Unpacking the ‘power’ in empowerment

Louis Hamlyn-Harris 

Hello everyone, thanks for joining us today. My name is Louis Hamlyn-Harris and I am the Be You Executive Manager for Early Childhood Australia. And I'm so glad to be joined today by my colleague, Sharyn D'Souza who is Be You Clinical Lead for headspace in Victoria and Tasmania. Hey Sharyn.

Sharyn D'Souza 

Hi, Louis. Hi, everyone.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris 

This session is appropriate for early learning services, primary and secondary schools. And it takes a critical and hopefully a bit of a provocative look at some really important issues around empowerment, including how power is distributed in schools and services, how this is informed by our images of children and the importance of examining and unpacking our own assumptions and biases around who gets to be empowered and who decides. I would like to start by Acknowledging that Sharyn and I are joining you today from the lands of the Wurundjeri people and that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples are Australia's First People and Traditional Custodians.

We value Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, identities and continuing connections to Country, waters, kin and community, and we pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. Be You is committed to making a positive contribution to the well-being of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people by providing services that are welcoming, safe, culturally appropriate and inclusive.

In today's session, we aim to provide a safe space to discuss issues around empowerment. As part of making our virtual space safe, please consider confidentiality and privacy throughout the session, particularly when using the chat box. We would love to hear from you throughout the session, so please feel free to participate through the chat, which is monitored and moderated, and the Menti meters that will come up throughout the session.

The image that you see on the screen has contact details for Beyond Blue, headspace and several other services that you might find useful should you need to reach out to some external support. We also want to acknowledge that everyone who joins us today is busy. We all come to this session, juggling lots of things and so we really thank you for making the time to join us. We hope that you'll come away feeling empowered with some new ideas and to try some new strategies, but also really able to identify and celebrate the strategies that are working for you already.

Sharyn D'Souza 

For those of you who don't know about Be You, or haven't been in one about virtual conferences before, Be You is a national mental health initiative for educators and the organiser of this conference. The initiative is led by Beyond Blue in partnership with Early Childhood Australia and headspace. Be You is completely free, available to every educator, early learning service and school in Australia. Be You empowers educators to support children and young people's social and emotional wellbeing and their own wellbeing and mental health and provides online professional learning, fact sheets, webinars and other resources. Be You offers whole learning community tools and processes to implement a whole learning community approach to mental health and wellbeing. So if you're interested in finding out more about Be You check out the website, beyou.edu.au

But here's our outline for today. We'll start by exploring our images of children and young people and how that mediates how we share power with them. We're going to look at a couple of different frameworks to help us think about empowerment in early childhood and school settings. We'll unpack James A. Banks's 4 Levels of Multicultural Education, and then we'll look at Derman-Sparks's and Edwards's Anti-bias Education Framework. And then we'll finish by touching on how learning communities working together can support empowerment. 

So we'll share some practical examples throughout, but we're really eager to hear from you and your ideas and strategies. So like Louis said, we've got a few opportunities for Mentimeter throughout this session, so have your phones handy and be ready to participate in those.

But let's jump in. Louis, will you get us started?

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

Sure. So, Sharyn, one of my roles prior to joining Be You was as the Director of an early learning service. And whenever we welcomed newcomers into our setting, whether that was families coming for a tour or new educators joining us, we'd always start by talking about our image of the child. And for those who aren't familiar with this concept, the image of the child really just refers to how we, as adults, as educators, see children or children and young people. Because how we see children actually really directly informs the kinds of environments we'll plan for them and with them. The way we'll approach interactions with, and between children, including things like conflict, which is a part of life. Right? And also the extent to which we share power with children, which is going to be a theme of today's conversation.

So, this is such an important concept, and I really associate the image of the child with Loris Malaguzzi, who is one of the founders of the famous early childhood education system in Reggio Emilia in Italy. And Melaguzzi would say, 'it all starts with the image of the child'. And so in that spirit, Sharyn, why don't we start there as well?

Sharyn D'Souza

Sounds great.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

We're going to bring up a little Mentimeter and invite our audience to share with us in one or two words, your images of children and young people. How do you see them or understand them?

And so you'll just need to go to menti.com on your phone or laptop. Enter the code on the screen, which is 2 0 3 1 4 9 3 0. Or alternatively, the link is in the discussion forum chat, or you can scan the QR code that is up on the screen now, and you can submit multiple responses. So we'd love to hear from you.

Sharyn D'Souza

So we'll have a look and we'll wait for some of those Mentis to come in. But Louis, do you want to give some examples, while we're waiting some for some responses, what's your image of children and young people?

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

Yeah, it's a good question. I'm actually thinking of some of the images that we hear really commonly Sharyn, and one really common image of the child, I heard this on the playground with my son on the weekend, is the idea of the child is a sponge. And in my experience, this is one you hear all the time. And I think what people are trying to capture here is children's curiosity. Their openness to the world, their liveliness to the world. But there's something a little bit passive about the sponge metaphor. I think it's a little bit related to the idea of children as empty vessels. It kind of implies that knowledge and experience flows from adults to children. And what we know is that children actively construct knowledge. And so I'd really encourage us to reframe that image to something maybe a little bit more active. We could think about the child as a meaning-maker, the child is constructor of knowledge. We might think of the child as a protagonist and this is an image of the child that you'll see all over Malaguzzi's work and in his writing. And I think it's a very apt one for today with thinking today about the stories we tell about culture and country and histories. And I think that that role of that the child who tells his own story, our own story, and the active child is a really interesting one. I'm not seeing any answers on the screen. So I'm wondering if Jake can help us make sure those are coming up.

