"I Contain Multitudes"

Walt Whitman wrote:

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

It's perhaps my favorite line from my favorite poem, Song of Myself.

It is an acknowledgement that the self is the sum total of everything we have seen, smelled, tasted, heard, and felt. It is that moment when we recognize that we are not any one thing, but rather all the things and all of our responses to things. It's true of me. It's true of you. And it is true of all of us together. It is both a simple and great truth.

As I approach the beginning of my sixth decade, I'm concerned that I don't become one of those angry old men. It's something to guard against, given how many of us age into a kind of bitterness. From the time we were children, the world told us to keep our heads up and our eyes forward. We're asked as children, "What are you going to be when you grow up?" We're never asked, "Who are you right now?" 

We're urged to "Keep your eye on the prize!" We are rarely asked if we are satisfied with right now. 

We're told our career paths must be ever upward, that achievement is about striving toward goals, and that if only we work hard enough we will reach the promised land.

When I listen to those angry old men, they tell stories that begin not as "Once upon a time," but as "Back in my day." No wonder they are angry. Their day is in the past. And, to boot, all these whippersnappers are doing it wrong. No one will ever again ask them, "What are you going to be?" They are now and forever stuck with who they are right now as the rest of the world continues becoming.

They are no longer large. They no longer contain multitudes. They have become a fixed point kept in place by memories and to do or be anything else is a contradiction. And contradiction is not to be tolerated. No wonder they are angry.

When I hear those angry old men railing against the young, the "lazy millennials," for instance, I breath more deeply and find myself in that so-called laziness. When they gripe about this or that technology, I strive to embrace it and to make it mine. When I detect that old man anger in myself, I remind myself that it is really fear and the antidote to fear is, always, to turn toward the unknown, lay my hands on it the way a child does, which is, as the great Bev Bos reminded us, the only way it will ever find a place in my head or my heart.

This is why we must have young children in our lives, why we must bring them back from the pink collar ghettos into which we, parents, caretakers, and educators alone are privy to the secret to understanding the multitudes within ourselves. Children belong in the center of life because they are they are large. Life without their wisdom of turning toward the unknown and laying hands upon it, is one that is ever narrowing, one that teaches us that we're in this alone. It tames us, it contains us. But when there are young children in our lives to remind us, to teach us, we can more easily embrace our contradictions, become large again, and to again contain multitudes.

And we can sing:

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,

I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

That is the kind of old man I'll always try to be.

******

 

If you liked reading this post, you might also enjoy one of my books. To find out more, Click here! 

"Ready for a book that makes you want to underline and highlight? One that makes you draw arrows and write 'THIS!!!!!' in the margin? Then you are in for a treat." ~Lisa Murphy, M.Ed., author and Early Childhood Specialist, Ooey Gooey, Inc.

I put a lot of time and effort into this blog. If you'd like to support me please consider a small contribution to the cause. Thank you!

Thinking Of Things Themselves And Then Doing Them

Two freshly-minted three-year-olds were playing on the floor, not together, but near one another. I was lying amidst them, fiddling with whatever came to hand. The boy picked up a toy that was meant to impersonate a tiny version of the cast iron hand pump we have on our playground. After a moment, the boy said, perhaps to me, "Hey, it's a pump!"

The girl responded, "I want it."

That's what we had been working toward for months, the kids ask for things they want rather than just snatching them. The boy continued playing with the toy pump without saying a word. I briefly considered saying, "When you're finished with that, she wants it," but let the urge pass. The boy silently played with the toy for 30 seconds longer, then unceremoniously handed it to her. I was going to say something about that as well, some words of acknowledgement or even praise, but again thought better of it.

A five-year-old once told me, unprompted, as if it was something he'd given a lot of thought, "I don't like doing things people tell me to do. I like thinking of them myself and then doing them." Of course, that's how we all feel, right through our lives.

Adults say entirely too much to children, most of it either commands, which no one likes, or blather, to which no one listens. For whatever reason, we seem to feel that children are not listening simply because they don't respond to things like well-trained dogs. When the boy hadn't instantly acknowledged the girl's statement that she wanted the toy by saying, "I'm using it" or "You can use it when I'm done" or by simply handing it over, I was sorely tempted to say something, to amplify or translate or suggest. It was almost as if that silent space left after the girl said "I want it" was there for me to fill with blather.

And I know that whatever I said would have been blather because by remaining silent, I discovered that not only had the boy been listening, but it had prompted him to think. In that space of silence, he considered the information she had provided him, thought of what to do, and did it. He needed no reward from me, no pat on the back or "Good job," no benevolent overlord wielding carrots, sticks, commands, or blather.

We had been working toward this moment, all of us, this moment of silence and thinking and role modeling. As adults, we had been thoughtful and judicious about how we spoke with the children and that had created the space for them to think for themselves instead of reacting to our words.

