New host Andre Dukes sits down with Early Risers’ founding host Dianne Haulcy to reflect on the origins of this podcast. Just days after the murder of George Floyd, Haulcy penned a wakeup call to her peers in early childhood education on the realities of racism and implicit bias in how we raise our children. That message ultimately became Haulcy’s personal call to action, and the foundation for the Early Risers podcast. Haulcy shares her favorite podcast episodes and offers advice to Dukes as he takes the reins. We also learn about Dukes’ uniquely personal connection to the location where George Floyd lost his life, nearly 50 years earlier, well before it became George Floyd Square. 

Dianne Haulcy
Former Host, Early Risers 
Assistant Commissioner, Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families 

Following the killing of George Floyd, early childhood leader Dianne Haulcy wrote a blogpost in which she called on colleagues and peers to wake up to the realities of racism and implicit bias in how we raise and teach our children. That message planted the seed for Early Risers, a podcast about racial equity in early childhood and the hope of raising a generation who will bring a new dawn of racial equity for the future. Dianne hosted Early Risers until 2024, when she was appointed Assistant Commissioner of Early Childhood at the Minnesota Department of Children Youth and Families. 

• How Children’s Books can be Tools for Resistance: A Conversation with Dr. Ibram X. Kendi  
• We Are the Same and We Are Different; How to Talk about Diversity with White Kids in White Communities Louise Derman-Sparks 
• What If All the Kids Are White?: Anti-Bias Multicultural Education with Young Children and Families by Louise Derman-Sparks 
• Understanding Racial Identity in Young Children Dr. Toni Sturdivant 
• Navigating Parenthood as Black Parents in a Growing Minnesota City Kai and James Miller 

What if, before you learned to read, you learned to ask questions? Faith Rogow calls it a “habit of inquiry,” and tells Dianne it’s more important now than ever. That’s because the explosion of media can be confusing, overwhelming and reinforce racial stereotypes. Little learners CAN become critical thinkers. Dr. Rogow says never take media - from books to apps - at face value. Instead, ask open-ended questions to start conversations - about race and everything else.  

Episode Resources:

Media Literacy for Young Children: Teaching Beyond the Screen Time Debates (NAEYC, 2022)

Faith Rogow’s MEDIA LITERACY EDUCATION blogsite

Content Creator’s Guide to Media Literacy blogpost by Faith Rogow

Webinars featuring Faith Rogow from Early Childhood Investigations Webinars

Video: Critical Media Literacy Conference of the Americas

Discussion Guide: Early Risers Season 6 Episode 7 Discussion Guide

If you thought experiments about race were a thing of the past, Sylvia Perry has news for you. In her social psychology lab at Northwestern University, she’s trying to figure out where racial bias comes from. She is finding that talking about race with children decreases prejudice. She tells Dianne how her career was shaped by her own upbringing as a Black girl in the rural South, and she offers guidance for caregivers on how to lead these conversations, including sharing examples of how she’s helped her own Black son take pride in his heritage.

Episode Resources:

Talking to your kids about race can reduce bias, a Northwestern professor found, a radio story from WBEZ Chicago

Sylvia Perry: Understanding and Encouraging White American Parent-child Conversations about Race, a video from the Center for the Science of Moral Understanding

Disrupting Racism and Bias at Home, at School, and at Work, an article from Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research

Discussion Guide: Early Risers Season 6 Episode 6 Discussion Guide

What was it like to work at Sesame Workshop back in the day? How about Nickelodeon? As a proud Chinese American, Courtney Wong Chin was thrilled to help the companies find ways to talk about race and culture. In this episode, Chin pulls back the curtain on content creation at Noggin and Sesame Workshop. She talks about the challenge of finding language and images that are culturally specific but not confusing, and the importance of noticing and celebrating diverse identities to help build children's' self-esteem. Chin says she learned that kids’ stories work best when they’re specific enough to be authentic but not so complicated they’re overwhelming.

Episode Resources:

Coming Together: Family Reflections on Racism at Sesame Workshop

Discussing Race with Young Children guide from Sparkler Learning, OK Play, and Noggin.

Building Characters, Blending Cultures from EmbraceRace's 2023 Reflections on Racial Learning

Panel discussion on content creation for children at the Children’s Media Career Symposium 2022, hosted by the Center for Media and Information Literacy

Early Risers Season 6 Episode 5 Discussion Guide

Nicol Russell is vice president for implementation research for Teaching Strategies, a professional development company for early childhood educators. She has taught young children, managed a childcare center, and worked in state government, consistently striving to promote self-esteem and a positive cultural identity in both children and educators.

