play lab advocacy
Our organization is dedicated to dismantling the systems invalidate our children based on race, gender, neurtotype, social class, or ability. With your support, our fight will continue making a positive impact in the lives of every child. Read below to see the exchanges on the C2P nexus that we are currently deconstructing for our marginalized children.
Keeping children in mind
Family.Co Run-Down
"Heather shares real-life examples of how she provided actives based on a book she read with the children she was working with and reminds us to reflect on what young children need from adults' plan for them."
The preschool to prison pipeline
Check out this great video
THE 3 WAY INTERSECTION IN EARLY CHILDHOOD
IMPLICIT BIAS
UNREASONABLE EXPECTATIONS
UNREASONABLE EXPECTATIONS
Implicit bias makes it easy to deny the humanity of a child or children in an early learning environment. If a child 's humanity is being erased then it is safe to say that they are not feeing affirmed. If they are not feeling affirmed due to erasure then we can rest assured that chid's feelings are going unmet and their path to belonging will be suspended until they feel safe enough to proceed.
UNREASONABLE EXPECTATIONS
UNREASONABLE EXPECTATIONS
UNREASONABLE EXPECTATIONS
Unreasonable expectations are pervasive in many early learning settings. The need for children to deny their senses, withhold the needs of their bodies to move, and force their bodies to do what it is not yet ready to do are just a few of the ways that a child's humanity is decentered in order to center compliance.
IMAGE OF THE CHILD
UNREASONABLE EXPECTATIONS
IMAGE OF THE CHILD
A world away from Loris Maliguzzi's definition, the image of the child that develops through implicit bias and unreasonable expectations is that of a deficit or as having ill-intent. Children are to be trained. They should be taught and their behavior should be fixed consistently.
enclosures
The Play Lab's Environment is Enclosure Free.
The Play Lab's Practitioners are bound by our mission of investing in family engagement, building trusting relationships, and when it comes to our 3rd teacher, the environment, we have created an intentional space where every enclosure has been dismantled to ensure safe passage for all.
ENCLOSURES
ENCLOSURE OF FREEDOM
ENCLOSURE OF COGNITION
ENCLOSURE OF MOVEMENT
The carceral framework pervading many education systems starting in early childhood did not originate in the wake of Brown vs. the Board of Education. In the C2P nexus, implicit bias, zero tolerance policies, and assumption of ill-intent which leads to the criminalization of childhood all work together to oppress a child's sense of self determination and take their humanity right along with it. The Play Lab focuses on liberating our earliest learners from a framework created to close them in. . Our organization was established to address the growing need include and empower those children who are othered due to race, gender, trauma, neurtoype and those whose families are bound by financial constraints. these are our babies who get dismissed and dehumanized and find themselves funneled into the C2P nexus before they have a chance to experience a learning experience in any other way.
ENCLOSURE OF MOVEMENT
ENCLOSURE OF COGNITION
ENCLOSURE OF MOVEMENT
Imagine waking up in a world where you are told where to go, when to go there, where to sit, what you can or cannot say, when to use the bathroom, when, what, and how much to eat, when to take a break and what you are allowed to do during that break. Did you wake up in the criminal legal system? No. I am describing the day of the average early learner. Our goal is to disrupt the framework that uses observation, scrutiny, and coercive tactics to leverage control and empower every child to be confident that they have a voice and a choice and both have value.
ENCLOSURE OF COGNITION
ENCLOSURE OF COGNITION
ENCLOSURE OF COGNITION
Punitive praxis-a C2P nexus is by design. From shame, time out and other shame based forms of coercion, exclusion, suspensions and eventual suspensions and expulsions are the result of a system working as it should. At The Play Lab we interrupt the cycle through our liberated learning framework. the theory is that children valued, are exposed to opportunities for joy, agency, and secure relationships with caregivers, and are given space to move freely think freely and to be will not have a care-free life, but will have a life in which they can find the resolve to continue on in the face of adversity and become self-sufficient citizens that thrive in and around their community.Foundation, our mission is to
5 Things you should know about A.R.C.
The Play Lab is a "mask-free" environment.
Attunement begins with listening to our bodies. At the Play Lab our Practitioners are intentional about creating an environment where children don't feel the need to conform or comply to rigid and unreasonable rules.
unbelonging
RIGID SCHEDULES
OPPRESSIVE ENVIRONMENTS
RIGID SCHEDULES
There is a state of emergency for children in their early years. the need to move them along from one milestone to the next, to have them comply, to obey, or risk retaliation, and the rush to get them school ready, has created stressful environments that children either mask in order to maintain connection to the person in authority or they pushback and find themselves on the losing end of a power struggle.
LACK OF CHOICE
OPPRESSIVE ENVIRONMENTS
RIGID SCHEDULES
Because all skills are emergent with children in their early years, they lack self agency in many areas of their lives. When the image of the child is incapable or deficient, it robs them of the opportunity to make attempt self advocacy. Through this behavior they create an image of the adult as the authority over their lives and the skills required to construct their budding identities are wither withheld or designed by someone else
OPPRESSIVE ENVIRONMENTS
OPPRESSIVE ENVIRONMENTS
OPPRESSIVE ENVIRONMENTS
oppressive enclosures shows up in early learning environments in the implementation of instruction, time regulation, policing of autonomy, and fixed roles of subservience & dominance...If this is giving servitude vibes, that's the intention. an atmosphere that regulates how one learns, moves, and behaves is generally not the environment that's conjured up when speaking of spaces for children and childhood, but it's an accurate description.
The Play Lab of change
Liberated Learning ensures that every child is seen, heard, and valued.
Self actualization doesn't happen in a vacuum. The Play Lab organization understands that in order for our Black, Brown, underrepresented , and underserved children to realize their full potential, they must be exposed to repetitive instances of support, security, radical love, and unspeakable joy. Liberated Learning seeks to adhere to this practice for children starting at 6 weeks of age and through the age of 6. By working together with our community partners, we aim to create a brighter future for those in need.
WE NEED HUMANIZING PEDAGOGIES THAT CENTER THE GENIUS, JUSTICE, LOVE, AND HUMANITY IN OUR CHILDREN.
GHOULDY MUHAMMAD
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