Sharyn D'Souza

While we're waiting for some of those. I guess something that I've heard recently is about children as little learners. And I think coming back to idea as being a bit more active, I think we see that when we call children and young people learners, but something we're going to refer back to a bit later on in the session is actually we're all learners and we can all be learning as children, but there's definitely things that we as adults can learn as well.

But if you want to click through, Louis, I think maybe there might be some technical difficulties, but we might kind of go through onto the next one and hopefully those Mentis work in the next bit as well. 

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

Yeah. Jake it actually looks like our notes and our slides might've become disconnected. So while we pull that up, I'm going to throw out a few more, just ones that I love.

Sharyn D'Souza

Yeah, that'd be great, thank you.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

I really love the idea of the competent and capable child. It's such a simple idea, but I think it's one of those concepts that there's so much that sits behind it. I think it also is a really provocative prompt to think about our images of teachers. For that matter, our images of schools or early learning services.

Here we go. Alright.

Sharyn - thank you, Jake - in our planning, we were thinking a little bit about images of children as they relate to empowerment. Looking at different images and thinking is this image of the child empowering? Might it actually be disempowering? And we realised that one of the definitions of empowerment on the Be You website actually contains a really powerful image of the child. Will you read it out for us? 

Sharyn D'Souza

It does. Absolutely. So that's the definition you can see on your screen now. It's a really great place to start out discussions about empowerment. So Be You states, "empowerment is seeing and understanding children as competent and capable young citizens who can contribute to their world." This definition that you can see on your screen is from our planning for empowerment resource, which I believe the link is being shared in the chat by our lovely moderators. So this is the definition we'll be holding on to as we go through the session today. 

And when we interact with our children and young people with this definition in mind we often see our students lean into this. They feel a sense of connection to and belonging within their learning community, which can have such a positive influence on individual wellbeing. So, you know, Louis, a few years ago, I had the opportunity to learn about social cohesion and the role that plays in combating violent extremism. So this is where violence has a deliberate intent and it's often linked to politics or religion. And prior to this learning, I'd worked in schools for a really long time. I was working with students who felt isolated or disconnected from others. And some of them with really significant mental health concerns. And I guess the thing that has always stayed with me for my whole career is this idea of the positive impact of belonging, feeling connected and to belonging, to somewhere to your school, to your family, to your community is such a strong, protective factor.

And it can be the same, whether we're talking about individual young people or a particular cohort. So our young people, particularly those from a non-dominant community who may feel that chasm between their identity and sense of self and the world that they're living in. They may engage in risk-taking behaviours in order to feel a part of something bigger than themselves. 

I think we, as educators can support all of our students to feel connected with their peers, with their teachers, with their school. And the long lasting impacts of this are endless. It can potentially shape their life trajectory and the choices that they make in the future. Because feeling like an empowered member of a community fosters a sense of inclusion. And like I said, this has such a strong, protective factor.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

That idea of belonging as a protective factor, it's so important. And I think it's so kind of baked into the Be You framework.

One thing that jumps out to me in this definition is the image of the child as citizen. I think this is such a rich idea. And when we talk about children as citizens, we're not really talking about national citizenship. It's not about what's on your passport. What we're really talking about is some of the big ideas around citizenship. So those might be around rights, like the right to participation, the right to have a say, the ability to contribute to discussions about things that affect you. They might be concepts of autonomy, of choice, of shared ownership, of belonging, as you spoke to so movingly. Well, they might even be responsibilities. Responsibilities to each other, our responsibilities to the planet, so to the common good. Or even maybe our responsibility to contribute to justice and to equality and to the protection of rights. And a little later we'll talk about James A. Banks, but Banks calls this transformative citizenship.

So to now take on these concepts that we associate with citizenship and expanding them to include children. And I think actually sharing this kind of an equality implied in that right. If one thing it does, I think is it puts us as adults, as educators, actually on a continuum with children. If the child is a citizen and I'm a citizen, and we have a shared stake in our community, then that's actually a really different power relationship than perhaps the traditional educated child dynamic. And so one of the things I think about is, we're getting to some really fundamental ideas about the role of educators and the role of schools and services. What does this image of the child as citizen mean for our professional identities? How might it challenge our assumptions or biases?

