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Welcome to Module 3: Leading into Unknowable Futures

We need to know who we are, where we are, and where we got here before we can sit at the table to determine where we want to go collectively. 

As child care managers and leaders, how will you refuse to turn away from the realities of life in the 21st century? You are tasked with the responsibility of leading early care and learning spaces, spaces of commonly held beliefs about the “innocence” of childhood.

How will you find the courage to disrupt normative practices in the hopes that a more-just world is possible? What does it mean to carry hope—amidst intersectional disparity, increasing polarization and militarization, of denialism, of true costs of capitalism, and amidst ecological ravaging and exploitation?

Breathe first.

Breathe until you find your place back in your body, in this sensing body, in this ever-changing present. Find the breath that is long, exhaling more than you inhale. Breathe this way until your breath mirrors the exchange between ocean and shore.

  • What does it mean to carry hope?
  • What does it mean to hope that more-just worlds are possible?

Dr. Cornel West’s words offer a spark for this fire when he says, “Love is what justice looks like in public” (2011, 26:40)

Those with the great privilege of working with the youngest citizens have the opportunity to see that love is demonstrated each day in our practice. Children remember how to love. We need only to notice, and then to remove barriers that distract us from the kind of love that is possible when we remember that every child is a gift—notice their ways of attending to the world with wonder, with presence and offering their astonishment.

As we move into this final module of the course, trust that what is needed in these times is leaders with the courage to restructure themselves and their organizations towards loving justice, towards actionable hope, together, with all children, and with all of those who hope for, care for, and dream with the children of today.

Reference

West, C. (2011, April 17). Cornel West: Justice is What Love Looks Like in Public [YouTube]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGqP7S_WO6o

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