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There’s a Mark Nepo quote: “When we heal ourselves, we heal the world. For as the body is only as healthy as its individual cells, the world is only as healthy as its individual souls.”

I’ve had to come to terms with who I am for my own healing and in order to do real equity work. I’m still on that journey, and always will be. The messiness of it, the uncomfortable-ness of it, is real. It’s not just the macro, societal big-world messiness, but’s also my own (all of our own) internal baggage messiness.

When I was in CLP, I was so moved and inspired by others who volunteered to share their Story. The courage to speak up, the courage of self-reflection; I felt connected to them in ways I never thought possible. Since I wasn’t ready then to share my Story – I needed to understand it better first – I’m sharing some of it here now, in the hope that it encourages someone else to reflect on their journey.

My path is how I got here, and the reason why I’m passionate about the work that I do. My own journey of healing has been long. Some is continuing, as I work to help families and children gain access to the full dignity, respect and resources that should be automatic.

For this journey, my story begins in Kindergarten. My Kindergarten teacher said to my mother, “we’re not going to advance Elisabeth into first grade, she’s not ready, we’re concerned.” It was the first my parents had ever heard that something was wrong.

My parents got some external evaluations, and brought them back to the school system. I was diagnosed with learning disabilities around auditory processing, short-term memory, those types of pieces. But this was pre special-ed laws. The school system said, ‘we don’t have kids with special-needs in our school, we can’t help you.’

I remember vividly, moments as early as first and second grade — starting school with all of my peers in the same classes. And all of a sudden being told that I have to go down to this other class for math. And not quite understanding why — just having things happen to me.

It created a lot of shame; I felt ‘less than,’ and really misunderstood. The picture most people have of those of us with special-needs or learning disabilities is of below-average intelligence. In high school, I had a clinician say that they did not think college was the right path for me.

I was lucky to have strong parents who disagreed. They were excellent advocates and provided me with supports that I needed.

I graduated from Newington High School, and went to Lesley College in Cambridge, Massachusetts — at that time it was an all-women’s institution, primarily for teaching. Very early on, I envisioned myself as a classroom teacher; I had a chalkboard in my bedroom growing up and loved to play ‘school.’

I had to have more of a voice about learning disabilities while in college, because I needed some small accommodations around timing for exams. I wrote a paper about it — which for me was huge, monumental. But I felt very safe with the professor. He was really touched by it, and asked me to speak at the Learning Disabilities Association of Massachusetts. I did, and it helped rise me up.

I graduated college dual-certified in elementary education and special-education with honors. My field placements included Head Start, child care, and a hospital. I taught third grade, then seventh grade special-ed in a city.

I remember the administrators telling me, “these are ten teenagers who just really want to learn, in a self-contained, isolated room.” And I replied, “that’s great, because I just want to teach!” It turned out the kids were put in an afterthought of a classroom off the back of the woodworking room. They were understandably angry.

Through the year, admittedly partly as a self-survival strategy, I integrated them back into their classrooms with their peers — which made enemies of many of the teachers. The classroom teachers didn’t want these kids back — they already had over-filled classes, and believed these kids tended to be the ones that either slowed down instruction or were disturbing the classroom.

I cared deeply for the students, and I also knew at that point that classroom teaching wasn’t the right fit for me. I moved to the field of early intervention at a nonprofit, which felt like a great fit. I instantly felt the empowerment of supporting families at the youngest age, working on relationships and attachment, and helping caregivers and children. I also was struck by how the mission of the work traveled throughout the agency. I had found my calling.

And I still had a lot to learn, particularly around power and privilege and equity. I was raised with the language of ‘colorblind’ and ‘we don’t look at color, everybody is equal’ and so on. I learned why that isn’t the right way — how disrespectful and inappropriate it is.

CLP continued my growing and opening, sometimes painfully so, as I was facing down my inner messaging about disabilities and unworthiness. I had never fully reckoned with the shame — and I realized that unresolved, it trickles to the surface so much so that when I was trying to engage in the important conversations, it was hard for me to listen. I was deep in the uncomfortable-ness.

Most of the workforce in early childhood and early intervention is white, middle-class women — which I am, as well. I started noticing our habits of resignation at too many tables around the ‘why’ of equity, systematic structures and bias, a lack of courageous vision. Too often: ‘that’s just how it is.’

My eyes continued to open around power and privilege, and where my voice could and should be used for families and children. I have become — and continue to become — a better advocate for disability equity and racial equity. The voice of recognizing, questioning and pushing the limits, now shows up.

My eyes opened, I am now focused on accountability and action in myself and those around me — it’s not enough to just understand inequity, we need to do everything we can to actually change it. (I realize this sounds completely obvious, but just this week I was invited to an equity gathering where the agenda focused just on definitions, with no time for planning actual steps.)

The CT Birth-to-Three System had a policy where interpretation services would be reimbursed for all languages except Spanish. I got involved in leadership groups speaking up about it, and started to see results. I now know to ask about implicit bias between clinicians and families. Our Equity Committee is bringing change – though always slower than we want – to culture, staffing, and data-driven analysis of the systems and policies that are impacting whole people. We are much more sensitive to the significant stressors that mothers, other caregivers and children are having to carry.

My own historic and deep shame still clouds over me at times. I’ve hidden it mostly-successfully — if you ask my coworkers and people closest to me, they would tell you they didn’t know.

But I am learning to embrace it. Being on the receiving end of shaming for learning differences has shaped the work I’ve done and am doing; it has made me a stronger advocate for others. It goes back to that saying, you’ve got to take care of you before you can take care of others. You’ve got to better appreciate, understand, recognize who are, so you can show up and be there for others.

I love work in early intervention; it offers dignity, respect and love to young people and families. It offers an understanding of the strength that each person brings to this world. Every person deserves dignity. Who are we to say, ‘not them?’

My path has taught me to never judge a book by its cover; everybody has something. It has taught me to be kind; everybody’s got a journey, we’re all working through it. Be kind and respectful to people. Be kind to yourself.

Learn more about Elisabeth at Connecticut Birth to Three, in the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood

To reach Elisabeth directly: Elisabeth.Teller@gmail.com

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