Located in Fort Myers on Florida’s southwest coast, Florida Gulf Coast University is more well-known locally for its closeness to the Gulf than for turning out scholars with international recognition. When Dr. Jessica Essary became the first American in OMEP’s history to win the Global Educator of the Year Award, that changed, at least in some circles. This is the kind of acknowledgment that usually reaches Europe or Latin America, the regions with the strongest ties to OMEP. The fact that it ended up in Florida this time around speaks volumes about the direction early childhood education is taking and what kind of work the global community has determined is noteworthy.
Essary did not follow the typical path to receive this honor. Yes, she teaches early childhood education, but the Fort Myers classroom is just one aspect of her work. She has spent years arguing that children’s educational and mental health rights belong in discussions that have traditionally been dominated by immigration lawyers, legislators, and humanitarian organizations with little interest in what happens to a five-year-old after the immediate crisis passes. Her role as OMEP’s representative to the UN entails navigating the slow, procedurally complex world of international NGO advocacy.
Children in migration are the main focus of the research that garnered her considerable attention on a global scale, rather than being a minor issue. The study, co-authored with Dr. Michelle Bell of Manhattan College, looked at how UN member states reported on their commitments to children under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Global Compact on Migration. The results were not very encouraging. Educational, psychological, and legal support systems for migrant children are still dispersed and uneven among member states. There is patchwork progress. In many instances, there is a significant discrepancy between what governments say in their reports and what actually reaches a child who is waiting in a temporary shelter.
Essary’s insistence on treating migrant children as contributors rather than burdens is what sets her approach apart and may be the reason it resonated with OMEP’s selection process. The study advocates for what she refers to as an assets-based model, which sees the diverse life experiences of immigrant children as content that can actually enhance a classroom rather than as deficiencies that need to be fixed. The majority of institutional thinking on this topic tends to approach migrant children primarily through the lens of remediation and catch-up, which is at odds with that framing. Politically, it’s a tougher sell. However, there is mounting evidence that it improves outcomes for all parties involved.
In addition to her work with the UN, Essary has created courses that aim to change teachers’ perspectives before they even set foot in a classroom. Among them is a college course called “Advocates for Children,” which is based on the idea that early educators must comprehend policy environments, rights frameworks, and systemic injustice in addition to developmental psychology and lesson planning. It’s possible that OMEP found this dual focus—domestic teacher preparation on the one hand, international advocacy on the other—to be especially appealing. Essary’s career is practically structurally defined by the award, which has traditionally been given to educators whose work crosses boundaries.
Here, the larger picture is important. In an effort to create a formal worldwide framework that holds governments responsible for a child’s early years, OMEP has been advocating for a UN Decade for Early Childhood Care and Education. It is not a coincidental decision to award its highest individual honor to an American educator who has dedicated her professional life to the multisector, rights-based, UN-focused work that the organization supports. It is an indication of the path that OMEP wants the field to follow.
Observing Essary’s recognition in the global early childhood community gives one the impression that the way this work is valued is changing. In academic prestige hierarchies and policy discussions, early childhood education has long held a precarious position because it is too specialized to garner widespread attention and too dispersed to unite around a single cause. The OMEP award—the first given to an American—indicates that things might be shifting. The children that Essary has dedicated her professional life to supporting are among the least visible in the political landscape of any nation. At the very least, it is noteworthy that her efforts on their behalf have now earned the most prominent international recognition in the field.
