Grown-Ups
Kraig Kidd and the New World Leadership Children’s Academy
Kraig Kidd firmly believes that diversity is a gift, and used this inspiration to start San Diego’s New World Leadership Children’s Academy. This learning center is for children two to six years old, and was developed on the model of “diversity as a value.”
As is the case in many schools, the student body at the Academy has a wide array of different cultures and ethnicities. The school places special emphasis on teaching students to appreciate and celebrate diversity and individuality. Kidd believes this is the way to maintain classroom harmony and to deliver the creative payoff yielded by exposure to different cultures.
Kidd insists that the school’s core values nearly eliminate conflicts between students based on race, background, and sexual orientation.
“Bullying is a non-issue,” Kidd says. The students are comfortable interacting not only across ethnic divisions but also across divisions based on sexual orientation and different kinds of families. “It’s all normal to them,” Kidd says, citing the diversity of the families, teachers and administrators at the school.
Kidd, a Parent with a Dream
Kidd is a gay parent, and he has definite ideas about what he wants his daughter to learn on the subject of LGBT families. He insists that his neutral, somewhat passive, approach to LGBT issues yields concrete dividends in terms of the actual open-mindedness of his students, and is a better strategy than trying to directly educate students about LGBT causes or actively shape their opinions.
This method adheres closely to the essence of the Montessori approach to education and, of course, it cuts to the heart of a key debate in education—how much do children develop as a result of internal pressures and energies, and how much should they be guided and led by an adult authority?
Kidd comes down very clearly on one side of this debate, and this opinion colors his wider political worldview.
“I think it might behoove the gay community to think, ‘What would it be like to promote the perception of normalcy?’ rather than to fight some cause. What would it be like if we approached different sexual orientations from the perspective of ‘This is normal’?”
Kidd founded the academy after he was unable to find a school for his daughter that met his desired criteria. “I could find schools that were strong academically, and I could find schools that were strong spiritually, but I couldn’t find a school with the full gamut,” Kidd says.
As a result, Kidd took a year-and-a-half long sabbatical, during which time he developed the Academy’s current curriculum and philosophy. Kidd eventually relocated to California, where a desire already existed for the type of school he envisioned.
“The school was not designed to change education; it was developed for a unique niche of people who wanted family and school to provide a common ground for the child,” so that students “wouldn’t have to balance two environments,” Kidd says.
In the near future, Kidd is seeking to expand the school, and to perhaps find the next city that would hold an interest in the type of education that The Academy provides.
Kidd is supportive of his students’ growth and learning processes. “They’re respectful; they’re mindful and conscious; they’re present; they’re in the moment. I have three year olds that can hold their own with an adult. They’re able to use words, say ‘I don’t want to do that,’ or ‘This makes me sad,’ and that’s pretty amazing.”
Teaching Tolerance Without Teaching Tolerance
The academy adopts a somewhat unusual strategy in order to maintain its emphasis on diversity. In Kidd’s view, fostering an appreciation of difference doesn’t mean teaching the students directly or in any planned way about particular cultures. Instead, it’s about promoting a general curiosity regarding the experiences of different people, including people of different cultural backgrounds. “What we’re trying to create is the opportunity to inquire about different cultures, rather than communicating to the students what they should know or think about them,” Kidd says. “When two cultures meet, that’s when an education of a culture begins. Being able to recognize differences among each other is an opportunity for awareness and learning.”
In the LGBT arena, that means not driving home any particular point about what LGBT families are like, or even explicitly teaching students to respect and be open to these families. “We’re not teaching about the historical viewpoint,” Kidd says. “It’s not for me to answer the question [what to think about LGBT parents], but to facilitate the conversation. If a child inquires about it, then it’s a topic of discussion. It’s not a topic of discussion because it’s part of a cultural curriculum. It’s a topic of discussion because it’s about emotional development.”
