At Katmint, we are conscious of our role in shaping an early foundation that continues into adulthood. This is why we believe that young children need positive adult guidance to develop and maintain a confident sense of self and respectful understanding of others. When students are affirmed and encouraged to have joy in their personal and social identities at a young age, this provides the strong foundation to make deeper connections with others in our beautifully diverse world.
Some adults may believe that forms of racism (overt and covert), discrimination, and prejudice are adult issues. We find that to be true in the sense that it is our responsibility as adults to take action against racism with children as early as possible. As professionals in our field we recognize the academic research within the early childhood development community which shows children start receiving explicit and implicit messages about the meaning of race from birth and begin to show pro-white/anti-Black bias by age three (Baron & Banaji, 2006). Children are noticing differences and drawing conclusions whether accurate or inaccurate and they are looking for adults to help them figure it out. We combat the implication of this research by incorporating activities that enthusiastically celebrate race, gender identity, culture, skin tone, and all differences in our humanity. Through these discussions and planned experiences, we remain conscious in the power adults hold to teach, to create, to maintain bias- and most importantly, eliminate it.