Civil Rights discussion with preschoolers

I may be in the minority on this but here goes anyway. I think that a basic discussion about the fact that these things existed in the past is something that is ok to do with preschoolers. I look at these kind of things as ongoing dialogues. I believe that as the child gets older the conversations get deeper and you can get into more of the who, where, and why conversations. I guess my question to you...when would it be appropriate to start the conversation? To me it's similar to the conversations about adoption. A 4 year old can't understand the why most of the time, but they can understand that it happened and who was involved. A 4 year can understand that these are things that happened in the past and the element of disbelief is something that will spark curiosity about the why part of it later on. The discussion of Rosa Parks and her protest would make no sense without some context. I doubt that the conversation was focused on how the white man wronged black people (if it was then I have a huge issue). But if the conversation was more like - the government made rules that separated blacks and whites and lots of people were upset so they protested and tried to get the laws changed - then I believe that this conversation is appropriate for 4 year olds. They can understand being mistreated and wanting to do something about it. As adults we immediately jump to things like institutionalized racism and all of the other implications of the Civil Rights Movement, kids don't go there until they are older. I agree with you that there should be a discussion of important people during Black History Month and all year long, but I also am of the opinion that kids are going to ask questions about the stuff the see and hear. I'm an elementary school teacher and there are several teachers who have discussed the Trayvon Martin case with their classes to help the kids understand what is going on because they ask. Would it be better for the teacher to ignore a question or use the teachable moment to help the children understand? I remember having conversations about race when I was 4 (my dad is a history professor, so the conversations were natural). I think as adults we worry about the fact that our kids may be hurt by this past, but at this point it's something that they are learning about that happened in the past that will help them to understand conversations about institutionalized racism in the future.

Oh, of course I think elementary school teachers should answer questions about things like the Trayvon Martin case! My head is not buried that far in the sand!I guess I'm thinking that developmentally, there is a very big difference between preschool and elementary school. Between 4 and 6. Between 6 and 10. Four-year-olds have a terrible sense of time. 1950's means nothing to them. Could be just before Christmas as far as they are concerned. They really have no ability to understand anything abstract. They tend to put themselves at the center of the world and therefore, to personalize things. Note, the first thing my son did was to list the kids in his class who would have gone to the school for Black children. He did seem to have a sense that these were laws that targeted people like him, rather than simply laws that made people of different races stay apart.I already owned the book on Rosa Parks, so I obviously planned to talk to him about her and other important figures from the Civil Rights Movement. But until now, I was talking about race in more concrete terms - skin color and who was African American like him/White like his moms. Things like teasing that he already has a frame of reference for. As well as music, art and stories created by African Americans. I guess ideally, I would talk to him about history when he was cognitively better able to grasp it - 6 or 7 (when kids begin to think abstractly) rather than 4. Although knowing that it often comes up in Kindergarten, I would have had my own talk with him before then.

I'm of the mind to keep it light... because 4 yr olds are extremely literal! My sister jokingly referred to my DD (age 4) as "spoiled". She was talking to me, but DD overheard us. Later that evening DD came to me with a very worried expression and asked was she "spoiled", I assured her she was not... Poor thing was thinking in the terms of spoiled food!Right now I'm all about building DD's self-esteem up, I don't want to focus on things that would make her feel "less than". Because the truth of the matter is that racism still exist, so to say "yes, that was so long ago and things are okay now" is just not accurate. But at this age it's not necessary to get in to...

I get what you're saying, but kids at 4 understand the difference between the past and the future. It's not as if he has to understand how far back the 1950s are, but that it was in the past how far back is something that we as adults are worried about because we know that it's "recent" history compared to lots of other things). In my experience with the students in our pre-K class, they do put themselves into the center of the world, but they do this so that they can understand how things would have happened. I think it's also different for me because growing up as a minority I can't remember a time that we didn't talk about these things in my house (and I remember specific conversations when I was 4). I'm definitely not suggesting that you just talk about racism, Jim Crow, and segregation all the time, but in the context of reading a book about Rosa Parks I think it's appropriate. Teachers struggle to find the balance of what the kids can learn about this stuff. I also have a friend who has had to talk to her 4 year about race and mistreatment because there were kids in the pre-k class talking about how "brown" people are bad.

I don't know that it makes that much of a difference if kids really understand the difference between past, present & future. (and I don't think they understand that much at this age) It's more of how they'll view themselves in relation to the topic.Kids don't need all those details and happenings, imo. Their little brains think all these things and go places we can't even begin to "reason" because as stated, they are so literal.So basics, an introduction to differences, but big discussions, no. Not in preschool anyway.Even my 11 year old still thinks in literal terms so I have to be careful sometimes to remember that. A good example is that stupid Lifetime movie that was on last week called "Adopting Terror". He saw the commercial for it and assumed from the title that the movie was about bad adopted kids and that people think he's a terrorist. (I hadn't realized he saw it before we talked about it at dinner last week, and he didn't say anything, was just feeling bad about it)

Fe, that's really where I'm at, too. I know he'll be confronted with all of these things eventually, so right now, I want to build him up and make him feel good about himself. I agree, Crick that it's hard to know where their little brains will take these things. Knowing that he'd heard it and it had made an impression, I wanted to put my own spin on it and hear what he was thinking. But I wouldn't have put that on him myself, yet. I'm sorry T was carrying that around! That's terrible. I hate movies like that. GA, I know sometimes, even in pre-k, kids tease and make comments based upon racial characteristics. That's why I read that book in addition to talking about other types of teasing - so that if he heard or was the target of comments like that, he would know he could come to us and we could talk about it. Fortunately, I have no reason to believe that he's heard anything like that. In fact, there is a lot of evidence that he's quite proud of being Black and thinks he's pretty cute!

This is awesome!