a significant portion of [Du Bois’s] scholarly work was produced before the development of critical theory . . . The extensive and prescient work of Du Bois on education alone places him in the position of forerunner of critical pedagogy” (Kincheloe, 2008: 60). At last, I felt affirmed that a Black scholar’s work was respected as official knowledge. I was grateful that Du Bois was credited for his foundational contribution to critical pedagogy. His work helped me to contextualize my realities in a broader historical context. These experiences inform my work.

The superhero dilemma: digging for our voices

Preparing my students for teacher licensure examinations while exposing them to Black intellectual thoughts was challenging. Although this work was challenging, a discrepancy brought forth by a Black male student in my child development course reified my work. One day, as the class continued discussing Piaget’s (1952) preoperational stage/pretend play, one of my students asserted:

I hear what you’re saying about this theory and stuff, but I feel like these theories don’t speak to the real experiences of Black children. Yesterday, while my cousin was playing a game, he created a game called “superhero hide-and-seek” with his neighbors. Before the game started, each of the five children (three African American boys, two White American boys) selected a superhero character. Superman, Spiderman, Iron Man, Ninja Turtle were selected; and when it became my cousin’s turn, he said: “I’m the Black Panther ’cause I’m Black!” I was shocked first at the fact that he included that he was “Black,” but even more shocked that he relinquished his role as an avid Spiderman fan to become the “Black Panther.” At the age of six years old, race entered pretend play. No offense, but how do these theories address this?

I responded to my student by acknowledging that I did not have all of the answers. I invited all of the students to join me in initiating the remembering process (King and Swartz, 2014). I ended the class shortly thereafter because I could no longer mask the emotional impact his question ignited, which made me deal with my truth. The impact of institutionalized racism was wearing me down. My student’s query—“No offense, but how do these theories address this?”—offended and troubled me to regain and reclaim the courage and audacity to continue interrogating official knowledge, in spite of the pressures of the system to maintain White supremacy. His query troubled me to be more aggressive in supporting my students in rejecting the distorted and limited interpretations of Black early childhood which textbook authors, researchers, workshop experts, and teacher colleagues purported. Consequently, I took on an abolitionist mindset (Love, 2019) by digging up (Schomburg, 1992) the work of Black scholars who would provide me with the insight I needed to affirm my cultural heritage. This search process could provide my students and me with access to funds of knowledge (González et al., 2005) to build our cultural competence. I was yet again inspired by the African proverb “Until the lions tell their story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” Therefore, I began the process of remembering history to fight the hunter with counternarratives with the support of eight pre-service teachers (five African American males and three African American females).

Digging through inquiry circles

Eight pre-service teachers, including the student who raised the inquiry, created inquiry circles for students who were interested in voluntarily engaging in deeper and longer discussions regarding the scholarship I encountered beyond class time. The pre-service teachers and I met twice a week for approximately three hours for four months. I spoke with elders and searched Google and scholarly databases using terms like “Black child development,” “Black child psychology,” and “Black educational theorists.” I also plundered the references of scholarship I found, which directed me to other publications. I consulted with Black scholars and Black community members, who shared literature and oral stories with me. After days of searching, I discovered the work of Wilson (1978). I was also given the work of Hale-Benson (1986) by a mentor. I was inspired by Woodson’s (1935: 28) belief that “[e]ducators must be inspirational and not just impart information,” and so wanted my students to partner with me in the learning process.

The students and I read articles and journaled to process our thoughts. We reflected, re-examined, and revisited discrepancies or dilemmas of our past. We began by revisiting and analyzing the “superhero dilemma” that was raised in class. Given the space limitations, I am unable to forge my entire experience into the context of this article. Therefore, I share a few reflections, excluding names, with the permission of my students to demonstrate the power of counternarratives and culturally affirming works when scholars are given the respectability they have earned (Cooper, 2017).

Reconciling with “double-conscious play”: “I’m the Black Panther ’cause I’m Black!”

