Imagining community through children's voices
By Liliana Flores Amaro, Teacher Educator at University of Colorado Denver. Denver Metro Region
The children looked astounded as I told them that the adults I talked with wanted to be more like them. They wanted to be more creative, more joyful, and more imaginative. First, they had puzzled looks on their faces, then they erupted with laughter. They told me the biggest difference between adults and children was that adults aren’t good at making funny faces.
During my time as a fellow with the Buell Early Childhood Leadership Program, I aimed to focus on aligning my values as an educator with my community engagement work. What would the children tell us about the communities they live in?
I live in northeast Denver in the community of Swansea, where I grew up. Together, Globeville, Elyria, and Swansea (GES) have endured economic, racial, environmental, food, and housing injustice. Our communities are spliced and surrounded by highways and warehouses, rendering plants and a refinery. Our history as a smelting industry hub has left us with a legacy of being classified as a superfund site (United States Environmental Protection Agency, 1999) and people who live here can expect an overall lower life expectancy (Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, 2019).
When I moved back into the neighborhood in 2010, there were so many meetings to share information about community projects. I often reminded the city planners, architects, engineers, and facilitators that they should include the very youngest citizens of our communities as part of their planning. However, there are few opportunities to capture the voices of young children in real and meaningful ways.
Roughly 70% of GES is comprised of families with children; between 25% - 30% of the population are under the age of 18. About 800 of those children are under 5 years old (Shift Research Lab, 2019). We are missing out on the perspectives of a key part of our communities.
Through a collaborative approach to inquiry known as Action Research (Stringer, 2014), I took the opportunity to listen to children. This is what I heard:
During my time as a fellow with the Buell Early Childhood Leadership Program, I aimed to focus on aligning my values as an educator with my community engagement work. What would the children tell us about the communities they live in?
I live in northeast Denver in the community of Swansea, where I grew up. Together, Globeville, Elyria, and Swansea (GES) have endured economic, racial, environmental, food, and housing injustice. Our communities are spliced and surrounded by highways and warehouses, rendering plants and a refinery. Our history as a smelting industry hub has left us with a legacy of being classified as a superfund site (United States Environmental Protection Agency, 1999) and people who live here can expect an overall lower life expectancy (Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, 2019).
When I moved back into the neighborhood in 2010, there were so many meetings to share information about community projects. I often reminded the city planners, architects, engineers, and facilitators that they should include the very youngest citizens of our communities as part of their planning. However, there are few opportunities to capture the voices of young children in real and meaningful ways.
Roughly 70% of GES is comprised of families with children; between 25% - 30% of the population are under the age of 18. About 800 of those children are under 5 years old (Shift Research Lab, 2019). We are missing out on the perspectives of a key part of our communities.
Through a collaborative approach to inquiry known as Action Research (Stringer, 2014), I took the opportunity to listen to children. This is what I heard:
Community is “friendship, even if someone is different, like our skin color or how we talk or our hair.” Daniel, age 7 years, 7 months |
Community: “It’s great! When somebody is next to you, like living with you, they come to your house!” Kaylee, age 5 years, 11 months |
To hear the story of the neighborhoods is to hear the stories of the children. Will we listen to what communities are saying? Will we listen to the children? What will we do after we’ve listened?
We have an opportunity to engage in a transformative relationship with the children who are competent, active citizens in our communities right now. We owe it to them to get out of the way so they can design a world we all want to live in.
We all should think and act like children more often, even if it starts with a funny face.
We have an opportunity to engage in a transformative relationship with the children who are competent, active citizens in our communities right now. We owe it to them to get out of the way so they can design a world we all want to live in.
We all should think and act like children more often, even if it starts with a funny face.