Freedom Means...

In this episode, we role model a conversation with a child who hears about widespread fires on the west coast of the US and asks, “ Are we gonna be on fire?” During the conversation we give an explanation of the word climate using the human body as an analogy.  We talk about the ways humans have impacted the climate and use our imaginations to strategize ways of coping with the reality of climate change.  We also begin to talk about the intersection of race and climate change.

We are community educators and work with groups of teachers, parents and caregivers. If you are interested in working with us, want to give feedback, or submit scenarios from your own lives for the podcast, you can contact us through our website: www.thefullstoryschool.org or by sending us an email at [email protected].

Please consider becoming a monthly supporter at www.thefullstoryschool.org/monthly-donors. It helps us reach more people if you share, follow or subscribe and leave us a review! Thank you. 

The music and sound design for this podcast is done by Echo Finch.

You can find the book and resource recommendations from this episode here. 

In this bonus episode, Emma embarks on the journey of explaining the documentary series Tiger King to a child. The explanation incorporates concepts including mullets, marrying multiple people at the same time, keeping jungle animals in captivity, missing husbands, contract killing and jail. This episode contains *SPOILERS* for season one. 

While once in a while we dabble in talking about TV, Grace and Emma's work is focused on talking with young children about racism and colonialism. Please check out the other episodes to get a sense of what our work usually entails. We are community educators and work with groups of teachers, parents and caregivers. If you are interested in working with us, want to give feedback, or submit scenarios from your own lives for the podcast, you can contact us through our website: www.thefullstoryschool.org or by sending us an email at [email protected].

Please consider becoming a monthly supporter at www.thefullstoryschool.org/monthly-donors.

The audio and sound design is done by Echo Finch. 

In this episode we begin the complex work of answering this question. During our role play we share that the widely known story of Thanksgiving contains many lies and give accurate historical context. We talk about how different people practice the holiday and share an indigenous tradition of gratitude. Lastly, we begin to talk about how pilgrims replicated the harm they learned in Europe and how those weren’t their only choices.

To learn more about the complicated histories of Thanksgiving in preschool vocabulary, click here.  

We are community educators and work with groups of teachers, parents and caregivers. If you are interested in working with us, want to give feedback, or submit scenarios from your own lives for the podcast, you can contact us through our website: www.thefullstoryschool.org or by sending us an email at [email protected].

Please consider becoming a monthly supporter at www.thefullstoryschool.org/monthly-donors. It helps us reach more people if you share, follow or subscribe and leave us a review! Thank you. 

The music and sound design for this podcast is done by Echo Finch.

You can find the book and resource recommendations from this episode here. 

In this episode we respond to this question asked by 5 year old Callum. Our role plays and reflections touch on the humanity of Black people and how they are connected in the story of their lives on this land. We practice talking to a white child about holding the truth of their inherent value while focusing on a part of their human community that urgently needs and asks to be seen, heard, and experience justice.  The last role play includes an account of the inception of the BLM movement.

We are community educators and work with groups of teachers, parents and caregivers. If you are interested in working with us, want to give feedback, or submit scenarios from your own lives for the podcast, you can contact us through our website: www.thefullstoryschool.org or by sending us an email at [email protected].

Please consider becoming a monthly supporter at www.thefullstoryschool.org/monthly-donors. It helps us reach more people if you share, follow or subscribe and leave us a review! Thank you. 

The music and sound design for this podcast is done by Echo Finch.

You can find the book and resource recommendations from this episode here. 

This episode is an interview Emma and Grace did with Bonnie Harris--a veteran counselor specializing in Connective Parenting. You can hear from her on her podcast, Tell Me About Your Kids.

We talk with Bonnie about how we got into this work, what were some of our formative experiences in our development around race and what makes our work with groups of teachers and parents unique. 

We are community educators and work with groups of teachers, parents and caregivers. If you are interested in working with us, want to give feedback, or submit scenarios from your own lives for the podcast, you can contact us through our website: www.thefullstoryschool.org or by sending us an email at [email protected].

Please consider becoming a monthly supporter at www.thefullstoryschool.org/monthly-donors.

The music and sound design for this podcast is done by Echo Finch. 

