For two days in August and September, ADL’s A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE® Institute provided training from the Miller Early Childhood Initiative of the A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE® Institute to preschool directors in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD)’s Early Childhood Education Division. This training was the first of its kind to be delivered to LAUSD’s early childhood education administrators.
The two-day training included opportunities to examine and challenge bias, learn new terminology, practice new activities and develop concrete action steps to take at early childhood education centers across the nation’s second largest school district. The collective wisdom and experience of the group allowed for many peer-to-peer learning opportunities and rich conversation. Given their roles as the decision makers, a special piece of the training agenda focused on the development of inclusive and affirming mission statements for each center.
Several weeks elapsed between the two training sessions so that Directors could return to the centers to implement the new activities and skills they learned on day one. On the second day, Center Directors brought examples of art projects and family activities that they created following the first day of training.
The program’s “Early Childhood Activities for Educations” book, created in partnership between ADL and Sesame Workshop®, is a standard component of ADL’s early childhood trainings. A sample activity from that book, “Block People,” is available here. Directors’ comments on the training included:
“The training allowed me to get out of my comfort zone to explore and accept new viewpoints.”
“These are excellent activities for all staff members to enrich, enhance and improve upon our work skills as they pertain to children and adults as well.”
“The workshop was great. The materials were great. I can’t wait to go back and share more with my staff.”
“I plan to take action and have the difficult conversations that need to be had.”
The ADL Facilitators and LAUSD Center Directors were also joined by KPCC Early Childhood Correspondent Deepa Fernandes, who mentions the training in her article, “Diversity in preschools: Does teacher race or quality matter more?”
To learn more about the Miller Initiative of ADL’s A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE® Institute, take a look at our short video: “The Power of Early Messages.” To schedule an early childhood workshop for educators or families (also available in Spanish), contact A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE® Institute Project Director Dave Reynolds at dreynolds@adl.org or (310) 446 – 4233.