Excerpted from event description
In this follow-up conversation, Natalie Royer, Belonging Specialist at Saroy Group, will discuss love and compassion and how it acts as an entryway to belonging. Natalie will highlight key ideas for educators and leaders in the field on how we can communicate with compassion and how we can create a sense of belonging within ourselves by leading with love to both ourselves and others.
This session is a dialogical space for critical thinkers to explore ways to address anti-black racism in early childhood education. The session will consist of facilitated small group discussions offering various opportunities for participants to recognize and respond to the work that needs to happen. Our goal is to create a respectful learning space with zero tolerance for unkindness. Your group discussion could be a space where you see tensions. Please review this guide to understand the discussion rules.
To prepare for this conversation, you are invited to watch Belonging Through Connection with bell hooks and john a. powell. In the video, the late bell hooks states two statements that we will explore with colleagues and peers, she paraphrases Henri Nouwen and states, "The challenge of love is extending belonging to someone that we might not even know, someone that might have even hurt us." Also, she states "True belonging is the belonging that is inclusive and does not make me choose people that look like me to care about."
We encourage you to reflect on these statements through thinking with the following questions:
How can we extend belonging to those that may have hurt us at work and in our lives?
How can we show compassion and love to ensure there is a sense of belonging where everyone can thrive in our practice and in our lives?
You can share your ideas, questions and/or possibilities about how we can address anti-black racism in early childhood education in this Padlet.
We highly encourage you to attend this follow-up conversation. This is an extraordinary opportunity to generate ideas, questions and possibilities together about how we can address anti-black racism in early childhood education. We're sure that your ideas will make the facilitated small group conversations, a rich and meaningful experience.
Natalie Royer is a belonging consultant, strategist and coach at Saroy Group Inc. She provides training sessions primarily in the education sector and consults with companies and organizations on how to promote a space of belonging using an equity, diversity and inclusion lens. She has worked in the healthcare sector (i.e. Hospital For Sick Children) and she has taught at colleges and universities for over 10 years. With a background in early childhood education, she advocates for the next generations and hopes as leaders we can create an inclusive space where everyone can thrive.
This conversation will not be recorded to ensure a safe/brave space for all participants.
Access Information: The AECEO is committed to ensuring that our learning experiences are accessible to all educators; including educators with disabilities, whether visible or invisible. We believe that taking care to create a learning experience where no person's voice, spirit, or knowledges are lost because they are unable to attend, benefits everyone. ASL-English Interpretation and live captioning will be available at this session. Please contact info@aeceo.ca for access inquiries.
EXCERPTS
You spent the month of February learning about Black history in Canada and wondering how do I address anti-black racism? In this Black History Month follow-up conversation, Natalie Royer, Belonging Specialist at Saroy Group, will share her story as a Black ECE navigating the sector and facilitate a dialogical space for us to "look deep within [ourselves] and ask the hard questions: Why do I choose to do nothing? What am I afraid of? Why do I think it is not my place act?" (Royer, 2021, para 9).
This conversation is a space for critical thinkers to explore ways to address anti-black racism in early childhood education. The session will consist of facilitated small group discussions offering various opportunities for participants to recognize and respond to the work that needs to happen.
To prepare for this conversation, you are invited to read and engage with the Re-imagining Early Childhood Care and Education in a Post-George Floyd World: An Open Letter and to think with the following questions:
You can share your ideas, questions and/or possibilities about how we can address anti-black racism in early childhood education in this Padlet.
We highly encourage you to attend this Black History Month follow-up conversation. This is an extraordinary opportunity to generate ideas, questions and possibilities together about how we can address anti-black racism in early childhood education. We're sure that your ideas will make the facilitated small group conversations, a rich and meaningful experience.
Natalie Royer is a belonging consultant, strategist and coach at Saroy Group Inc. She provides training sessions primarily in the education sector and consults with companies and organizations on how to promote a space of belonging using an equity, diversity and inclusion lens. She has worked in the healthcare sector (i.e. Hospital For Sick Children) and she has taught at colleges and universities for over 10 years. With a background in early childhood education, she advocates for the next generations and hopes as leaders we can create an inclusive space where everyone can thrive.
This conversation will not be recorded to ensure a safe/brave space for all participants.
Access Information: The AECEO is committed to ensuring that our learning experiences are accessible to all educators; including educators with disabilities, whether visible or invisible. We believe that taking care to create a learning experience where no person's voice, spirit, or knowledges are lost because they are unable to attend, benefits everyone. ASL-English Interpretation and live captioning will be available at this session. Please contact info@aeceo.ca for access inquiries.
About this event
The Inclusive Early Childhood Service System Project (IECSS) is a longitudinal study that aims to understand disability in early childhood from the perspective of families. For the past 7 years researchers from the IECSS project have mapped the institutional organization of disabled children’s lives across a variety of service systems. Through a relational model of disability, Blackness and disability are both social and political constructs of identity that may affect the ways Black children with disabilities and their families navigate these systems. Discussions will explore the ways in which anti-Black racism and ableism affect the lived experiences of Black families and children and consider the possibilities of Black disabled identities.
Where: Zoom Webinar. You will be required to download the Zoom client to view the live webinar. For instructions on how to set up Zoom, follow this link.
Access Information: ASL-English interpretation and live captioning are available. Please contact inclusion@ryerson.ca for access inquiries.
Important: If typing in the chat and Q & A functions are an access barrier for your participation, and you would like your microphone and/or video to be on from the beginning of the webinar, please email inclusion@ryerson.ca.
Panelists:
Sherron Grant is an educator and advocate for persons with special needs. She is currently an elementary school Principal with the Toronto District School Board.
Kevin McShan is the host of the YouTube podcast entitled Lets Have This Conversation. In addition to his hosting duties McShan previously served as the Regional Ambassador for the Discover Ability Network.
Trevor McAlmont currently serves as Executive Director of Macaulay Child Development Centre, a multi-service organization focusing on community services and childcare for marginalized children and parents.
Moderator:
Alison Smith (she/her) has worked as a Project Coordinator with the Inclusive Early Childhood Services Project for the past 7 years and is currently PhD Student in Social Justice Education at OISE University of Toronto.
