social justice for the early years

This photograph depicts two children playing. One child has multiple disabilities and the other child does not.

With only one wing, the little bird cannot fly to the raspberry patch with her brothers. As luck would have it, she meets a little dog, a chipmunk, and a frog who work together to get them all across the street to the raspberry patch.

This story speaks of the importance of giving. When hard times fall on his land, Buddha reaches out to the wealthy, asking them to help feed the poor. The rich people grumble and refuse until a young, well-to-do girl steps forward and offers to take her bowl from house-to-house to be filled for those less fortunate than herself. Supriya succeeds and many in the land fill her bowl and their own to give to the poor.

Brother Pedro meets Juan on a dusty road and sees that the man is very troubled. The priest helps Juan secure medicine for his sick wife. After many years, a prosperous and happy Juan returns to Brother Pedro to help him, yet it is Pedro who shows Juan another miracle.

The Peacock Fairy needs to choose an apprentice, but all of the peacocks look alike. To stand out, most of them decide to add things to their feathers, but the Little Peacock doesn't follow suit, and his actions succeed in catching the Peacock Fairy's attention.

In this tale, a blind man teaches a hunter to see things in a different light and learn from his mistakes.

“Connected to Everything” is a story written by Jennifer Greene and published in the Fall 2009 issue of Teaching Tolerance. This story is adapted from a traditional tale of the Bitterroot Salish, a Native American tribe in Montana.

“Every brain is a little bit different...”

In this film, the debates surrounding same-sex marriage are illustrated when a ketchup bottle wants to be with a mustard bottle. Picky, the toothpick dispenser, resists such an idea because it flies in the face of tradition.

Every night Bailey dreams about dresses, but each day his mother, father, and brother remind him that he is a boy and dresses aren't for him. Finally, he finds a friend who embraces both his love for dresses and the individual he feels he is inside.

In this story, the parents of three children decide not to tell people the gender of the third child in an effort to avoid promoting stereotypes. Instead, they allow the child to be a person rather than a pretty girl who wears pink or a strong boy who wears blue.

In addition to holding a key place in American folk and gospel music, this song has significance as an anthem of the civil rights movement.

These two images depict segregated classrooms before the Brown v. Board of Education decision.

In this story, Antonio learns that words have power, and that can be both a good and bad thing. As Mother’s Day approaches he must decide how to show his love for his mother and her partner and whether he wants that declaration to be public.

This film documents English language learners as they write and tell personal stories from their past.

When a wall is built between the Great North and the Great South, nothing can pass by it, not the clouds or the wind or even the monarch butterflies. When both sides begin to suffer, Papalotzin, Royal Butterfly, breaks down the Great Wall.