My Kindergarten Class Taught Me What’s Really at Stake in Mahmoud v. Taylor
(The Nation | June 2, 2025) Twenty-five years ago, I was teaching kindergarten in Wisconsin. It was time for the annual unit on families. As any good early childhood teacher knows, when you teach a family unit, you need picture books that resonate with the young kids in your room—each and every kid needs to see their family in the books.
Decades of research has shown the power of children’s books to act as both mirrors and windows. Mirrors let kids see themselves in the world, while windows allow kids a vantage into worlds beyond their immediate life.
That year was particularly memorable: My last year teaching kindergarten before becoming a principal and then an education professor. But it was even more memorable because of the unit on families.
In preparing for the unit, we collected picture books that represented the Black families, the white families, the Hmong families, the Christian, the Jewish, and the Buddhist families in the class. We included picture books with adopted kids, with kids living with their grandparents, with kids with divorced parents, with single parents, as well as kids living with both Mom and Dad …
“As the Supreme Court debates this case, I am reminded of the students I taught over two decades ago who gave me an invaluable lesson about what representation really means to them.”