In affinity, we discover kinship. Our shared pursuits transfer us towards each other and provides us alternatives for connection, deep empathy and shared experiences. Our worldviews collide, and we’re not alone; we’re in a group.
One of many first instances I felt like I used to be in group was in my highschool jazz band as an adolescent. I auditioned to be part of the Ravinia Students, becoming a member of a bunch of teenage musicians from excessive faculties throughout Chicago. We every have been assigned a mentor who performed our respective devices and we have been welcomed as artists and musicians. Whereas my different friends listened to Tyga and Usher, we linked over a love of jazz requirements and got here collectively to take heed to the masterful solos of Sonny Rollins, Artwork Blakey and McCoy Tyner. I felt like I used to be proper the place I used to be meant to be. My mentor was the late Willie Pickens, and he by no means let me overlook how particular this group was.
I consider that is an expertise each baby deserves—to be seen, heard and affirmed of their full id. That is why, as a Black early childhood educator and counselor, I discover it needed to offer these similar protected areas to younger kids.
At our faculty, we outline affinity teams as: A peer community the place people come collectively as a result of they’ve a side of their id in widespread. Our identity-based affinity teams start in kindergarten and live on in first grade, second grade, and past — our earliest group started in Nursery 4.
In talking about their experiences with affinity teams, writer Monita Ok. Bell outlines:
“College students want to have the ability to be themselves in school—and that’s the place affinity teams are available. A bunch of scholars who share an id relate to one another in methods they will’t with friends who can’t or don’t perceive their expertise. It’s about security and, in some instances, about basic problems with injustice.”
Faculties are locations the place people don’t at all times really feel included. After we assume extra particularly in regards to the expertise of scholars of colour inside predominantly white faculties, this exclusion turns into extra prevalent. College students of colour are in a relentless state of proving that their experiences are actual and that they matter, and continually being in a state of proving will be tense and anxiety-provoking. This sort of stress can contribute to emotions of loneliness and being “unseen” in school.
Affinity teams have the ability to mitigate these results and to create a robust basis of id and group that positively fight the unfair experiences lots of our kids will encounter.
Affinity Teams Foster a Sturdy Basis for Id
Typically, we expect that the early childhood years are too early to debate race, ethnicity, gender, neurodiversity and different facets of id. However systemic oppression can negatively have an effect on baby improvement, particularly racism. Youngsters discover variations at a really younger age and can make their inferences if we don’t focus on the nuances and aspects of id. When faculties ignore the chance to create areas the place shared identifiers are centered, in the end, hurt is finished.
In early childhood schooling, it’s as much as the adults in a younger baby’s life to offer this expertise. The muse of their improvement occurs within the earliest years of their lives. They’re formed and molded by the adults round them. However what occurs when the adults of their lives don’t focus on or uplift all facets of id?
Affinity teams have the ability to strengthen the voices of our college students and assist them assume critically in regards to the world, their experiences and their schooling. By working towards their crucial considering expertise and studying to belief themselves, they will develop instruments that assist them fight the results of internalized racial stress or bias.
Our academic methods are constructed on antiquated methods that unfairly and incorrectly place whiteness and heterosexuality because the norm. To fight this, we should talk about id and affirm the identities of our most underrepresented populations.
Constructing a Basis for Connection
Over the previous 5 years, our affinity teams have expanded inside our EC surroundings, and now we have outlined concrete targets:
- Affirmation: How am I/are we enriched socially and emotionally by this group?
- Dignity: How is my/our human worth celebrated?
- Visibility: How am I/are we seen as helpful group members?
Realizing how highly effective affinity teams will be within the EC surroundings, with the assist of my faculty, my colleagues and I made a decision to implement these teams for our college students. Every of our 5 affinity teams is centered on particular identities and experiences, together with:
- Blackspace (Black college students),
- Latinidad (Latinx college students),
- Desi Mangos (South Asian college students),
- Infinity (college students exploring LGBTQIA+ id) and
- Nice Minds (college students who’re studying about their studying types)
From specializing in pleasure and gratitude to centering the position of group, every affinity group is purposeful in aligning our themes and actions. This extends our group and creates alternatives for our college students to start to debate and perceive intersectionality.
As an affinity group lead facilitator, I run my group each week with two of my different sensible colleagues. Collectively, we create an organized and goal-oriented curriculum centered on affirming Blackness.
Throughout Hispanic Heritage Month, our colleagues got here collectively to assist two of our affinity teams. They canceled health club lessons, modified classroom schedules and most of our 700 college students joined us within the health club for a group celebration of id, tradition and affinity.
After this celebration, our colleague remarked, “The youngsters regarded so glad parading round with their flags, and I spoke with many college students all through the day about how a lot pleasure and satisfaction it gave them. I additionally spoke with youngsters who aren’t in Latinidad or Blackspace who realized from the video, and we have been in a position to share and join in pleasure for that studying collectively.”
Not solely did our collaboration affirm the id of our kids inside our affinity teams, however their friends have been capable of finding connection of their shared experiences and bear witness to the affirmation of id.
Affinity Teams Join Us All
Whereas I’ve had the expertise of feeling supported as an affinity group chief, this was not at all times the case. Even now, I come throughout colleagues who fear about saying the mistaken factor, speaking about an affinity group that none of their college students are collaborating in, or coping with the challenges that we’d obtain from caregivers or dad and mom. All of those considerations are legitimate, and I welcome the chance to discover them additional—in discussing issues that carry us discomfort, we will assist one another as a group.
The pushback we obtain does not imply we shouldn’t be doing this essential work. If something, it’s proof of why we ought to be doing it. There’s a domino-like impact of positivity when now we have identity-based affinity teams within the early childhood setting. It begins with our college students, extends to the affinity group leaders and continues to have constructive results that ripple all through our school-wide group.
There may be energy in starting early. It turns into part of the material of your day by day work. Discussing id turns into the norm, and kids observe go well with; they don’t shrink back from conversations about variations; as a substitute, they have fun newfound similarities and data. We’re not simply instructing them learn how to maintain a pencil, play with the strains and curves of letters, and construct constructions utilizing shapes. We’re creating studying environments the place the ability of affinity areas is revered, the place kids can thrive of their full id — the place id is valued as a day by day purpose and a part of our curriculum.