This is how free and equal humans are meant to live together: thinking of things themselves and doing them, and that is its own reward.

******

 

If you liked reading this post, you might also enjoy one of my books. To find out more, Click here! 

"Ready for a book that makes you want to underline and highlight? One that makes you draw arrows and write 'THIS!!!!!' in the margin? Then you are in for a treat." ~Lisa Murphy, M.Ed., author and Early Childhood Specialist, Ooey Gooey, Inc.

I put a lot of time and effort into this blog. If you'd like to support me please consider a small contribution to the cause. Thank you!

The Only Way We Ever Discover Who We Really Are

Not long ago, I returned to a school I attended between the ages of 10 and 12 to find it so unrecognizable that I at first insisted that I was in the wrong place. The buildings and grounds were all, mostly, the same, but it wasn't until I'd been there for a couple of hours that I began to be convinced that I was not there by mistake. Of course, I told myself, I was thrown by all the changes. There had been repairs, refurbishments, and replacements over the course of the intervening three decades. There were even a couple of new buildings and the playgrounds had been upgraded. And I had to recognize that I myself had changed as well, have lived through my own lifetime of repairs, refurbishments, and replacements.

By the time I left the grounds, I'd puzzled it all out. It was once again the school of my memories

The Ancient Greek philosopher and historian Plutarch proposed the well-known Ship of Theseus thought experiment by way of thinking about identity. If you have a ship and, over time, you replace every single piece of wood in it, does it remain the same ship? It's the sort of chicken-or-egg conundrum over which philosophical types like to naval gaze, but I'm thinking that maybe those of us who work with young children might also benefit from thinking about it.

We don't have to imagine this scenario. The children in our lives will undergo precisely this process, as all of us have, as they grow up: every single atom in their body will be replaced, not just once, but multiple times. In this sense, as with the Ship of Theseus or my old school, they will literally become completely new people. 

Those of us who are already grown ups, on the other hand, can look back over our lives and despite being made of an entirely different collection of atoms, we know there is a kind of continuum of self. We are in some way the "same" person who was born however many decades ago. What is that thing that connects us as a single, unique human throughout our lives? Many suggest that we remain the same person over time through our memories, but cognitive scientists tell us that our memories, while perhaps based on real events, are incorrigibly malleable as witnessed by my experience at my old school. Indeed, the more often we think of an event in our past, the less like actual events it becomes. The act of recalling alters the truth which is why we so often disagree with loved ones about the facts of what "really" happened.

So if we're not connected from past to present through our bodies or memories, how is it that we know we are the same person throughout our lives?

Perhaps it's not the specific facts and acts of our memories, but rather our emotions that we remember: we might forget the details, but we never forget how something made us feel. This is the domain of therapeutic processes which seek to not necessarily help us reconstruct the past, but rather to find the connection between our past and present selves as a starting point for healing. This seems closer to the point for me. What allowed me to finally see my old school wasn't my sense of sight, but rather the feelings that began to come over me as I walked the grounds. Only then did I know that this was my old school. 

I reckon this is what allows us to recognize ourselves again and again even as everything changes.

Carl Jung, one of the pioneers in modern psychology, wrote: "People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls." And here we enter the realm of spirituality, a subject we tend to avoid, at least as secular educators. At the recent Teacher Tom's Play Summit, I spoke with a number of indigenous educators (Maori educator Brenda Soutar, Aboriginal educator Jackie Bennett, Ojibwe educator Hopi Martin) all of whom placed "spirit" at the center of their approach. They were all less interested in helping children define who they are as individuals, than they were with helping them understand how they are connected to the rest of humanity, not just in the present moment, but through time. Instead of focusing on what makes each child unique (e.g., through grades, tests, etc.), their approach is on how each child belongs. 

In the end, it is belonging that survives through time and space. It is belonging that heals. It is belonging to family, to community, to Mother Nature, that ultimately makes us who we are, not just from birth to death, but for as long as there is time. 

No matter how much the world changes, no matter how much we change, it is the belonging that really defines who we are. We are born knowing this. As educators, I think, it is our job to keep reminding one another, and especially the children in our lives, that it is all connected. This is what we finally see when we face our own soul. This is the only way we ever discover who we really are even when everything changes.

******

 

If you liked reading this post, you might also enjoy one of my books. To find out more, Click here! 

"Ready for a book that makes you want to underline and highlight? One that makes you draw arrows and write 'THIS!!!!!' in the margin? Then you are in for a treat." ~Lisa Murphy, M.Ed., author and Early Childhood Specialist, Ooey Gooey, Inc.

I put a lot of time and effort into this blog. If you'd like to support me please consider a small contribution to the cause. Thank you!

It Looks Like Insanity

A pair of girls in fancy gowns were digging in the sand pit. They were not, as far as I could tell, digging for a purpose other than to dig a hole.