Sharyn D'Souza

Yeah, that's a really great question, Louis. I wonder how many of us grew up with the belief that teachers are the experts and are the ones in control of the classroom, and it's the student's role to sit there, to listen and learn. I think back to my time in schools, both as a student and as a school staff member with the classroom rules and a behaviour management matrix up on the wall to ensure a disciplined classroom. It's really exciting now to visit so many schools where that's changed. For example, there are discussions about group norms rather than simply punishments. These are starting points for considering the child as a citizen and considering the power balance in our classrooms. We can take steps to address this imbalance by including our students in discussions about classroom etiquette and the contributions to their social, emotional learning in the classroom.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

I love this point about involving children in norm-setting. I think children, young children are so capable of having conversations about what kind of community we want to have and what our responsibilities to each other are in that community. And it also gets us away from thinking about 'classroom rules'.

Sharyn D'Souza

Yeah, exactly. Which can feel like a kind of a top down approach and be really disempowering.

But to come back to your earlier point about citizenship. For me, I think sometimes when I think about being a citizen, one concept that comes to mind is readiness. So, I guess that's another professional assumption that is worth reflecting on because schools often talk about school readiness, as we prepare our children and young people for school. We see ourselves, the adults, as the experts, preparing young minds to be ready for primary school or transitioning into secondary school or prepare them to enter the world of tertiary education or working the working world. But I also think it's really important to consider if schools are ready for our young people, how prepared are our schools and early learning services to welcome and include students from different backgrounds and circumstances.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

Yes, you know, Carla Rinaldi said that, 'children have the right to be regarded as citizens of the present'. And I think there are ways actually that children and young people, particularly those experiencing disadvantage, vulnerability, marginalisation or those who come from those non-dominant backgrounds can become kind of trapped in the future. So early childhood becomes about school readiness. Primary school is preparation for high school, and we're talking about tertiary readiness, workforce readiness.

But I think we want to remember that childhood is a phase of life. And children don't actually need to earn citizenship. Children are born citizens of their communities. It's also important to consider how different images of children are baked into things, like policy debates and media narratives. What we see is that often those children from non-dominant backgrounds are described as being at risk, behind, challenging, needy. I think developmentally vulnerable is a popular one at the moment.

Sharyn D'Souza

Quite negative terms too. 

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

And look, I think this language can help us talk about some really important educational inequalities. And that's critical, obviously. But it could also, I think you're right, paint a picture of deficit. And I think when we look at these images through an empowerment lens, it can help us reflect on who gets to act in our education systems and who gets acted upon. Which is another way really of asking who gets to be empowered and who decides.

Sharyn D'Souza

And Louis, I think when you and I were discussing this earlier, we recognise that there's often power structures sitting above a learning community that impacts the work and connections happening on the ground. We're influenced by our neighbourhood context, the political climate around us, the overarching governing bodies. I think it's really important that we acknowledge the power structures outside of our learning communities. But while we need to be mindful of those influences, what we can do as educators is consider how we work within those systems, by working alongside of our communities in empowering ways. 

So Louis, I'm thinking we've posed a number of reflective questions and hopefully we've got our audience thinking and hopefully that Menti worked for all of you, but I think it could be really helpful to spend some time thinking about how we can share that power in our schools and early learning services and the impact in sharing that power, what impact that can have on process and curriculum. So we're going to go back to our theoretical frameworks to help us do that. Do you want to introduce us to the first framework though?

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

Sure thing. So earlier I mentioned James A. Banks, who is actually an educational theorist who's really interested in ideas of citizenship and education. And Banks has created typologies of citizenship and of cultural identity that I think our audience might find really interesting. But today we're going to look at one of his earlier models, which is Banks's 'Four levels of multicultural education'. And even though Banks is specifically focusing here on multiculturalism, so on cultural and ethnic and racial diversity, I think this model can be really helpful for thinking about other forms of difference in diversity as well.

So Banks proposes that we can think about multicultural education in a hierarchy. And at the bottom of the hierarchy - and Banks argues that this tends to be the most common approach for schools and services who have just starting to think about issues of power and empowerment - is what he calls The Contributions Approach. So in this approach, educators introduce into the classroom or into the learning community particular high achieving individuals from non-dominant cultures or particular days and events that are kind of predetermined for learning about other cultures or other groups.

Sharyn D'Souza

Yeah, and you'll see on the slide that Banks talks about this as the 'Heroes and holidays' approach. So in a school context that might look like learning about Cathy Freeman during NAIDOC week. Or if we think about other kinds of difference, it might look like celebrating great Australian women during International Women's Day.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

Right. Or in early childhood settings I think about this in terms of Harmony day. It might look like planning special art experiences for Harmony Day or inviting families to bring in food from their own cultures. And I think it's important to say that, in themselves, there's nothing wrong with these things. And Cathy Freeman is obviously a great Australian. It's a wonderful thing to bring families into the service, into the school, their learning community. But Banks challenges us to think about whether limiting discussions of non-dominant cultures to special days or special people, even if it's done respectfully, might actually reinforce some harmful ideas because it kind of implies that the contributions of these groups are peripheral, they're not part of the main narrative. So it can be a bit symbolic or tokenistic. And I think if we think about it in terms of empowerment, we might say that these heroes and groups are celebrated but their perspectives are not necessarily centred. The story is still told from the dominant perspective and they're kind of framed as supporting characters in that story.

