Interrupting
Microaggressions:
Important Lessons
in the Early Years
By Elena Jaime
The Brick Church School • New York, NY
A
s an early childhood educator, I have always valued the importance of creating safe
spaces for my students, spaces in which young children feel invited to bring their full
selves each morning. Social-emotional growth and academic success are interdepen-
dent. The process of learning, as many educators have often understood it, is the series of
cycles that bring human beings into disequilibrium as the world they have come to under-
stand is shifted, either in small ways or in greater more profound ways. This disequilibrium
creates unease within the learner, who then seeks to make sense of the information they
have absorbed in order to return to equilibrium. This is true when children are learning to
regroup multi-digit equations, or when they are learning a new spelling pattern, or even
when they are learning a new conflict resolution strategy. Unease and disequilibrium are a
critical part of the learning process, and require learners to take risks.
During a recent Curriculum Night I hosted with lower school parents, I asked them to think
back to a formative learning experience and then asked them to describe what they remem-
bered. Unsurprisingly, many recounted supportive teachers and peers, encouragement from
the group surrounding them, and deep connection to their community. As was true for those
adults reflecting on important learning moments, students will take the greatest risks when
they feel supported and when they experience a sense of belonging in their community.
This sense of belonging, however, is undermined when a community does not think critically
about the ways in which each member’s identity is either embraced or marginalized.
Children notice differences. They are hardwired to observe patterns in their world, and
as they develop, they begin to ascribe meaning to those differences. In a study done by
Katz and Kafkin (1997), they found that infants as young as six months of age were able
to nonverbally categorize individuals they observed by racial and gendered categories. In
her article, Children Are Not Colorblind: How Young Children Learn Race (2009), Dr. Erin Win-
Page 10 Summer 2020
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