Daughters of (Re)Imagined Early Childhood Education

Reflective Narratives of Black Women Educators in Texas During Covid-19

Edited by:
Meghan L. Green, Erikson Institute

A volume in the series: Contemporary Perspectives on the Lives of Teachers. Editor(s): Carol R. Rinke, Marist College. Lynnette Mawhinney, Rutgers University-Newark.

The landscape of how to best prepare young Black children for the uncertainties of an inequitable American society demands a change in the way we view the connection between early childhood educators’ lived experiences and their pedagogy. Through witnessing the lives of six Black women early childhood educators in my community, I have learned that the niceties and colorblindness often found in early learning spaces are not the answer to achieving abolitionist educational goals. In this book, seven Black women early childhood educators teaching in north Texas during 2020-2022 reflect on the impact of the intersections of their identities on their unique ways of being and knowing.

This book highlights Black women educators’ experiences with personal transformation and growth throughout a tumultuous time in national and global history and connects these experiences to their pedagogical development as educators. The shifts in their perspectives over time were connected to key moments in their intersectional lives.

This edited volume of narratives is distinctive because it highlights the voices and experiences of Black women educators during the Covid-19 pandemic in a socio-political climate that provided unique challenges due to the anti-critical race theory legislation passed in the state of Texas between 2020 and 2022. This work centers educators’ narratives and encourages educational stakeholders to learn from the lived experiences of the women who were on the front lines in classrooms during crises of global health and racial injustice. This volume is of particular interest to early childhood educators, early childhood teacher educators, critical qualitative educational researchers, and narrative inquirers who are engaged in critically informed participatory action research methods. These narratives add to the literature on how the lived experiences of Black women educators are situated in the current socio-political climate. The stories offer early childhood stakeholders the opportunity to question what is and to dream about what could be.

CONTENTS
Preface, Meghan L. Green. Destiny Detours, Krystle Dior Armstrong. Letting Go to Grow, Bobbi S. Reagor-Marshall. Rock Steady, Meghan L. Green. Crossroads, Myah Breaux. Unsolicited Favor, Alexis Moore. Transitions, Carson Willis. A New Respect, Deidra Parker. Closing, Meghan L. Green.