Braiding Narratives in Naughty Cities: Early Childhood Educators Make Meaning Together

• In Event: Trauma, Chaos, Resistance

Abstract

Storying reveals that trust, listening, and risk-taking nourish agency/care through difficulty. We braid three divergent disturbing/hopeful stories.
Story 1 describes a hanging noose hate crime in an education building. Tangles of passion to support BLM knotted with threats of silences foreground anti-racism efforts. Well-intended passion/hurt co-mingled to infect the workplace.
Story 2 describes a class discussing racism, protests, and the murder of George Floyd; dialogues that required new stories acknowledging justice as a more-than-human matter.
Story 3 details educational trauma for new students already experiencing terrors of immigration. Problematic are access to technology and Wi-Fi, to tutors for basic skills, and to nutrition, safe housing and water.
Story braiding with one another propels teacher education toward hopeful and generative futures.

Authors

• Will Parnell, Portland State University

• Angela Molloy Murphy, The University of Melbourne

• Elizabeth P. Quintero, California State University - Channel Islands