Wilson (1978: 6) contended that “[t]he mental and physical developmental patterns of the White middle class child have become the optimal standard by which the black child is measured.” Wilson’s (1978) work helped us to examine one of our unique experiences with play as Black children. Play is an essential aspect of child development, as it is a child’s way of making meaning of their reality (Broughton, 2019). Fantasizing and constructive play are two forms of preschool play that Wilson (1978) believed could hinder or facilitate a child’s future. Wilson’s work helped us to identify Du Bois’s (1903) concept of “double consciousness”—which Fanon (1952) also articulated in the context of children’s play. We credit Wilson (1978: 105) for terming this experience “schizoid play,” where a Black child embodies a Black–White personality as they strive to imitate a character or image that does not reflect their identity. However, we do not embrace the term “schizoid” as an internal mental dis/ability, but rather as a reaction to a sociocultural circumstance that the child has been placed in (Annamma et al., 2017). Instead, we describe this phenomenon as “double-conscious play.” A child is engaged in double-conscious play when assimilating to the identity of their desired character. Hale-Benson (1986: 62) also referred to this phenomenon as the “duality of socialization.” Wilson (1978) also identified “frustrated play” as the frustration Black children experience as a result of a child’s realization that their heroic or imitable images in their imagination do not reflect their cultural identity. If the child cannot find a suitable substitute that reflects their identity, they may become frustrated.

“I’m the Black Panther ’cause I’m Black!” was proclaimed by a child named Sam who no longer had to assimilate to the identity of a White character because he identified a Black character that mirrored his racial identity. Although Sam is not exempt from continued double-conscious play, he experienced a sense of self-gratification when he became the Black Panther. This culturally affirming experience was essential to his positive self-identity. As Black children, many of us experienced double-conscious play but were probably not able to name it. Some educational professionals may be unaware of double-conscious-play experiences. This understanding may inform educational professionals’ cultural competence to better understand and support Black children as they strive to thrive in a world where Whiteness is situated as the norm (Kincheloe, 2008).

The pre-service teachers explored the work of Black social psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Phipps Clark (1939), who studied children’s racial attitudes and skin-tone preferences. Clark and Clark (1947) challenged the Supreme Court’s “separate but equal” concept of public schools as constitutional (Plessy versus Ferguson, 1896). Clark and Clark (1947) used a study which concluded that racism had a traumatic impact on children’s self-concept development. This study is relevant because children still form positive and negative biases about themselves and others from birth (Long et al., 2018). In fact, some children may develop racist views as early as preschool (Long et al., 2018; CNN, 2010). “By preschool years, children’s comments [already] reveal misinformation about other racial groups” (Derman-Sparks and Ramsey, 2006: 51). As a result of these findings and our discussions, the group of pre-service teachers purchased Black Panther movie cast figurines, dolls, posters, and books for children in local classrooms in an attempt to decrease the likelihood of children engaging in frustrated play (Wilson, 1978). Children must develop what Hale-Benson (1986) referred to as “self-concept development,” where they see beauty in their ethnicity and in the ethnicities of others. The findings of this study still ring true. Therefore, educational professionals and communities still hold an ethical responsibility to combat racism (Love, 2019).

“They were at risk of failing me”: understanding home context

Initially, the conversations amongst the students regarding socio-economic status and teachers’ perceptions of children who were labeled “at risk” seemed simplistic on the surface level. However, we noticed the multidimensionality and intersectionality of race relations and child development as we delved deeper in these conversations using the knowledge gleaned from the perspectives of Black scholars. The following pre-service teacher’s reflection was ignited after discussing Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory and using the work of Bowman (1994) to reconceptualize what some educational professionals labeled as at-risk students. Our conversations helped us to analyze our past to provide recommendations moving forward. A Black male pre-service teacher reflected:

They think these children are dumb and slow because they come from the hood. They labeled me as “at risk” and made me feel like I was behind or something. I remember my teacher never called on me to ask questions or help out in the class. She told me to sit down and keep my mouth closed. I didn’t talk much in class because I feared getting in trouble. I’d be so more far advanced if my teachers actually believed that I was brilliant. I had ideas and questions but they thought I was just a troublemaker. My teachers finally found out that I was a genius after my church made me do a speech at our community festival, which made the news. My teachers were saying how good of a job I did and how they didn’t know I could speak so well. So yeah, they thought I was “at risk” but they were at risk of failing as teachers because they almost misdiagnosed me. I could’ve been scarred for life because of them.