Not far away, kids carrying sticks were bickering heatedly over who was the real Batman versus who was Batman 2, 3, and 4, while others insisted in the tone of irrefutable logic that "we can all be Batman."

As I observed, a boy in a dinosaur costume crawled past me on his hands and feet, growling.

There were no smiles among these children, no giggling, no shouting for joy. I feel safe in saying, however, that none of them were unhappy. I also feel safe in saying that all of them were deeply engaged in applying themselves to their self-selected work

"He who would do some great thing in this short life must apply himself to the work with such a concentration of his forces as to idle spectators . . . looks like insanity." ~John Foster

As an idle spectator, I didn't see anything as alarming as insanity, of course, but rather children engaged in play. On the other hand, if one traded out the children for adults, everything changes, doesn't it? I mean, were I to come across adult women in fancy gowns digging aimlessly, I'd wonder about their mental health. I'd likely cross the street if approached by a man wielding a stick insisting he was the real Batman or someone crawling along the sidewalk like a four-legged dinosaur. 

It would, indeed, look like "insanity," to use John Foster's word.

I've been fascinated by the NASA finding from a few years back that 98 percent of the five-year-olds who took the test used to identify "creative genius" proved to be geniuses, while only 2 percent of adults they've tested are up to that high mark.

Most observers, including myself, suspect that this is the result of schooling, that despite our best intentions, our schools are managing to not foster, but undermine and erode the natural capacity for "doing great things in this short life." Indeed, most of these children will be, within a few short years, expected to begin behaving like "big kids," which is to say, stop digging holes in fancy gowns, stop pretending to be Batmen, and most certainly stop crawling on all-fours and growling, except perhaps during certain, unimportant scheduled times like recess. The older they get, the more they will be shamed when they "work" like this. And if they don't give it up, if they can't display their "creative genius" in the proscribed manner, they will eventually be punished, scolded, made to undergo therapies, or even be drugged. 

Apparently, around two percent of us are born with the kind of genius actually supported by this system of child rearing and "education." Although, I would assert that a certain percentage of those we've labeled as "insane" possess one of the countless forms of genius that we don't recognize.

Perhaps society doesn't want to raise our children to do great things. Great things, by definition, are disruptive. But as an educator and parent, that is exactly the opportunity I wish to offer to the children in my life. I can't know what those great things might be and I should have no say in how they express their genius as long as they aren't hurting themselves or others. Yes, it's disheartening to know that the tall poppies are likely destined to be cut and the nails that stick up will be pounded down, but having lived so long amongst the only people who are free to fully express their genius, I continue to be inspired by the great things they are doing and hope that their time with me will increase the odds that their unique genius, their apparent "insanity," will survive the years ahead.

******

 

If you liked reading this post, you might also enjoy one of my books. To find out more, Click here! 

"Ready for a book that makes you want to underline and highlight? One that makes you draw arrows and write 'THIS!!!!!' in the margin? Then you are in for a treat." ~Lisa Murphy, M.Ed., author and Early Childhood Specialist, Ooey Gooey, Inc.

I put a lot of time and effort into this blog. If you'd like to support me please consider a small contribution to the cause. Thank you!

Subversive Fairy Tales

We tend to think of fairy tales as children's stories, in large part due to the Disney-fication of such older tales as Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. As most of us already know, however, these stories were adapted from the "traditional" folk tales collected by the Brothers Grimm who Grimm-ified them for contemporary audiences during the early to mid-19th century. 

I'd long assumed that these fairy tales had been woven together from stories with origins in Europe's ancient past, but in reality the entire genre was only a little more than a century or so old, when the Grimms began their work. Indeed, the woman who coined the term "fairy tales" (conte de fée), and who penned the first ones was Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy, a French woman who had been forced to marry an abusive older man at the age of 15.

Her stories kicked off a craze for fairy tales, inspiring the famous Mother Goose tales. But more importantly, they were an act of rebellion against the harsh patriarchy of the times, an act of subversion that just barely slipped past the censors of the day. Contrary to our ideas of fairy tales as sweet little morality plays, d’Aulnoy risked imprisonment, or worse, with her stories of empowered women who determined their own fate.

I've recently begun to read her collected works and they are certainly more entertaining, and frankly, less grim (pun intended) than the so-called traditional European fairy tales with which I was already familiar. Her heroines certainly face trials and tribulations, but there is never a moment when you truly fear for them: they are simply too strong and resourceful to be subjugated by the forces of evil aligned against them.

These are stories intended for adults, and in particular, young women who apparently understood what d'Aulnoy was doing, even if the censors did not.

