Black Educator Network Gathering
The Work IS the Story: Reimagining How We Narrate, Preserve, and Document our Work
This year’s Black Educator Network (BEN) gathering met at an important crossroads. As nature-based early childhood educators, we are doing extraordinary, community-rooted work — and simultaneously navigating a moment that asks us to prove, justify, and perform that work for audiences who may not understand our work or even share our values or our vision.
We gathered at NatStart26 in San Antonio to name that tension honestly, and then to move through it — together.
Inspired by the Natural Start Conference theme of Imagine If, we’re asking: What if the story we tell about our work was as powerful, layered, and alive as the work itself? This gathering was both a space of rest and a space of creation. We joined together to reflect, to make something, and to be in community with people who understand the particular weight and particular joy of this work.