Unfortunately, many educational professionals who view all children who come from low-income socio-economic backgrounds as at risk have low expectations for them when they do not assimilate to White middle-class norms (Bowman, 1994; Wright and Counsell, 2018). However, Bowman (1994) cautioned us that risks should not be used to predict development or developmental status. A child’s present circumstance may influence their development but it does not dictate their future. Bowman (1994: 10) contended that “unless we speak out about the relationship between culture, development, and education, we cannot hope to provide the kind of schooling needed to carry us safely into the 21st century.” The cycle of oppression (Harro, 2000) must also be discussed in order to explore how systems operate to perpetuate and sustain those risks, rather than victimizing children and their families (Reeves, 2001). Otherwise, educational professionals will continue to overlook the impact of institutionalized racism on marginalized communities. Consequently, many educational professionals will continue to victimize children of color because they conceptually blend socio-economic status and culture, which informs implicit biases (Wright and Counsell, 2018). Bowman (1994) and Hale-Benson (1986) encouraged us to contextualize child development because it affords us another dimension or perspective to learn about the child and their family. It is imperative that all educational professionals—regardless of race—embrace the notion that children and their communities are not monolithic, although they may share common experiences (Boutte, 2016).

Conclusion and implications

Teacher educators and other educational professionals who are truly committed to decolonizing the field of education “create space for dialogue” (Howard, 2014: 107) to raise critical questions that expose color evasiveness (Annamma et al., 2017). This work commences by problematizing issues of power. In such spaces, teacher educators begin to interrogate who gets to define foundational theorists. Teacher educators who engage in praxis are critical of the ways the status quo is maintained—even by critiquing textbooks that oftentimes present “what people hold most dear and what society recognizes as legitimate and truthful” (Apple, 2014: 49). As explored early on in this article, teacher educators must develop critical consciousness to remain vigilant of the ways they could be maintaining the status quo and unknowingly perpetuating White supremacy through their curriculum. The participant’s narrative regarding his teachers misdiagnosing him is a reminder that educational professionals run the risk of misinterpreting, mislabeling, inappropriately disciplining, and, consequently, miseducating students when they fail to conceptualize the cultural context of children’s behavior through a multicultural or indigenous lens (Hilliard, 1995; Wright and Counsell, 2018). The blatant exclusion of Black scholars’ contributions to the field of education throughout school curricula, dominant discourse, and teacher licensure examinations is indicative that White supremacy is normalized in the US education system. Therefore, scholars must continue to curate and publish critical and accessible scholarship that centers multiethnic and indigenous knowledges in order to provide perspectives that could shape educational professionals’ cultural competence and critical consciousness.

The focus on reclaiming Black intellectual thoughts on early childhood is not to suggest that only Black perspectives matter, but to amplify that Black people (including children) continue to be misunderstood, misperceived, miseducated, misdiagnosed, mistreated, and murdered by people who possess the power and privilege to eradicate, omit, and distort our cultural legacies through the US education system. Therefore, I call for the remembering and centering of the work of scholars like Oneida Cockrell, Lulu Sadler Craig, Amos N Wilson, Gayle Cunningham, Edward M Greene, Kenneth and Mamie Phipps Clark, Beverly Tatum, Inez Beverly Prosser, Bernese Walker Brunson, Frances Brock Starms, Janice Hale-Benson, Jerlean E Daniel, Diana T Slaughter-Defoe, Asa Grant Hilliard III, Barbara Bowman, Carol Brunson Day, Na’im Akbar, Evangeline Ward, Barbara Ferguson Kamara, Jean E van Keulen, Gina Barclay-McLaughlin, Burma Dean Weekley, Randy Story, Maurice R Sykes, Jean Monroe, Sarah Greene, Dwayne A Crompton, Maryann Cornish . . . the list goes on and on. I speak their names and the many names of other hidden figures whose works are omitted from dominant discourse. I speak their names to honor their contributions to the field of education. I charge elders to continue telling our stories so that rising scholars, pre-service teachers, and educators will know their intellectual lineage and be armed with the knowledge to pass down the legacy. This body of work is essential for sustaining heritage knowledge to build educational professionals’ cultural competence. The Hidden History of Early Childhood Education, by Blythe Farb Hinitz (2013), is an example of the type of work that must be sustained and proliferated throughout all teacher education curricula.

