The Dakota Language Nest is a preschool where children are developing their identity through immersion in Dakota culture, traditions and language. In this episode we spend a day with the children as they practice the traditions of smudging, tobacco harvesting, singing songs and showing respect and gratitude for the natural world’s gifts. We speak with lead teacher, Katie Bendickson, about the importance of keeping the language alive, and how the language and traditions are intertwined. We also speak with Nicole Cavender, a Dakota woman whose son attends the language nest: “I wanted to give them what I didn't have and wanted, which wasn't just language, it wasn't just answers to questions, but it's really about belonging, and belonging doesn't happen without community.”

Wóokiye wiŋ | Katie Bendickson
Lead Teacher, Dakhódiapi Wahóȟpi | Dakota Language Nest
University of Minnesota Child Development Laboratory School

Wóokiye wiŋ | Katie Bendickson spent much of her young life on her mother’s reservation, Fond du Lac Reservation in northern Minnesota, before her family moved to her father’s reservation at Upper Sioux Community in southwest Minnesota.

Bendickson is Sisseton Wahpeton Dakhóta. She began learning the Dakota language in high school at Yellow Medicine Senior High, but it wasn’t until college that the language truly captivated her. It transformed her sense of identity, reshaped her worldview and helped her along her personal healing journey.

Her main teaching enthusiasm is nature-based and play-based learning for young children in the Dakota language medium.

Dakota Language Nest

Truth telling: Rethinking Thanksgiving: How to speak to young children about historical and racialized trauma

MN Humanities Center - Learning from Place: Bdote

What’s the difference between a mirror book and a window book? For part two of our Identity through Words and Images series, we go on location to climb aboard Babycake’s Book Stack bookmobile! We learn the importance of children seeing characters that look like they do, how that impacts their sense of self, and how seeing books about others broadens their sense of community. Owner Zsamé Morgan underscores the importance of family literacy and offers guidance on how to get started. We also hear from children’s book illustrators on how they approach their work. We explore how a book’s images can shape a child’s identity just as much as the text, especially among infants and toddlers, and how illustrators think about their role when choosing shapes and hues.

Zsamé Morgan
Owner, Babycake’s Book Stack

Zsamé Morgan is the owner of Babycake’s Book Stack, a children's bookstore on wheels that focuses on family literacy, culture, language and community throughout the Twin Cities — a hub of many diverse people. In 2017, Morgan bought a 33-foot bookmobile from a library in Indiana and opened it up to the public in 2019. Her mobile bookstore carries a highly curated inventory of baby board books, children's, middle school and young adult (YA) books designed to include the culture and/or languages of Indigenous, immigrant, refugee, African American children and children of many other multicultural backgrounds.

Discussion Guide

Babycake’s Book Stack Resources for Family Literacy

Babycake’s Book Stack Bookmobile Schedule

Meleck Davis

Yuyi Morales

Rob Liu-Trujillo

Resmaa Menakem’s bestselling text “My Grandmother’s Hands” deals with the visceral impact of racialized trauma. But is it important for children to understand the legacy of these wounds? And how do we begin to take up such a weighty topic with young children? We sit down with authors Resmaa Menakem and T. Mychael Rambo to understand how a children’s book can provide an invitation for parents and caregivers to begin to acknowledge the trauma. As Menakem says, “Something happened and continues to happen to you and your people, and you have to tend to that.”

Resmaa Menakem and T. Mychael Rambo
Co-Authors, “The Stories from My Grandmother’s Hands”

Resmaa Menakem and T. Mychael Rambo teamed up with illustrator Leroy Campbell to co-author a companion children’s book to Menakem’s New York Times bestseller “My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies.” Menakem is a therapist and licensed clinical worker specializing in racialized trauma, communal healing, and cultural first aid based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His groundbreaking work has reshaped conversations on race and trauma, guiding others toward deep, embodied change. T. Mychael is a Minneapolis-based actor, author, community organizer and public speaker.

“Stories from my Grandmother’s Hands”

“My Grandmother’s Hands” - Resmaa Menakem

“1619 Project” - Nikole Hannah-Jones

Alvin Toffler

A child’s sense of self is shaped by their understanding of where they come from: their culture, history and heritage. But how a child begins to develop that understanding heavily depends on their having the tools to study themselves and the world around them. Host Andre Dukes speaks with Gevonee Ford, founder and executive director of Network for the Development of Children of African Descent, about the importance of literacy in a child’s identity development.

Gevonee Ford
Founder and Executive Director
Network for the Development of Children of African Descent

Gevonee Ford is the Founder and Executive Director of Network for the Development of Children of African Descent, a family education and literacy center that was established in 1997 and based in Minneapolis, MN. Over the past 40 years, Gevonee has worked in the fields of early childhood and K-12 education, specializing in program development, nonprofit management and education policy. Gevonee has been at the forefront of progressive education in Minnesota serving as a teacher, trainer, program director and community organizer. His work has been recognized at national, state and local levels. He has received numerous awards including being named a 2012 White House Champion of Change.

