Rokeby Museum & King Street Center’s Preschool
Since early fall, Tucker from Rokeby Museum has been working with our preschoolers every other week offering a racial learning program as an introduction to diverse human experiences in America and in Vermont. The program recognizes that young children can’t be understood outside the context of society’s social power structures – they pay attention to power: who is boss, what groups have more agency, etc. They look up from their vantage point and observe an unfair world. Without guidance, straightforward conversations about race, and the wrongfulness of racism and other kinds of inequity/bias, young children can easily form an identity founded on an aggrandized self-image, pre-prejudice, and/or self-doubt, depending on the child’s racialized identity.
To develop this program, Rokeby Museum’s staff work in consultation with anti-bias leaders and is based on the principles of educators Debbie LeeKeenan, John Nimmo, Louise Derman-Sparks, and EmbraceRace. Before the program began, Rokeby Museum staff collaborated with King Street Center preschool teachers to work on incorporating their curriculum into our classroom environment and structure, ensuring it meets all of our children’s learning needs.
“Tucker Days” have become our favorite days, and he brings the most positive energy to our preschoolers. During each visit, he reads with us, conducts circle discussions based on what we read, helps us learn conflict resolution through Persona Dolls, and leads super fun hands-on activities. Throughout the year, learning moves through curriculum based on identity, diversity, justice, and action.
Rokeby Museum's racial learning program aligns with their underlining interpretive themes such as freedom, laws, advocacy and equity, but translated for a younger audience. Children aged 3-5 are guided through themes like like skin color, racism, multiculturalism, economic class and gender expression through accessible language and ideas such as similarities and differences, fairness and unfairness, being brave, lies, and sharing. By working with learners as early as possible to introduce themes of race, justice, class, and minority representation, the program aims to set a foundational experience which celebrates difference, minimizes bias, and equips young children to navigate and recognize a deeply unfair world, and to take action against that.
This partnership has been nothing short of a beautiful experience providing opportunities for preschoolers to learn perspective, explore their own identities, and learn of new cultures. Through reading picture books, meeting persona dolls, art activities, circle discussions, and foods from around the world, preschoolers are learning about skin color, different ways to make a family, mixed race, and Black joy. We are so thankful to the Rokeby Museum for their dedication to our preschoolers! Special shout out to Said, King Street Center parent and owner of Jilib Jiblets, who recently participated in a “Tucker Day” teaching preschoolers how to make sambusas!
