I would love some advice on how to address my daughter’s preschool’s plans for an MLK Jr. Day celebration.
This is a new preschool for us, so I don’t have a connection with any of the staff yet. My daughter’s first day was this week, and when I signed her in I saw a sign-up sheet for parents to bring in food for the class’ MLK Jr. day celebration this Friday.
The list read like the menu at a soul food restaurant, and while I love soul food, I can’t get over the idea that this is their MLK Jr. Day celebration. It’s a racially diverse school, so I’m really surprised an appalled that no one has said anything before me.
I won’t see the teacher again until Friday, and I’m seriously considering bringing my copy of, “Adventures in Courage: Soldiers in the Civil Rights War,” and talking to the kids about our trip to the American History Museum in D.C. where we saw the Greensboro Woolworth’s lunch counter and a broken window from the Savannah busing protests. The kids are only 4-5, so I want to address it at their level, and I don’t want to start our relationship with the school by being antagonistic.
Any ideas?
Elena P.
It’s funny–I just used the food example with my students yesterday of well-intentioned but superficial multiculturalism that masks real issues of structural inequity. This, of course, is not what you can say to your daughter’s pre-school staffers, because they are trying to be well-intentioned, if very off the mark about it all.
There’s probably little you can do about the soul-food sign-up this year, without being directly confrontational. However, what you could do is to bring a non-soul food dish–perhaps one reflecting your family’s ethnic background–as a way to say you are honoring Dr. King’s legacy by bringing together the food of many people’s to the table.
You could also suggest activities that would really reinforce who Dr. King is and what his legacy is all about. There is a website:
http://holidays.kaboose.com/martin-luther-king-jr-day.html
that suggests some ideas/activities. I haven’t looked through them so I can’t vouch for them, but they seem to be sensibly geared towards children while solidly focusing on his legacy.
And maybe, in the future–in preparation for black heritage month or Chinese new year (which is Jan 26) you could suggest to the pre-school staff a way to have multicultural activities honoring these ethnic traditions or celebrating the accomplishments of African Americans that aren’t associated around foods but that is more substantive in terms of letting the kids have fun while also learning about black heritage month or Chinese new year.
Good luck!
Hi Elena,
Could you give us more information. I’m confused on the sign up sheet part. Is the sign up sheet one where parents can choose what they want to bring on their own, or is this an already established list of items that the school chose and compiled and are asking parents to bring? I think this detail would give a better context: is it school initiated or parent initiated?
Thanks!
bianca
The school created the list of sign-up food items, so you had a limited number of things to choose from. I kind of love the idea of bringing something from our heritage (Cuban) and explaining that we’re honoring his spirit in that way.
The classroom did have pictures of Dr. King to color today, but when I asked the teacher about how they were discussing his life, she was incredibly vague and seemed a bit disconcerted. I’ll quiz my daughter today and see how/if his life was actually discussed.
I will be keeping an eye out for upcoming dates to a) see how the school handles this stuff on a regular basis, and b) figure out ways to suggest activities, etc.
it does seem unimaginative to celebrate history solely through food references.
are they passing out any cute coloring pages with Dr. King’s face in them?
is there any chance to teach them a song like “Lift Every Voice?”
could they do a craft or something that illustrates diversity or equality? — paper craft a chain that shows … we are all links in one chain (of human beings..)
or color something showing how “we are family” (actually just bring sister sledge directly into the lesson…i loved that song when I was little!! lol, i keeed!)
Hi! My son is at a social justice-oriented K-8, and when he was a first grader, we were at an MLK day rally with a bunch of other students, and he said “MLK day is a black people thing. Mom, this couldn’t happen to us, cuz we’re part white, right?” At that very moment the list of on-the-fly donations was announced to include the Japan American Citizens League, and I explained to my son what had happened to our ancestors during the internment of Japanese-Americans, including the fact that even his children would have been sufficiently Japanese to be included in the rounding up. We discussed what had happened in other countries and other times. He said “Mom, I think we should come here to the march every year that we can, because it’s important. It could happen to almost anyone!”
The Story of Ruby Bridges by Robert Coles and
Happy Birthday Dr. Matin Luther King by Jean Marzollo are both books that I read to my daughters’ pre-school classes and then donated the books to the school.
My mom is the head teacher in a head start where 95% of the students and staff are African-American. Other schools have been more diverse, but she has done the smae thing no matter where she teaches:
- MLK is brought up early and often, not just in January or February.
- the kids are told that MLK wanted everyone to accept one another and be fair to each other no matter what we looked like
- they have a rhyme to emphasize that
- they make king-crowns for MLK’s birthday and basically throw a BD party for MLK in school – but it’s traditional party food, not “soul” food
- kids tell the teachers over the course of a week or so what they want, not monetary things, but good things they want to happen – their dreams. They get written down in a cloud or thought balloon and placed on a bulletin board. My mom reports that this year the kids came up w/ some really great ones, like “I want people to stop arguing and talk to each other,” and “I want everyone to have enough to eat and to be safe.” Of course you could get some doozies, like “I want daddy to come back home”.
Point is, the kids get multiple ways to reinforce MLK day, beyond food.
I agree, it’s too lte for this year, but you should ask around and voice your concerns. If they’re open to other activities, feel free to steal any idea fr. my mom’s classroom that may work for you.
I agree that it might not be possible to change things up for this coming event–but offering your willingness to help plan future events is the route I have had the most success with. I joined the board at my sons preschool/daycare, (Sam is 5, Marcel is 2) and must say a year later I can point to so many choices they have made there that I applaud, have influenced or been consulted on in meaningful ways.
You have expertise, you have books that you could offer their library, and willingness to enrich their curriculum. Who wouldn’t welcome that kind of parent involvement?
As far as food, one thing I am really working on with them is like Jennifer spoke to, is to pull focus away from food for food’s sake, and more to stories, cultural practices, and education. Food has it’s links of course to all of the above, but should not be offered in place of. Let us know what the outcome is for you.
Huh. I had never really thought of MLK as having any particularly strong link to soul food. In addition to being a superficial gesture in the absence of other programming, frankly it’s kind of WEIRD.
I was just sitting here being peeved off that my daughter’s preschool, which offered no special programming on Friday, is closing for the MLK holiday instead of offering a special program for families on that day – but then I remembered how it’s a triumph that MLK day is now considered an actual school holiday here in South Carolina.
I hope that Friday’s event was better than the menu led you to expect. If it wasn’t, then maybe you can ask to manage the presentation part next year? In retrospect, that’s what I should have done this year – my daughter is established at the preschool, I do a bunch of volunteer work, and I’m sure that if I had asked to do a special MLK storytime or bring in a speaker to teach a little about Greenville’s civil rights history, they would have let me do it.
I just saw this on Racialicious–a Denver public school had the same plan as Elena’s daycare…
http://www.clickondetroit.com/education/22245407/detail.html#story