From Our President. Essential Questions and Answers: Leaning into Our Journey Together

a portrait of tonia durden,a naeyc governing board president

I am ecstatic and humbled by the opportunity to serve as your NAEYC Governing Board president for the next two years. It is both a privilege and an honor to be part of an organization centered on advancing professional alliances, knowledge, skills, and equity. Our NAEYC leadership team, staff, and Board members all bring a diverse range of expertise, knowledge, and skills. Be sure to take a moment to learn more about each of these amazing team members here to serve YOU!

But you might be asking yourself: Who are you? Why are you here? Are you ready?

Whether I’m teaching or conducting a professional development training, these are the essential questions I ask my audience. I’d like to, therefore, start our journey together by answering for you the essential questions I often ask others.

Who Are You?

I am a proud Black, spiritual woman who enjoys nonfiction mysteries, honey lavender flat white lattes, and dancing with my husband and three young children.

I am a teacher of young children and teachers who really enjoys learning from and with teachers and children. I am an early childhood scholar, leader, and advocate, always ready to ask questions, collaborate, and explore innovations that bring joy, equity, and quality to early learning spaces.

I enjoy bold, fun colors on my nails and in my hair.

I am a Beyoncé fan who uses my words, actions, advocacy, research, teaching, and leadership to “slay” and “ring the alarm” on practices and policies that do not create high-quality and equitable experiences for young children.

I am the daughter, granddaughter, great-granddaughter, and great-great-granddaughter of Black women who were trailblazers as the first Black women to hold leadership positions in their careers.

I am Tonia. Uniquely, unapologetically Tonia, who strives each day to use my superpower of joyful, spirited engagement to be the best version of myself and inspire others to (in the words of Beyoncé) “step in your essence and know you’re excellent.”

Who are you is an essential question we must ask ourselves as early childhood professionals each day. To know who we are is the foundation for shaping the lens with which we view children, families, colleagues, our communities, and the world. Our experiences, perspectives, education (and access to it), health and wellness, culture, gender, race, and language matter. All these wonderful, biased, complex, prejudicial, unique elements of ourselves provide both opportunities and barriers. For example, I bring with me more than 40 years of personal, cultural, and professional experiences that have shaped the lens with which I view children, families, communities, and our profession. Because these experiences are unique to my own life journey, I have to be in constant reflection of the ways in which my lens pushes out or welcomes in those who do not share these uniquely Tonia experiences. We all must reflect on our experiences and perspectives as we hold true to our “Code of Ethics for Early Childhood Educators.” When we know who we are, we can more effectively reach our goals of creating quality, safe, and joyful spaces for young children.

To lean into our journey together, I ask you to take a moment to reflect: Who are you? I will be asking this question throughout my Board presidency because life, moments, and experiences are not static but constantly change and evolve. I expect and welcome that the Tonia you are experiencing in 2024 will not be the Tonia you experience in 2026. This leads me to the next essential question:

Why Are You Here?

Here could represent many spaces, situations, and circumstances. My here, for now, is as a member and leader within the NAEYC Governing Board. I am here to serve you, the members of the NAEYC community. I am here to collectively envision, transform, and generate bold solutions to policies, practices, and experiences that honor and create positive outcomes for children, families, communities, and early childhood professionals. I am here because of my very young children and the children we serve. Our children deserve educators, leaders, scholars, and advocates who are clear about why they are here and what is needed to advance equity, quality, and holistic child growth and development. I am here because NAEYC membership had confidence that I would lead and serve in a manner that both honors the tradition of NAEYC and challenges us to truly see through the lens of the children and families we serve. I intend for us to push back, strategically and steadfastly, on practices, policies, and experiences that are harmful to young children, families, and communities. Together, we have the mighty power, voice, vision, expertise, enthusiasm, and passion to proclaim what we want early childhood to look like now, in five years, and in 100 years.

Therefore, as we embark upon the hundredth anniversary of NAEYC, we have a responsibility to ask ourselves: Why are we here as an organization? Why am I here as a member? Why am I here as an educator and leader? I ask you to take a moment to reflect on these questions. By answering them, we identify our purpose, intention, and action—individually and collectively. Here are mine:

My purpose is to elevate the conversations on how we are creating equitable, high-quality experiences for children, families, colleagues, and our communities.
My intention is to operate from a strengths-based approach to acknowledge and draw upon how we all have collective experiences, perspectives, and knowledge that will contribute to these conversations.
My action is to demonstrate through my leadership, teaching, and scholarship the practices, policies, and experiences that are high quality and equitable.

This brings me to the next and final essential question.

Are You Ready?

Yes. I am ready. I am ready to listen, be joyful, learn, grow, groove, laugh, teach, conversate, debate, analyze, evaluate, deliberate, celebrate, soar, and reflect with you. I am ready to explore the possibilities as we reimagine what our field could look like if we have the resources, compensation, policies, and practices that we need as professionals and that truly promote high-quality early learning experiences for each child. I am ready for children, families, early childhood professionals, and communities to not just survive but to thrive. I am ready for joy in all early learning spaces. I am ready to speak up with grace and consistent messaging on our collective purpose, intention, and action. I am ready to be ready. I am ready to jam and groove with each of you as we delight in learning from one another and using our collective superpowers to elevate our organization and our field.

I do hope that you, NAEYC community, consider joining and grooving with me as we embark upon the next two years of joy, high energy, critical conversations, and collective action. We are who we are; we are here for a purpose, intention, and action; and we are ready!