Nicol Russell started hearing about race when she was a little girl. Her parents were from two different backgrounds and made sure she was proud of them both. They gave her language and tools to understand her identity. Now Dr. Russell shows teachers of young children how to communicate to build kids’ cultural identities and self-esteem. Russell says adults should run toward–not away from– topics that may make them nervous. 

Episode Resources:

NAEYC profile of Dr. Russell

Video: Talking About Race and Power with Young Kids from Embrace Race

Video: Tiny Talk - The Joy that Binds Us from Embrace Race

Early Risers Season 6 Episode 4 Discussion Guide

Wouldn’t it be great to play games for a living? That’s a big part of John Sessler’s job for PBS Kids. He tells Early Risers host Dianne Haulcy the work is fun, but not simple. PBS Kids content is required to meet learning goals while also expanding what children know about race and culture. PBS Kids starts with diverse teams of content creators and ends with children as active and curious consumers of media.

Guest: John Sessler is Director of Professional Learning for Ready To Learn at PBS Kids. Sessler has spent 20 years designing experiences that develop young learners’ empathy, curiosity, reflection, and critical thinking skills.

Download the Early Risers Season 6 Episode 3 Discussion Guide

Episode Resources:

Lyla in the Loop

PBS Kids video on playful learning

PBS Kids: How to Talk to Children About Race

Sesame Workshop: Explaining Race

Media companies like Cartoon Network consult Dr. Kira Banks to help ensure they portray diverse families accurately and respectfully. When Michael Brown was killed by police in Ferguson, Missouri, Dr. Banks and her family had just moved to nearby St. Louis. The psychology professor was teaching her two young sons to be proud of their African American heritage. After the crisis, she doubled down on her commitment to change the narrative kids hear about race. She says the work starts with the stories we tell babies and continues with the stories we tell children.

Episode Resources:

Dr. Banks' podcast, Raising Equity

TedX talk on systemic change

Faculty website

Dr. Bank’s website: https://kirabanks.com/

LinkedIn: Dr Kira Banks

Instagram: @‌DrKiraBanks

FaceBook: @‌DrKiraBanks

Twitter: @‌DrKiraBanks

TikTok: @‌DrKiraBanks

Download the discussion guide

What if you COULD tell a book by its cover? What if the pictures and design were as important as the words? That’s the idea behind Megan Dowd Lambert’s “Whole Book Approach” to reading. As a mother to five children of color and two white children, Dowd Lambert promotes reading “with a race-conscious lens.” As a professional storyteller, she explains why it’s important to read with children, and not just to them.

Episode Resources:

Megan Dowd Lambert’s website

Books inspired by Megan Dowd Lambert’s daughters: Every Day With April and Mae

Video demonstrating Whole Book Approach with preschoolers

Video presentation by Megan Dowd Lambert for Embrace Race

Merge for Equality video interview with Megan Dowd Lambert

Cooperative Children’s Book Center at University of Wisconsin

Diverse Book Finder

Download the Discussion Guide:

Early Risers S6 E1 Discussion Guide

“Racial identity” refers to a person’s understanding of different racial identities, one’s preferences for a particular racial identity and how identities are ranked in their family, their society and in their own mind. Toni Sturdivant has spent her career developing a library of books and a collection of teaching ideas for the early childhood classroom that will help young children establish a positive racial identity. In this episode, she talks about her work and her particular focus on boosting the confidence and resilience of young children of color.

Guest: Toni Sturdivant is director of Early Learning and Head Start for the Mid-America Regional Council in Kansas City, MO. She is also a parent, coach, professor and author who focuses on young children’s racial identity. 

Discussion Guide: Early Risers Season 5 Episode 6 Discussion Guide

Episode Resources:

More from Toni Sturdivant: her books and other interviews

Toni’s personal statement: https://www.naeyc.org/about-us/people/governing-board/elections/toni-sturdivant

Video: Unpacking parenting with Toni Sturdivant

2021 Scholarly research report from UNC: “Ethnic-Racial Identity Formation in the Early Years” 

More resources on positive racial identity in BIPOC children

One of the hardest parts of teaching is managing the classroom to promote learning, keep order and inspire students. Many approaches to classroom management are punitive and reproachful. Reddy describes a different approach that–at its core– celebrates students and gives them opportunities to practice their identities.

Guest: Shawn Prakash Reddy was an elementary school teacher in Chicago public schools for nearly ten years. He is now Associate Director of Teacher Development at National Louis University in Chicago and a field coach for teachers in training.

Discussion Guide: Early Risers Season 5 Episode 5 Discussion Guide

Episode Resources:

This study explores how teachers can be taught “racial noticing” to increase awareness in the classroom.

This webinar is from the “Cultural Competent Knowledge Cafe” series that Shawn Reddy is facilitating with the National Louis community.

More from National Louis University on their work to train teachers to be conscious of race, racism and bias.