In this episode we explore the idea that white means a color and a (made up) group of people. We role play a reflection after a child is called white and she responds that she doesn't look the color white. Our conversation begins by sharing a historical context for the creation of race--land owning Europeans making a group to be legally empowered to exploit and harm other groups. We then move into talking about the messages that get taught to white people and how those messages have continued to uphold structural racism. Grace and Emma end by sharing more historical context about the history of race being a response to multi-racial worker rebellions. The conversations in this episode build on the previous episodes and attempt to talk about systems of racial and class exploitation and resistance. 

We are community educators and work with groups of teachers, parents and caregivers. If you are interested in working with us, want to give feedback, or submit scenarios from your own lives for the podcast, you can contact us through our website: www.thefullstoryschool.org or by sending us an email at [email protected].

Please consider becoming a monthly supporter at www.thefullstoryschool.org/monthly-donors. It helps us reach more people if you share, follow or subscribe and leave us a review! Thank you. 

The music and sound design for this podcast is done by Echo Finch.

You can find the book and resource recommendations from this episode here. 

In this episode we work through a simple and profound question about the police. We attempt to offer historical context about the history of policing, as well as use metaphors to try to explain some of the essence of the job. We consider together if police play too many roles in our community and then end by considering if there is actually any safe role at all for police. Grace and Emma reflect on the grief work inherent to these practices, the idea of good and bad, and the impact the job of policing has on the human beings who do the job. 

We are community educators and work with groups of teachers, parents and caregivers. If you are interested in working with us, want to give feedback, or submit scenarios from your own lives for the podcast, you can contact us through our website: www.thefullstoryschool.org or by sending us an email at [email protected]

Please consider becoming a monthly supporter at www.thefullstoryschool.org/monthly-donors. It helps us reach more people if you share, follow or subscribe and leave us a review! Thank you. 

The music and sound design for this podcast is done by Echo Finch.

You can find the book and resource recommendations from this episode here. 

This episode explores skin color. We role play responding to a child who asks about the skin color of someone in the grocery store. We talk about melanin, ancestry, and the sun. Grace and Emma reflect on how to prioritize relationships when having conversations publicly, the need to spread out conversations over longer periods than is modeled in the episode, and how to use questions as a way to guide and facilitate understanding. 

We are community educators and work with groups of teachers, parents and caregivers. If you are interested in working with us, want to give feedback, or submit scenarios from your own lives for the podcast, you can contact us through our website: www.thefullstoryschool.org or by sending us an email at [email protected]

Please consider becoming a monthly supporter at www.thefullstoryschool.org/monthly-donors. It helps us reach more people if you share, follow or subscribe and leave us a review! Thank you. 

The music and sound design for this podcast is done by Echo Finch.

You can find the book and resource recommendations from this episode here. 

In this very first episode of Season 1, on Indigenous People's Day, we role play three short imaginary conversations with a child. We explore why Columbus day has been renamed Indigenous People's day, we re-frame the untrue story that he "discovered" anything, and we discuss what he did to the indigenous peoples when he arrived. We talk about the history of the organizing to make Indigenous People's Day a day of recognition and introduce the idea of genocide. Grace and Emma then reflect on who to center in these conversations with young people, and how to hold and confront the enormous grief inherent to the honest history of colonization. 

We are community educators and work with groups of teachers, parents and caregivers. If you are interested in working with us, want to give feedback, or submit scenarios from your own lives for the podcast, you can contact us through our website: www.thefullstoryschool.org or by sending us an email at [email protected]

Please consider becoming a monthly supporter at www.thefullstoryschool.org/monthly-donors. It helps us reach more people if you share, follow or subscribe and leave us a review! Thank you. 

The music and sound design for this podcast is done by Echo Finch.

You can find the book and resource recommendations from this episode here. 

Season One of Freedom Means is about to begin! This season we, Grace Aldrich and Emma Redden, explore the question, “How do you find the words for complicated conversations about race with children?" We try to answer this question by practicing and experimenting with the language together. This first episode shares with listeners the foundational beliefs behind our work: children are complex human beings who live in the same world as adults and deserve to be told the truth about racism.

We are community educators and work with groups of teachers, parents and caregivers. If you are interested in working with us, want to give feedback, or submit scenarios from your own lives for the podcast, you can contact us through our website: www.thefullstoryschool.org or by sending us an email at [email protected]

Please consider becoming a monthly supporter at www.thefullstoryschool.org/monthly-donors.

The music and sound design for this podcast is done by Echo Finch.