Sharyn D'Souza

Your comment's made me think about a school that I know that during important events at the school, the flags of all nationalities represented in the student body were put on display. However, there was minimal explanation as the reason why these flags were displayed and then they were very quickly taken down again after the event, without really kind of explanation of that either. I guess I'm wondering if there'd been more actions and more discussions within that school community, which we'll come to a bit later on, we're prefacing what we're coming to. I'm just wondering if the visual of the flags would have been more meaningful had there been more discussions of their purpose because on their own people questioned the purpose of the flags. 

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

Right. And you know, the other thing that Banks points out is that often things like racism and sexism can kind of get airbrushed out in the Contributions Approach. So we celebrate the great achievements of different groups, which is fantastic, but maybe we don't talk about the struggles or the oppression or discrimination that those groups faced on the way to those achievements. Or how they overcame those struggles. And so we might end up with a story that actually privileges the dominant narrative at the expense of truth telling.

Sharyn D'Souza

And so we avoid those uncomfortable conversations, but by avoiding those uncomfortable conversations, it doesn't really help anyone, particularly those with lived experience of those struggles, who could be left feeling they're left out of the conversation, they're left out of the school community as well. They're not welcome. I also think maybe we might think that some of these discussions aren't appropriate for our children and young people, but again, we're going to come back to this a bit later, too.

But let's get back to Banks. So Louis, what's the next level in the model?

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

Sure. So the next level is The Additive Approach. In this approach educators start to add perspectives and themes and concepts from different groups but without unsettling the kind of basic power structure of the classroom or the curriculum or the learning community. And again, I think about this idea of who gets to tell the story. Who gets to be the narrator, who gets to be the main character and the protagonist. 

And here we go. Right, and so in this approach, oh, sorry, that's you.

Sharyn D'Souza

That's all right. Feel free. But we were talking about how this approach, we might connect it back to British settlement. So in Australia, when we learn about our Australian history and British settlement, we often kind of see that in a way, we do talk about Aboriginal people and their resistance to colonisation, but we often tell that story from the perspective of the white settlers who came here.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

Right, exactly. Or I think about in early childhood classrooms, and I've definitely done this. We might choose books to read with children about different kinds of families, right? Families with one parent, families with two dads, two mums, families where grandparents play a big role. And that's fantastic. But maybe at other times of the day we're using that kind of normative language that assumes that all children live in traditional, two-parent households with a mum and a dad. Or maybe we're even worried that if we have conversations with children about gender and sexuality, family structures, kind of outside of the safe space of those books, or the script that the book gives us, then we worry we're being too political, we're being controversial or developmentally inappropriate.

Sharyn D'Souza

Yeah, so choosing resources that reflect diversity is really important, but it can be problematic if that's where we stop and we don't do anything else. 

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

Exactly. Right. And so in The Additive Approach, we're bringing in other perspectives, but we're not necessarily thinking critically across the board yet. And we've risked sending these subtle messages about what's perceived to be normal and what's perceived to be abnormal. 

So Sharyn, what does all of this have to do with wellbeing?

Sharyn D'Souza

Oh, gosh, big question. I guess it comes back to our earlier discussion. When individuals are seen and valued for their whole selves, including the parts of themselves that are perceived as being different from most others, particularly of most others in their learning communities, these individuals feel like they're part of their community, right? So these are the social connections and a sense of belonging. These are all protective factors against things like stress, isolation, behavioural concerns. And of course we can extrapolate these concepts to think about inclusive students and families from all non-dominant communities. So that's when we're thinking about our blended families, our gender curious students, female students in STEM subjects.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

Right. And I think it's so important to reflect on our own experiences. Our own culture, our own upbringing here. If you've had the privilege, as I largely have, of not experiencing exclusion on the basis of your identity. Then you actually have an additional responsibility to do some of that reflective work and think about the factors that foster genuine inclusion.

Sharyn D'Souza

Yeah, so if you're a teacher from a dominant background, you might not recognise the impact inclusion can have on your students. You may never have reflected on the impact of inclusion for yourself in your personal life. But for those students who feel othered, being seen for their whole self can change how they interact with others, including you as their teacher and how empowered they feel within the learning community.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

I think that connection to empowerment is really, really key. Children actually hold a great deal of knowledge about culture and cultural practices. Elizabeth Dau wrote about children being knowledgeable contributors to their learning communities. And so I think in the early childhood context, for example, if our curriculum is emergent, if there's space for children to tell their stories, use language, make decisions, practice leadership then we've already got some of the necessary ingredients in place to thinking about inclusion and belonging. Which I think is actually a great segue to the next level. Tell us about level three.

Sharyn D'Souza

Love to. So the third level is The Transformative Approach. And this approach is also about bringing in perspectives from different groups, but there is that important new element which Banks describes as the shift in frames of reference. So to use that earlier example, instead of learning about Australian history from the point of view of white settlers, we're zooming out and saying Australian history actually consists of many different perspectives and histories. So we're thinking Aboriginal perspectives, immigrant perspectives and perspectives of many other different groups make up Australian history. And we need to understand all of these perspectives in order to grasp Australian history. Even if they contradict and clash with one another.

