April 09

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Black Girl Joy and the Science of Belonging as Explained by Second Graders by Carmen Bogan

Posted by on April 9, 2024 in Author Posts | 3 Comments

When I first walk through the doors of a new elementary school, the atmosphere is palpable. The place is humming with laughter, chatter, a random teacher’s elevated voice.  Somebody is racewalking to the bathroom or dragging to the school office. Learning.  It smells like recess sweat.  A burst of colorful crayon art depicting friends’ faces and painstakingly-printed letters and stories are taped and pinned on the walls in neat rows down the hallway.  Then I feel a whisper of what I felt when I walked down similar school hallways as a child. Nerves? Naw. I chuckle and take a deep breath.  

When I step into the classroom, there’s more chatter. Someone whispers loudly, “I think she’s the author!” Often there’s a bit of a surprise around the room that “the author” is Black. Then comes my moment, the moment when I hope I can bring some illuminating, even profound insight to share with my new, young friends.  After all I am the author, right?  But that’s not how it happens.  Often the children’s perspectives are simple and fresh blooms of clarity such that they give to me much more than the gifts I am carrying in my bookbag. 

In a recent visit to a second-grade class, I brought my new book, “Tasha’s Voice.”  This book is the sequel to “Where’s Rodney?” about a boy who lived in a neighborhood with no real parks to play in.  All Rodney wanted was to be outside, so he didn’t always pay attention when he was inside. But on a class trip he experienced the joy of being more outside than he had ever been before.   It transformed him. “Tasha’s Voice” happens on the same day on the same class trip, but this time the story is about a young Black girl who feels uncomfortable using her voice.  Tasha feels isolated, alienated, nervous, and bound. She is “the new girl” who sits alone at recess.  Whenever her teacher calls on her in class, her tongue feels dry, her heart pounds and all she can ever say is – nothing. 

Spoiler alert:  on that trip, Tasha and her classmates experience a beautiful, big park together, and in one magical moment Tasha takes in a deep breath and out comes her voice. I read the story to the second graders prepared to explain how a girl who felt so alone and isolated could, through this one trip to the park, experienced what I call Black girl joy. But instead, the second-graders explained the situation to me. So, I listened.  One girl said, “All she needed was to belong!”  Another said, “Well she didn’t have friends before, and, well, then she did.”  Yet another said, “The park belonged to everybody together, so they had fun with new things together.” 

And just like that, a group of seven-somethings explained the science of belonging. According to researchers at Cornell University, belonging is the feeling of security and support where there is a sense of acceptance, inclusion and identity within a group. Their research shows that girls experience less of a sense of belonging than boys (50% of girls versus 58% of boys feel a sense of belonging) and low-income children experience a lower sense of belonging compared to higher income counterparts (49% of low-income children vs 58% for their higher-income counterparts feel a sense of belonging). Black girls often experience what I call compounded alienation. They are girls, they are often from under-resourced communities, they are often categorized as minorities and sometimes prejudged because of the color of their skin.

A belonging-rich school environment offers the psychological safety that allows a child to speak, express their opinions and emotions without feeling judged or criticized for being different and to make mistakes without being punished. Just as my new, second-grade friends taught me. 

And with the help of a kind teacher who believed in her, new friends who stood by her side in a critical moment, and a trip to “the best park ever,” Tasha found the freedom to grow, to be creative, to take risks, to explore a magical new place with new friends and to use her voice.  Tasha found Black girl joy. 

For more information on psychological safety:

Click to access Psychological-Safety-by-Dr.-Erin-Bogan-3.pdf

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Carmen Bogan_photo by Natalie KingwoodCARMEN BOGAN is an author, publisher, and consultant to nonprofit organizations. Her picture book Where’s Rodney?, illustrated by the award-winning Floyd Cooper, was a Kirkus Best Picture Book of the Year. She is also the author of Willis Watson Is a Wannabe, illustrated by Cheryl “Ras” Thuesday. Carmen is a member of the Oakland Literacy Coalition and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and she is a board member of Arts for Oakland Kids. An alumna of Stanford University and the University of California, Los Angeles, she and her husband, Willie, live in Oakland, California.