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PANEL DISCUSSION: Racism and Implicit Bias in Early Childhood Programs

June 19th, 2020 | 1 min. read

By Ashleigh Craven

What If Early Childhood Educators Changed the World? 

With the recent horrific events related to racism, implicit bias, and White privilege in our country, early childhood professionals have a great opportunity to listen, learn, and model anti-bias and anti-racist beliefs and practices for the benefit of children, especially children from historically oppressed and marginalized groups.

We at Gryphon House embrace the challenge and opportunity to help lead the early childhood industry to reduce the long-lasting and insidious effects of racism, bias, and White privilege in every classroom—and beyond. 

Laura Bailet, PhD, chief academic officer, Kaplan Early Childhood Company moderates a panel discussion with key early childhood experts and Gryphon House authors of Don’t Look Away: Embracing Anti-Bias Classrooms to discuss the challenge that lies ahead—and importantly, how early childhood professionals can rise to meet that challenge.

Watch the following panel discussion to learn more. 

 

 

Featured in This Panel

Moderator: Laura Bailet, PhD, is the chief academic officer of Kaplan Early Learning Company. With more than 30 years' experience in the field of early childhood, Dr. Bailet is a licensed school psychologist and the former operational VP at Nemours Children's Health System and assistant professor at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science. She earned her BA at Wake Forest University and her MA and PhD from Northwestern University. She is a member of the Library of Congress Literacy Awards Advisory Board.

Panelist: Iheoma Iruka, PhD, co-author of Don’t Look Away: Embracing Anti-Bias Classrooms, is the chief research innovation officer and director of the Center for Early Education Research and Evaluation at HighScope Educational Research Foundation.

Panelist: Stephanie Curenton, PhD, co-author of Don’t Look Away: Embracing Anti-Bias Classrooms, is a tenured associate professor in the Wheelock College of Education and Human Development at Boston University. She is director of the Ecology of School Readiness Lab. 

Panelist: Kerry-Ann Escayg, PhD, co-author of Don’t Look Away: Embracing Anti-Bias Classrooms, is an assistant professor of early childhood education at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.

Author(s)Tonia Durden, PhD, Kerry-Ann Escayg, PhD, Stephanie Curenton, PhD, Iheoma Iruka, PhD

Ashleigh Craven

Ashleigh Craven has a decade and a half of diverse category experience from agency communications to athletic apparel to automotive to education, developing and executing communication strategies in both traditional and social media. She has supported national product launches and corporate events for the likes of Soffe, Buick, Chevrolet, Wake Forest University , Kaplan, and others. She has an BA from the University of Michigan in English and Communication Studies and an MA from Wake Forest University, where she focused her studies on argumentation and presidential rhetoric and speechwriting. She served as director of marketing for Gryphon House from 2017- 2020.