“Start where you are.  Use what you have.  Do what you can.” –Arthur Ashe

EarlyEdU Alliance member faculty and stakeholders, state partners, and leaders in the field of early learning and workforce development are sharing ideas, innovating, and learning new strategies for teaching and learning. Join the Alliance today!

Cancel Black History Month (BHM). Yes, you read that right. Cancel it. You can delete that tweet. You can take down the poster in your window. Donate your Black Lives Matter shirt to Goodwill. And remove that pin from your jacket.
 
Good. Now that I have your attention. I’m not talking about actually canceling BHM or the celebration of our legacies, hopes, strengths, or futures. I’m talking about canceling the way in which we have commercialized the richness that my people bring. See, BHM isn’t about your one-off celebratory post, that company-wide email most people ignore, or hosting a diversity panel in an attempt to get your diversity clout. BHM is about real people. Real joy. Real stories. Real triumphs. Real minds. Black souls and Black lives. It’s about holding this nation, its institutions, and the people in it accountable for its original sin of Anti-Blackness. It’s about holding a mirror up to ourselves and realizing the same denigrative practices that we claim are history are actually being replicated right before our eyes today. February of each year isn’t just a celebration of Black History, but a call to action for all of us to make history ourselves. It's a (re)commitment to supporting the sovereignty and prosperity of melanated folks by centering our ideas, thoughts, needs, wants, and autonomy in everything we do. It’s about shifting our organizational and personal economic spending habits toward Black and Brown owned businesses to help eliminate the racial wealth gap and support the generation of more disposable income in Black communities. It’s an opportunity to shift the conversation around early learning from birth to 9 to prenatal to 9 to ensure we’re working together to reduce Black infant and Black maternal mortality rates. It’s about standing fearless in the face of brutality, cruelty, and uncomfortable conversations with your partner, family, friends, or community because you understand that your Black counterparts will never be liberated until you take up the fight for justice with them. It’s about making sure no other Black, Indigenous, or Brown soul, whether able-bodied or not, cisgender or gender non-conforming, working-class or upper-middle, college-educated or educated by these streets, must face the same oppressive structures that tormented so many of us as we navigated the educational system.
 
In a society struggling to love and humanize my espresso-brown brothers, sisters, and two spirits, I’m in full support of canceling how we currently observe BHM today. But the real question you must ask yourself is, “Am I also ready to cancel and replace my mind, intentions, and heart in order to love Blackness too?”  For the 7 generations that came before me and the 7 that will follow... I sure do hope so.

This February, take action in your professional and personal life. What can you do to make history in support of Black liberation?

Warmly,
 
Mike S. Browne (he/him)
Sr. Director of Community Engagement
Cultivate Learning at the University of Washington
 

Participating in the Faculty Community of Practice is another terrific perk of Alliance membership.  
Our Next Topic:  Crucial Formative Feedback
Date:  Thursday, March 10, 2022
Time:  12pm-1:30 pm PT/3 pm-4:30 pm ET
Email info@earlyedualliance.org for more information and registration!

The University of Washington’s Cultivate Learning is pleased to announce two new Early Childhood Policy (ECP) online resources, the Early Childhood Policy Network and Policy Connect, launched in collaboration with the Early Childhood Policy in Institutions of Higher Education (ECPIHE). ECPIHE is a national initiative working to provide concrete evidence in support of a new field of study, Early Childhood Policy (ECP), through institutions of higher education. The initiative seeks to cultivate the general awareness of, respect for, and interest in ECP, as an answer to a long withstanding call for serious innovations in the early childhood policy realm. Cultivate Learning is proud to support ECPIHE’s work by hosting and managing its public-facing online networks. The Early Childhood Policy Network will be home to ECP resources, events, and research, as well as a growing network of ECP professionals via a platform known as Policy Connect.
 
To learn more about ECPIHE, watch EarlyEdU’s June’s Highlight Webinar, featuring this new and exciting project and the August’s Highlight Webinar, featuring ECPIHE principal investigators Sharon Lynn Kagan (Teachers College, Columbia University, and Yale University) and Kathy Thornburg (University of Missouri). For additional information, please contact either Sharon Lynn Kagan (slk99@tc.columbia.edu) or Kathy Thornburg (ThornburgK@missouri.edu).

We invite you to:

• Visit the ECPIHE website to check out resources (course syllabus, modules), as well as articles and briefs pertaining to early childhood policy.
• Join the Policy Connect to collaborate and share ideas with early childhood policymakers, faculty, researchers, advocates, and other experts in the field.
• Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter to stay up to date on new resources, events, and career opportunities in ECP.

Explore the Partnership for Pre-K Improvement Toolkit!  This free and accessible online toolkit can help state leaders, researchers, and advocates develop and sustain high-quality, equitable pre-k programs that produce positive early learning opportunities for every child. Join host Katie Emerson-Hoss and guest Bezawit Semu, Director of Systems Improvement for Partnership for Pre-K Improvement (PPI), to learn how you can use the PPI Toolkit. This webinar will also describe the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded five-year collaborative learning strategy between states, research organizations, and advocacy groups (supported by Cultivate Learning, Alliance for Early Success, and Start Early), that resulted in this amazing set of accessible system-building tools.

Register for the webinar. After registering for the webinar, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinars.

Date: Thursday, March 3, 2022
Time: 10–10:30 a.m. PT / 1–1:30 p.m. ET

EarlyEdU Alliance
http://www.earlyedualliance.org/
info@earlyedualliance.org