Early Childhood Education Assembly
working to support and integrate the efforts of NCTE constituents concerned with language and literacy issues in Early Childhood Education
A Message from the ECEA Chair: Michele Myers Greetings! I am Michele Myers, resident of a small, rural town in South Carolina. Currently my professional energies are spent working at the University of South Carolina with pre-service and in-service teachers as a Clinical Assistant Professor and MAT Coordinator. Specifically, I help teachers and teacher candidates create humanizing and equitable spaces for all children to learn and thrive in schools. I teach embedded literacy methods courses. In addition, I work with school districts to rebrand their literacy programs. My personal time is spent with my two wonderful teenaged daughters. We enjoy the beach, traveling, and simply hanging out. I am humbled, honored and privileged to assume the role as chairperson of the Early Childhood Education Assembly (ECEA). I am deeply grateful to my predecessor, Erin Miller, for her leadership and outstanding contributions during her tenure, and the members of the Executive Board for their unwavering support and vision. I am inspired and committed to working with the members of the ECEA to continue advancing the assembly as a viable part of the National Council of Teachers of Education (NCTE). |
“So Many Layers of Trauma” Call for Action Regarding the Retention and Separation of Immigrant Children and Families in the U.S. Early Childhood Education Assembly (ECEA) of the National Council of Teachers of English June 27, 2018 They put us in a room . . . then they brought two kids in. One was eleven and one was five. The five-year-old started crying. He was looking for his mom. He said, “They took my mama away from here.” We called an immigration officer . . . They told him, “Your mom is there. She will come later.” The 11-year-old boy said, “No his mom is not coming back because she was deported to Guatemala.” And they left this child there by himself . . . We were so many that we were overlapping with each other and they kept bringing more people . . . Some of the people had to sleep standing or just stand. – Edmilson Aguilar Punay, 15-year-old (USA Today, June 22, 2018) The Board of Directors and Affirmative Action Committee of the Early Childhood Education Assembly of the National Council of Teachers of English, as experts and national leaders in the field of early childhood education, strongly denounce policies and practices that lead not only to the separation of children of any age from their parents but to the conditions they endure and the immediate deportation without due process and/or long-term detention of families who request asylum in our country. It is very clear that, as Patrick Reynolds-Berry, a case manager for the Su Casa Hispanic Center in New York, said, this results in “so many layers of trauma.” In a country that is still debating reparations for the inhumane acts of separating Native American children from their families well into the 1970s, African children torn from their parents’ arms during enslavement, and the internment of Japanese families and children, we see history repeating itself in the inhumanity of current events and we stand strongly against it. The ECEA urges educators to take action now by... |
Early Childhood Education Assembly Information and Opportunities Please explore the links below to learn more about our organization and ways to get involved. |