Even though I wasn’t physically there with my mom in those years when she was working to connect families to early childhood education, I could sense the connections she had formed. In the most essential way, my mom was a community education worker. I can’t count the number of times we would hear a voice in the distance, moving closer, only to realize it was a former child (now adult) who remembered my mom’s handprint on their school, their lives, and their souls. 

 

To quote Bryan Stevenson, of the Equal Justice Initiative, proximity reduces the distance and being
closer in proximity with others gives us the chance to join forces and fight for justice. In part, culturally sustaining pedagogies (CSP) work with families is about getting proximate and doing what Dr. Luis Moll called getting to know each family’s funds of knowledge. And I would be remiss if I were to neglect to mention that my beloved mother enrolled me in a 1-12 grade Spanish bilingual program. As you can imagine, her decision changed the trajectory of my life and has gifted me myriad onramps into untold worlds.