Dr Mulana Karenga

Dr Asa Hilliard- bio

NDCAD’s Sankofa Reading Program

NDCAD’s Parent Power Program

New host Andre Dukes sits down with Early Risers’ founding host Dianne Haulcy to reflect on the origins of this podcast. Just days after the murder of George Floyd, Haulcy penned a wakeup call to her peers in early childhood education on the realities of racism and implicit bias in how we raise our children. That message ultimately became Haulcy’s personal call to action, and the foundation for the Early Risers podcast. Haulcy shares her favorite podcast episodes and offers advice to Dukes as he takes the reins. We also learn about Dukes’ uniquely personal connection to the location where George Floyd lost his life, nearly 50 years earlier, well before it became George Floyd Square.

Dianne Haulcy
Former Host, Early Risers
Assistant Commissioner, Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families

Following the killing of George Floyd, early childhood leader Dianne Haulcy wrote a blogpost in which she called on colleagues and peers to wake up to the realities of racism and implicit bias in how we raise and teach our children. That message planted the seed for Early Risers, a podcast about racial equity in early childhood and the hope of raising a generation who will bring a new dawn of racial equity for the future. Dianne hosted Early Risers until 2024, when she was appointed Assistant Commissioner of Early Childhood at the Minnesota Department of Children Youth and Families.

• How Children’s Books can be Tools for Resistance: A Conversation with Dr. Ibram X. Kendi
• We Are the Same and We Are Different; How to Talk about Diversity with White Kids in White Communities Louise Derman-Sparks
• What If All the Kids Are White?: Anti-Bias Multicultural Education with Young Children and Families by Louise Derman-Sparks
• Understanding Racial Identity in Young Children Dr. Toni Sturdivant
• Navigating Parenthood as Black Parents in a Growing Minnesota City Kai and James Miller

What if, before you learned to read, you learned to ask questions? Faith Rogow calls it a “habit of inquiry,” and tells Dianne it’s more important now than ever. That’s because the explosion of media can be confusing, overwhelming and reinforce racial stereotypes. Little learners CAN become critical thinkers. Dr. Rogow says never take media - from books to apps - at face value. Instead, ask open-ended questions to start conversations - about race and everything else.

Episode Resources:

Media Literacy for Young Children: Teaching Beyond the Screen Time Debates (NAEYC, 2022)

Faith Rogow’s MEDIA LITERACY EDUCATION blogsite

Content Creator’s Guide to Media Literacy blogpost by Faith Rogow

Webinars featuring Faith Rogow from Early Childhood Investigations Webinars

Video: Critical Media Literacy Conference of the Americas

Discussion Guide: Early Risers Season 6 Episode 7 Discussion Guide

If you thought experiments about race were a thing of the past, Sylvia Perry has news for you. In her social psychology lab at Northwestern University, she’s trying to figure out where racial bias comes from. She is finding that talking about race with children decreases prejudice. She tells Dianne how her career was shaped by her own upbringing as a Black girl in the rural South, and she offers guidance for caregivers on how to lead these conversations, including sharing examples of how she’s helped her own Black son take pride in his heritage.

Episode Resources:

Talking to your kids about race can reduce bias, a Northwestern professor found, a radio story from WBEZ Chicago

Sylvia Perry: Understanding and Encouraging White American Parent-child Conversations about Race, a video from the Center for the Science of Moral Understanding

Disrupting Racism and Bias at Home, at School, and at Work, an article from Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research

Discussion Guide: Early Risers Season 6 Episode 6 Discussion Guide

What was it like to work at Sesame Workshop back in the day? How about Nickelodeon? As a proud Chinese American, Courtney Wong Chin was thrilled to help the companies find ways to talk about race and culture. In this episode, Chin pulls back the curtain on content creation at Noggin and Sesame Workshop. She talks about the challenge of finding language and images that are culturally specific but not confusing, and the importance of noticing and celebrating diverse identities to help build children's' self-esteem. Chin says she learned that kids’ stories work best when they’re specific enough to be authentic but not so complicated they’re overwhelming.

Episode Resources:

Coming Together: Family Reflections on Racism at Sesame Workshop

Discussing Race with Young Children guide from Sparkler Learning, OK Play, and Noggin.

Building Characters, Blending Cultures from EmbraceRace's 2023 Reflections on Racial Learning

Panel discussion on content creation for children at the Children’s Media Career Symposium 2022, hosted by the Center for Media and Information Literacy

Early Risers Season 6 Episode 5 Discussion Guide