Hi, I'm Encian.
A white settler, transgender author, educator, childcare activist, and storyteller — grounding my work in anti-bias education principles and a vision toward collective liberation.
I am currently starting graduate school at the University of Victoria, on the traditional territory of the Lək̓ʷəŋən (Songhees and Xʷsepsəm/Esquimalt) and W̱SÁNEĆ Peoples, whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day. I will be researching oral storytelling in early childhood to create liberatory spaces.
Before this move, I taught for over thirteen years at a parent-participation cooperative preschool, where I learned a lot from children and families and regularly incorporated music, dance, theater improvisation, group games, storytelling and children's storytelling into my teaching practice.
I also organized with the Bay Area Childcare Collective, which provides over 300 hours of free, play-based childcare per year to grassroots racial and economic justice groups. As a founding member of Gender Justice in Early Childhood, I have developed and facilitated many workshops for early childhood practitioners in the Bay Area, and co-authored Supporting Gender Diversity in Early Childhood Classrooms: A Practical Guide (Jessica Kingsley Press, 2019).
A descendant of Ashkenazi Jewish and Western European settlers, I grew up in Albany, NY on the unceded land of the Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk Haudenosaunee) and Muh-he-con-neok (Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans). I am lucky to have had many mentors in my life, including Milan Kohout, Geogiana Hernandez, Roy Grundmann, Julie Olsen Edwards, Barb O'Neill, Auden Smith, and Julie Nicholson.