And I guess importantly, too, to keep in mind is this is not about comparing or ranking different perspectives. It's about understanding how our culture is shared and it's comprised of all the interactions between these different groups.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

Right. So we're back to thinking about inclusion. And who gets to tell the story. You know, Sharyn, last month I was lucky enough to attend Early Childhood Australia's annual reconciliation symposium, which this year was in Darwin.

Sharyn D'Souza

Lucky.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

And- very lucky. And when I was there, we got to hear from the leaders of an Aboriginal early learning service in the NT who were thinking about their cultural inclusion strategy for non Aboriginal children. And it made me reflect that we're so used to thinking of inclusion as this thing that runs in one direction. From the dominant culture to the non dominant culture. And so this is that shift in the frames of reference that Banks talks about, it's the shift in who's telling the story.

It also sounds like Banks is inviting us to get comfortable with complexity. Like all of those perspectives they're not going to boil down into one simple narrative.

Sharyn D'Souza

That's right. And that brings us to level four in the model, where Banks invites children and educators to engage with that complexity that you were just mentioning and make changes together. This is called The Social Action Approach, and in this approach children reflect on their own beliefs and values and make decisions about how to change things for the better. It's about empowering children and young people to see themselves as agents who can identify challenges in their community and take steps to address them.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

And that brings us back to some of the ideas we discussed earlier. The child as active citizen of the present, the right to participate the right to be part of the process of change. And it reminds me actually, one of the outcomes of the Early Years Learning Framework, which is that children are connected with and contribute to their world.

But Sharyn, I want to make this concrete, what might The Social Action Approach look like in action?

Sharyn D'Souza

Yeah. So The Social Action Approach can sound like something that requires a lot of significant change within a community. And while this might be the ultimate goal, The Social Action Approach might be nurtured in other ways within your learning community. So actions such as reflecting together on the language used in class discussions, using culturally appropriate names to describe places or events, researching and writing to local newspapers about a local issue or success to raise awareness, even having volunteering as part of your curriculum. These are all ways to build critical thinking and social advocacy with students. And Banks talks about supporting children and young people to identify social problems or inequalities in the community, and then take steps to address them.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

It's such an empowering approach. And I love this idea that change can happen within the classroom or the learning community as well as outside. 

We would love to hear from the audience about this question. And so, hopefully our Mentimeter is back up and running. We've actually got a new code on the screen and a new QR code. So using the code on your screen, which is 4 0 2 0 6 4 7 0 please share with us, How do the children or young people in your setting contribute to their world? And again, that link is in the discussion forum, the chat box, or you can scan that QR code. And you can submit multiple responses.

Sharyn D'Souza

Absolutely. So hopefully you've got that working and you're using that QR code or the enter code on the website, but Lou, while we're waiting for responses to come in, I wonder if you can share an example from early childhood. I've never worked in an early learning service, so I'm kind of wondering, can our youngest children, can they participate in social action?

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

Absolutely, though it may challenge our image of the child a little bit. I'm thinking of where I live in Brunswick in Melbourne, one of the Guardian early learning services nearby started a children's council to contribute to shared decision-making about issues within their community. And that council considered issues that we might think of as quite small, but that were important to the children. So things like the kinds of vegetables that we served for lunch. But they also identified some real social challenges within the community in particular, around traffic safety. And they developed a plan that involved attending a local council meeting and actually inviting the local Mayor into the service to discuss the solutions together. And I want to read a short quote from Simone Myskiw, who was the Centre Manager who helped form the council and also wrote a little bit about it. And this is Simone's advice to educators. She says, "Be open to what the children have to say and be prepared to face some truths you may be avoiding. Some of the work that has come out of the children's council has made adults uncomfortable and have to change their perception and image of the child and to deeply reflect on their own teaching practices and pedagogy. If you start this journey down the rabbit hole, be prepared to make changes. The children will hold you accountable."

Sharyn D'Souza

They will.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

Alright, let's bring up those responses.

Jake, I wonder if these responses are hidden and if there's something you can hit to bring them up.

Sharyn D'Souza

So hopefully there's some responses, even if we can't see them, Louis. I'm hoping our audience can see them on their screen and you're having some learnings. There we go, we can see some of those now.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

There we go, excellent. 

Great. I see some responses around giving children and young people opportunities to guide their own learning. Really simple idea, really powerful idea, I think.

Sharyn D'Souza

Volunteering. I'm always a big believer in volunteering and how that helps the community, but also ourselves.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

I think giving children choices and we think about meaningful choices. Choices that are not necessarily binary, or yes/no choices, choices in which children can practice real agency and autonomy. Incredibly powerful way to empower children and young people, I think.

Sharyn D'Souza

My terrible eyesight can also see the word discussions, which I think sometimes we forget just having conversations with our children and young people, helps them, it helps us, it helps build a sense of community and connection as well.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

The other one I noticed, Sharyn, and I can connected to that is giving children and young people space to share their own experiences. And again, I think this comes to identity, right? To be seen for your whole self, to not have to leave a part of yourself outside of the learning community, is so powerful. I think, Sharyn, there's so much deep thinking of that sharing power here. And I'm thinking actually, of Bell Hooks's writing on democratic education. And Hooks thought that in democratic classrooms, everyone has a responsibility to contribute. Not an opportunity, not a right, actually a responsibility. And she argued that this required that we build a culture of community, a classroom culture where everybody feels a sense of belonging and ownership, and everyone has that stake, that shared stake.

