On teaching MLK to preschoolers over Zoom.

On teaching MLK to preschoolers over Zoom.

Good morning. 

Tajha Chappellet-Lanier here, celebrating community acts of service on this Martin Luther King Jr. Day. “Life's most persistent and urgent question,” King is quoted as saying, “is: What are you doing for others?” In this spirit, increasingly over the past few years, MLK Day has become a day of service around the country and close to home.

Every year, United Way Monterey County organizes some kind of action for MLK Day. Last year, for example, volunteers painted a mural in Marina. But this year, in our Covid-19 reality, things are a little different. President and CEO Katy Castagna knew the group would have to get creative in coming up with an action that both aligns with United Way’s areas of focus and is shelter-in-place friendly.

So last week, over three days, United Way Monterey County volunteers got on Zoom with a bunch of preschoolers. Specifically, the organization partnered with the Seaside Child Development Center and the Marina Child Development Center to read books about King’s teachings to students.

“One of the areas that United Way is really focused on is early care and education,” Castagna said. “This is a chance for us to connect community volunteers with our local schools.” Volunteers from Union Bank and Comcast read two books—Happy Birthday Martin Luther King and I Am Brave. Afterward, teachers led the students through a craft activity in which they reflected on their own dreams.

When I spoke with Castagna early one morning last week, she was about to do a reading of her own. “I’m a little nervous because even though I’ve been on Zoom for 10 months, I have not been in front of a classroom of preschoolers,” she said.

And how did it go? Volunteer Judy Guzman Krueger, managing director/regional manager of the Monterey Bay Region at Union Bank, had nothing but positive things to say about the experience. “It went really, really well,” she told me. Likewise for Todd Hilger, technical operations manager for Comcast in Monterey Bay. “They were a great audience,” he says. The 10 kids in his 20-minute Zoom call all participated when called on, and stayed on mute the rest of the time—better than many other meetings he’s been part of during Covid, Hilger joked.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s teachings are more relevant than ever in our current national context, Castagna notes. And there’s no age requirement for engaging with the concepts of equality and justice. “Having these conversations, even with the youngest people in our community, is so important,” she says.

-Tajha Chappellet-Lanier, Monterey County NOW editor, tajha@mcweekly.com