Educating Young Children Volume 2 - Fall 2026 | Page 44

The Four Core Goals of Anti-Bias Education

Goal 1, Identity

Teachers will nurture each child’ s construction of knowledgeable and confident personal and social identities.

Children will demonstrate self-awareness, confidence, family pride, and positive social identities.

Goal 2, Diversity

Teachers will promote each child’ s comfortable, empathic 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.

Goal 3, Justice

Teachers will foster each child’ s capacity to critically identify bias and will nurture each child’ s empathy for the hurt bias causes.

Children will increasingly recognize unfairness( injustice), have language to describe unfairness, and understand that unfairness hurts.

Goal 4, Activism

Teachers 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.

Source: Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves, 2nd ed., by Louise Derman-Sparks & Julie Olsen Edwards, with Catherine M. Goins( 2020).

Extended day refers to the care and education provided for children before the school day begins and after it ends. It serves a vital function for children, their families, and the schools they are connected to.

In Arlington Public Schools, extended day educators provide both context and continuity of care. We greet children early in the morning and in the afternoon. We know their teachers and what the children are learning, so we can plan after-school activities that connect to lessons from the day. We see the children grow and change across multiple years— sometimes from one generation to the next. Former students are now parents of the children we serve. We are constantly learning new things about the children, their families, and ourselves.

— Sandra Peña, Sandra Casco, Sicili McCoy, and June Bishop Gibbs

Cultural representation matters. If a child does not feel seen, how will they be engaged in learning?

I( Sandra P.) am an assistant supervisor at Carlin Springs Elementary School, where I have worked in extended day for 11 years.

44 Educating Young Children

Fall 2026