And Sharyn, I think it's time we bring in our last framework. We've been thinking about power and who gets to exercise it. And I think to really engage those issues, we probably need to think a little bit about bias and Anti-Bias Education. So to start, let's define our terms. What is Anti-Bias Education?

Sharyn D'Souza

I think before we talk about Anti-Bias Education though, let's acknowledge that we all have biases. They come from the way that our brain processes and categorises information. And some biases are totally harmless. So for example, I don't like cucumbers. I pretty much avoid them where I can. However, some biases can be harmful. For example, you might be conditioned to have a bias against a particular cultural group because of the narratives that you're seeing in the media or online, and these biases can lead to prejudice, discrimination and exclusion. So it's really important to be aware of these biases and then to challenge them.

But with that definition, so anti-bias is an active approach to the identifying and challenging of our biases. Anti-Bias Education is most effective when it underpins all actions in a learning community. So we're talking about early learning services, primary schools and secondary schools. So all of that from how we as educators interact with our children, with our young people and families, all the way through to curriculum and policy.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

So, Sharyn, how does that kind of bias, how might it show up in a classroom?

Sharyn D'Souza

Yeah, so different ways. And I guess it's not unusual to hear the term bias in classrooms and automatically think this refers to overt racism. But bias does, and can, show up in different ways in the classroom. So some examples of these that you might've seen in your schools or in your kind of teaching history as well, are things like always calling on the same students to answer questions. Choosing those trustworthy female students to go take notes to the office, as well. Feeling apprehensive about the youngest student or the youngest sibling of a difficult former student being in your class because you have this preconceived ideas of what they might be like based on your previous experience. 

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

Right, and the opposite can be true too.

Sharyn D'Souza

Yeah, absolutely. So a teacher assuming stereotypically good behaviour from students. I definitely know adults who decades later still talk about those school teachers who assumed they would be quiet and studious just like their older sibling. And then those teachers expressing disappointment when they weren't. And I guess it comes back to that earlier point that I had made, we're talking about people who have left schools many, many years ago, I won't point out how many years, but really it's that idea of how we engage with young people can stay with them for a really long time.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

Right. And earlier we were talking about deficit language. And one of the things I think is so powerful about anti-bias approaches is that they frame children's home cultures, perspectives, languages, experiences as strengths, but also as resources that can inform really rich curriculum. And of course in early childhood, we say that curriculum is everything that happens. So we're really thinking about bringing up perspective across the board to everything that we do. 

Sharyn D'Souza

Yeah. So should we look at a model? 

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

Yeah, let's do it. So I think one really popular anti-bias framework in early childhood, though I think it can be really easily adapted for all educational settings, comes from Louise Derman-Sparks and Julie Olsen Edwards. And Derman-Sparks and Edwards describe four goals for anti-bias education. And I want to say right upfront, unlike the previous model, these goals are not a hierarchy. They’re actually designed to complement and inform one another, you want to be doing all of these things at once. Each goal has an objective for children and one for educators, which we'll talk through. So let’s take a look. 

Sharyn D'Souza

So the first goal is about identity. It reads that: Educators will nurture each child's construction of knowledgeable, confident, individual personal and social identities. Children, and I'm going to add in young people because I'm from secondary schools, will demonstrate self-awareness confidence, family pride and positive social identities.

So earlier, Louis, you were talking about the importance of choosing materials that reflect diversity. And this is one way in which an educator can support a child to build and understand their identity. And like I said, I've come from secondary schools, not early learning services or primary schools, so I really know the value of sharing those books with high school aged young people as well. I think sometimes we think that they're just for our little kids, our early learning services and primary schools, but I know that my students absolutely loved coming into my office and seeing these books, that they might've laughed at to begin with, but they really took the message home. Because I don't think that it matters how old you are, seeing yourself represented in books or in other forms of media or more importantly, within your own community, it's just unbelievably powerful to see yourself.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

I really love this goal. It reminds me again of Early Year's Learning Framework and the first outcome, which is that children have a strong sense of identity. And then this gets really important, that that identity is constructed in the context of children's family and community. And I think this goal asks us to also consider children's social identity, so group identities. So that might mean feeling connected to your religious identity or the cultural group you belong to.

Sharyn D'Souza

Yeah and Derman-Sparks and Edwards write that the purpose of this goal is that children feel positively about these identities and not a sense of superiority or inferiority.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

And that moves us nicely into goal two, which is about difference and diversity. This goal reads: Educators will promote each child's comfortable, empathetic interaction with people from diverse backgrounds. Children will express comfort and joy with human diversity, use accurate language for human differences and form deep, caring connections across all dimensions of human diversity. 