In this article, I have also discussed my experience analyzing my own early childhood development through a White theoretical lens. My story is an exemplar of the many ways White supremacy is maintained through cultural genocide (Love, 2019) and color evasiveness (Annamma et al., 2017). I did not see myself reflected in textbooks or teacher licensure examinations during my teacher education process. Black teachers who are miseducated reinforce and maintain White supremacy through their curricula while contributing to their own cultural genocide. It is insufficient and counterproductive to continuously discuss inequities without praxis—reflection and action (Freire, 1970). Therefore, in the spirit of abolitionist teaching (Love, 2019), there must be a collective demand for change that confronts cultural genocide (Love, 2019) and color evasiveness (Annamma et al., 2017). Thus, federal and state departments of education, policymakers, and key educational decision-makers must establish policies and regulations that require all educational professionals to successfully complete coursework on culturally sustaining pedagogies, critical race theory, diaspora literacy, and race and ethnic relations. The required coursework should include immersion experiences in diverse settings where educational professionals are supervised by critical scholars. Pre-service teachers should also be required to complete such coursework and demonstrate cultural competence prior to receiving their teaching license. These experiences should support educational professionals in understanding how instructional decisions can create oppressive learning environments for children. Such coursework must be underpinned by frameworks that advocate for the normalization of centering multicultural/indigenous perspectives and ways of knowing and being in our diverse world. Failure to make such changes is a demonstration of the blatant color evasiveness (Annamma et al., 2017) that is inherent in the US education system, where decision-makers still design and select curricula that are devoid of the work of scholars like Kenneth and Mamie Phipps Clark (1939), in spite of their instrumental contributions to school desegregation.

As articulated in this article, Black and Brown children are still spirit-murdered at the hands of educational professionals who have passed teacher licensure requirements but lack cross-cultural competence (Love, 2016) to support children in thriving. Standardized tests reinforce White cultural knowledge, thus, by design, “positioning students of color as inferior and reproducing racism through differential access to post-educational opportunities” (Annamma et al., 2017: 6). For instance, although there has been a national teacher shortage since I entered the teaching profession, many of my classmates who desired to be teachers had their spirits murdered (Love, 2019) when they were unable to heed my former professor’s recommendation to “think White” to “get the answers right” in tests that positioned them as inferior by design. Therefore, policymakers should confront rather than evade discussions regarding the racist history of IQ tests (i.e. praxis tests, public school testing) to measure learning, and reconsider their role in the field of education. Considering this change will be incremental, in the meantime, policymakers must require teaching-force gatekeepers, such as Educational Testing Service and textbook publishers, to re-examine their test biases (Goings and Bianco, 2016) and reconsider their test content, format, and purpose (Goldhaber, 2010). This process should commence with policymakers, educational leaders, and test designers gleaning insight from the work of Black scholars and rethinking who gets to determine who is deemed to be a prominent theorist and why.

Finally, I intend for this work to encourage reflexivity (Kincheloe, 2008) in order to produce more counternarratives that contextualize the dire need for educational professionals and policymakers to decolonize the field of education, if they are truly committed to equity as portrayed in mission statements, slogans, and mottos. The continued and deliberate silencing and exclusion of hidden figures in educational discourse is a reminder that the scholarship and experiential knowledge of Black lives continues not to matter. However, change begins with refusing only to view early childhood through a White lens and using, instead, a kaleidoscopic lens. As the findings indicate, educational professionals can more accurately understand all children growing up in a racialized society and avoid pathologizing Black children in particular when using theories developed by Black scholars. Black scholars offered the participants counterstories to mainstream discourse, which expanded their conceptualizations of early childhood. The findings also indicate that theories developed by Black scholars liberated and shaped the cultural competence of the pre-service teachers.

Educational professionals and community members must be relentless in collectively demanding epistemic decolonization and culturally sustaining pedagogies as a starting point for the greater work that lies ahead. Again, “unless we speak out about the relationship between culture, development, and education, we cannot hope to provide the kind of schooling needed to carry us safely into the 21st century” (Bowman, 1994: 10). Twenty-six years later, we are still holding onto Bowman’s (1994) hope while resisting being subjected to wearing White masks to demonstrate our competence to teach in our Black skin.