ABSTRACT
Being a culturally responsive educator–and considering what it means to support and participate in culturally responsive self-care practices–requires that educators suspend their own assumptions to gain greater understanding of the multiple ways of being, learning, communicating, relating and healing in the world. However, focusing on self-care simply as a practice to improve the quality of educators’ work with children and their workplace effectiveness leaves out an essential consideration: the value that self-care provides for educators themselves. The different colors and patterns on the butterfly wings represent the diversity of early educators. This includes their different intersectional identities and their specific program and community contexts, cultural backgrounds, personal interests, strengths, learning edges and range of experiences with privilege and oppression. Early childhood educators can take a strengths-based approach to understand how their cultural backgrounds and experiences relate to their experiences of stress and self-care.