In my experience, Sharyn, this goal can require a real paradigm shift. I think probably particularly for educators who are themselves from the dominant community or the dominant culture. When I reflect on the beginning of my teaching career, I think I was actually a bit uncomfortable with the idea of discussing difference or pointing out difference. And I think reflecting back, I probably had this kind of underdeveloped sense, that if we just ignore discrimination and inequality, if we only focused on the things that were similar about us, then we could kind of will a fairer world into existence. And I think, I mean I think there's obviously a lot of unexamined privilege in that approach, but there's also an interesting image of the child that I could have unpacked there. The idea of the child is innocent or the child is colour blind. As if children don't notice difference or aren't curious about difference, unless we pointed out to them.

Sharyn D'Souza

Yeah, I think Derman-Sparks and Edwards talk about this too. They say, "Differences do not create bias, children learn prejudice from prejudice, not from learning about human diversity. It is how people respond to differences that teaches biases and fears."

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

Right. And I think going from a place of feeling a bit afraid of difference or a bit confronted by difference to a place or as a classroom community, we could really talk about and celebrate difference, that was such an important shift for me.

Sharyn D'Souza

Okay, I'm glad you had that shift. Because as educators we need to be careful about those hidden messages we send children. I think back to an experience I had with a friend and her daughter. I was visiting them up north in the sunshine and my friend's kindy-aged daughter asked me if I was a Larrakia woman like her favourite teacher. And my friend looked at me and was totally mortified. She apologised, she tried to shut that conversation down. But this probably sent a hidden message to her daughter that such discussions were not okay. I didn't want this young child to walk away thinking she had done something wrong. But also what a really lovely teaching moment to discuss diversity. So in the end, it was a great age appropriate discussion about how I might have similar colour skin to her favourite teacher, but we were different and being different wasn't good or bad, it's just that we were different. And our differences make us who we are.

Alright. So I've just given you an example from my personal life, so let's transition back to goal three, shall we? So this is about justice. Educators will foster each child's capacity to critically identify bias and will nurture each child's empathy for the hurt that bias causes. Children will increasingly recognise unfairness or injustice and have the language to describe this unfairness and understand that unfairness hurts.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

This goal really resonates with me, Sharyn, because I think children, including very young children, often have quite a developed sense of fairness. And I think in particular, children tend to understand that fairness doesn't mean that everyone gets the same thing. So I love this idea of seeing children's empathy, their sense of fairness as a resource. 

It also makes me think about how tempting it can be as educators to solve children's problems for them. And I think this goal invites us to do something a little bit different, it asks us to nurture each child's empathy. It asks us to sit in that discomfort with children a little bit, and figure out collectively, how do we be in community together?

Sharyn D'Souza

Yeah, if we refer back to the examples we gave earlier. So my conversation with my friend's young daughter about diversity, the importance of representing and celebrating differences, including multiple perspectives with age appropriate language, we as adults support a child's ability to think critically, develop empathy for others and take considerate steps to be inclusive. The children are empowered to exercise citizenship, which is what you were talking about earlier.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

Yeah, well, they all have that shared stake in the community. And that brings us to our final goal, activism. This goal reads: Educators will cultivate each child's ability and confidence to stand up for oneself and for others in the face of bias. Children will demonstrate a sense of empowerment and the skills to act, with others or alone, against prejudice and/or discriminatory actions.

And so in Banks's model we were talking about social action as a higher purpose in education. And I feel like this goal, it kind of brings us full circle. It takes that concept, it brings in the idea of the community and it gives children a role in making sure that that community is a place of belonging, it's an inclusive place. What could be more empowering?

So Sharyn, I'm so curious to hear how this goal shows up in your work with schools.

Sharyn D'Souza

Oh, wow, so many examples and thoughts come to mind. I've worked with a number of schools that have implemented really wonderful strategies to support students taking social action. So I think of a school that connected with other local schools and the local youth service to undergo leadership and facilitator training. And then that group developed a, I guess the best term would be a cultural competency advocacy group. And then that group was taken into each school where the students then spoke about diversity, equity and inclusion in their community. These students who became leaders within their schools, took suggestions from the wider student body about bolstering inclusion, and then took those examples to school leaders.

I think of another school that had an annual event of Harmony Day, like you were talking about earlier. And to be honest, it probably initially fell into Banks's first level of Contributions Approach and it was a little bit tokenistic. But with time and buy-in from students and educators and families, they've turned this one-off event into a multicultural initiative, implemented across the school with regular events and sharing of learnings in the community. So this one off event has become the annual launch of an ongoing strategy within their schools about multiculturalism and inclusion.

And now that we're sitting here, I'm thinking about another of my schools that I worked in, the year where the school captain wasn't the traditional obvious choice. And that student flourished in a role that they honestly said to me, "Miss, I didn't expect to get this role." That student showed a different style of leadership, but it was leadership and inclusion none the less, and this ended up leading to more, I guess non-traditional students applying for school leadership roles in subsequent years. Because again, representation matters.

But Louis, I'm wondering what you think of this? Because I've talked about schools. What about early learning services?

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

Yeah, I'm thinking back to your point, Sharyn, about the role children can play in developing group norms. It makes me think of a wonderful classroom I once supported which held a morning meeting every day, which over time had evolved into this really meaningful forum for children to identify and address things that they'd like to change in the learning community. And I remember once a small group of girls came to the meeting feeling frustrated because the block area of the classroom was never available to them. There were a group of boys who really enjoyed the block area. They use it every day and they were probably a little bit territorial. And so this has opened up these really fascinating conversations about gender and play and who could play with what and with whom, but it also led to a really significant rearrangement of the classroom environment. The children decided that actually the block area should be much bigger. It needed to be big enough for everyone. And so they ended up extending and incorporating elements of dramatic play into that space. It makes me think how different might that have been, had the teachers sat down and said, okay, we need a block schedule. And the children hadn't had that opportunity to drive the solution themselves.

Sharyn D'Souza

Yeah so the children came up with the more inclusive solution. So it sounds like we're back to the idea of inclusion being a protective factor. And when an anti-biased lens is applied to our work, like I said, bolsters that sense of inclusion because we as educators see children and young people as their whole selves, and we attempt to take steps to acknowledge and address the bias practices and systemic issues. Anti-Biased Education empowers a community, but it really strengthens it as well.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

Alright, we're getting close to the end and I really want to hear from our audience again. So very quickly, Sharyn, you're touching on one of our themes, which is the importance of structures. And we want to be doing this work individually, there are lots of little steps we can take. We also want to be thinking as a community, as a group. So what are some of your ideas for how to sustain this work within a learning community?

Sharyn D'Souza

Great question. And I wish we had an entire hour to go, but we don't. I think that the conversations about power and empowerment and bias are really great opportunities for group reflections as a staffing group. It can be so valuable to reflect on your own beliefs and experiences, but also to hear on from your colleagues and their reflections and observations. So if you have the opportunity to put together a dialogue group or a community of practice, that might be a really great place to start some of these discussions as well.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

Right, or if you're a director or a school leader what a great reflection topic for professional development. You could take a reading from Anti-Bias Education, you could pull some of the reflective questions from the Planning for Empowerment resource, you can build a staff meeting around them.

Sharyn D'Souza

Absolutely. Because what a great way to set the tone and demonstrate your commitment as a leader. But I also think that these are really powerful conversations to be having with our families as well. Everything we've talked about today about empowerment and social change and making plans and decisions together really applies to our families too. 

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

Yeah. I mean, really, I think if we're thinking about embedding different perspectives, discussing celebrating difference, we can't do that without families. It's so important.

Sharyn D'Souza

Alright so, and the last thing I was thinking about too, before we kind of get towards the end is I think that as adults who work with children and young people, we have that opportunity to be advocates for the rights of children in all the spaces that we operate in. 

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

Right. And I think to get back to the beginning, that's why having such a strong, clearly defined image of the child can be so helpful. It helps, it gives you a really clear starting point to helping others in your life see children and young people as competent, capable citizens. Let's hear from our audience, Sharyn.

Sharyn D'Souza

Alright, so we do have ooh a very couple of short couple of minutes. So we're eager to hear from you, from our audience on this particular question that you can see on the screen. It's our last Menti so go to menti.com. Again, it's a different code. So that's 1 2 5 7 7 3 6 1. Go to the website, scan the code and share with us, what are the steps that you will take to empower the children and young people in your school setting?

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

I'm so eager to see our audience's responses to this question. I think we have so much expertise in our audience and in our services and schools. I'm thinking as we wait for those responses to come in, Sharyn, about some of the small steps that we can take. I'm thinking of all the wonderful infant-toddler classrooms I visited where - there we go, excellent - educators have taken routines like nappy changes as opportunities to slow down, to use authentic language, to invite participation and cooperation. I think, oh, we're getting them in, let's switch.

Sharyn D'Souza

Oh look, just listening. I think sometimes we forget that, that's so powerful and important. Let's do that.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

Daily yarns, allowing children to have a voice.

Sharyn D'Souza

There's so many great ones coming through.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

We've got a response about group norms versus group rules. Again it's just that shift in the frame of reference. It's a shift in who tells the story.

Sharyn D'Souza

Absolutely. I'm trying to see, is there anything else that stands out for you there, Louis? 

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

I think one of the things I'm seeing in the responses, Sharyn, is that this work takes time. Listening takes time. We need to create space and time to have these dialogues, to allow children to exercise meaningful choice. We need time for reflection. And again, we want to be doing that as a community.

Sharyn D'Souza

Yeah, they're not overnight changes that we're seeing. There are responses coming through, but sadly, there's so much more we could discuss, but we've come to the end of our time. So for all of you who've been listening and tuning in today, if you want to learn more about empowerment and Be You please connect with us on the different channels. So all the different social media channels that we have, connect with your Be You Consultant and make some time to explore the Be You website.

If your learning community isn't yet implementing Be You as a whole learning community approach, we do encourage you to register online and get started with a supportive consultant, like the two of us as well. But on behalf of Louis and myself, we'd really like to say, thank you for attending, listening. Hopefully the tech all worked for you on your end as well. And we look forward to connecting with you in the future sessions of the Be You Virtual Conference.

Louis Hamlyn-Harris

Thanks, everyone.

Sharyn D'Souza

Thanks Louis, thanks everyone at home.

End of transcript.