Am I recommending these stories for today's children? I don't know yet, but they are certainly more appropriate than the often gruesome Grimm tales. They are at least as uplifting as the Disney versions, with the added bonus of not being tied to the company's relentless product marketing. Perhaps, in the end, it's best to leave fairy tales in the past except in the interest of historical research. After all, there are so many incredible and diverse contemporary works for children that one hardly needs to dip into stories from the 1600's. Still, it's instructive to me to read d'Aulnoy's fairy tales if only to reflect on the courage of this woman who was, in her quiet way, fighting for the freedom and equality of all women.

******

 

If you liked reading this post, you might also enjoy one of my books. To find out more, Click here! 

"Ready for a book that makes you want to underline and highlight? One that makes you draw arrows and write 'THIS!!!!!' in the margin? Then you are in for a treat." ~Lisa Murphy, M.Ed., author and Early Childhood Specialist, Ooey Gooey, Inc.

I put a lot of time and effort into this blog. If you'd like to support me please consider a small contribution to the cause. Thank you!

Just The Right Amount

His mother told me that he had been a "busy" baby, a trait that still defined him as a two-year-old. She warned me about his "battery" that never seemed to require recharging. If I needed him to calm down, she said, he would pause for a storybook or two, but that's all she had for me by way of advice for "dealing with him."

None of this was a problem for us. We're a play-based preschool, so "dealing with him" involved setting him free to pursue his own education and be as busy as he wanted.

As I got to know him, I clearly saw what his mother had been talking about. He had a kind of joyful relentlessness about life that I found inspiring. Everything interested him. Most things even thrilled him. It made me want to be more like him. Of course, this is true of most children with whom I've worked, but in this boy it was all turned up to 10. I could see how his propensities might make him "a handful" for future teachers who would attempt to divert him from his interests toward those of curricula or schedules. He would not be one for sitting attentively at a desk or marching in a straight line.

But those were concerns for those future teachers. Right now he was two and being "busy" is exactly what he needed to be doing. 

One day I sat with his mother, watching her son digging holes in the sandpit. She began to talk about herself. She was an executive with one of the large technology companies in Seattle, a job that ate up her waking hours. She complained of being tired all the time, of feeling that she could never get around in front of things, and of the anxiety it often caused her. She was grateful for our cooperative school in that it "forced" her to set aside at least one morning a week, phone silenced, to slow down and be with her child, although she admitted that a part of her brain simply could not stop fretting over work. 

"I guess he's like me," she sighed about her son.

I asked, "Oh no, does he tend to be anxious?"

She thought about it for a second. "No actually. He's our gung-ho guy."

"Well, that's good."

She nodded. "I guess our similarities are only superficial. We share energy and passion, but he never gets overwhelmed by it. He's busy like me, but my busy-ness devours my life. He never seems to feel like there's too much. It's always just the right amount."

I knew what she meant.

"He's never too busy and he's never bored. I feel like I spend most of my time living in the future. He lives in the present. I think that's the big difference. He just does what's in front of him."

It's part of the wisdom of childhood that we have to unlearn in order to become adults in our modern world. We spend the rest of our lives trying to re-learn it. I'm reminded of the story of Eve and Adam and the Garden of Eden, a lost utopia to which we yearn to return. I'm reminded of the quest of Buddhists for a quiet mind. I'm reminded of all the present moments that I've missed by being too busy.

As we talked, the boy dropped his shovel. He began gathering stones to drop into the holes he'd dug.

He was busy, but not too busy. He had a lot to do, but not too much. It was just the right amount.

******

 

If you liked reading this post, you might also enjoy one of my books. To find out more, Click here! 

"Ready for a book that makes you want to underline and highlight? One that makes you draw arrows and write 'THIS!!!!!' in the margin? Then you are in for a treat." ~Lisa Murphy, M.Ed., author and Early Childhood Specialist, Ooey Gooey, Inc.

I put a lot of time and effort into this blog. If you'd like to support me please consider a small contribution to the cause. Thank you!

I'm "That Kind Of Person"

One of the things I enjoy about the Pacific Northwest is its fashion casualness. I think of myself as a t-shirt and jeans "kind of person" and there are few places where my clothing of choice doesn't pass muster. In my travels to other places, however, I've occasionally come across establishments that forbid people dressed like me: "Dress code strictly enforced."

A part of me is offended. Well, if they're going to be like that, then I'll gladly take my business elsewhere. It feels like a kind of discrimination, something this white, middle-class male doesn't experience all that often. I could, of course, simply put on a tie or a collared shirt or whatever and they would admit me. My clothing is not me.

Or is it?

I sometimes wear a ball cap to school. And sometimes a child, in the spirit of fun, will snatch it off my head. Anyone who has had this happen to them, knows the feeling of violation. "Hey!" is my automatic response. "I don't like that." And then I add, because I believe it to be true, "No one ever likes to have their hat snatched off their head." I've put that hat on my head for a reason. It's the classic bullying move, especially when it turns into the humiliation of "keep away." In other words, I assert, we're all the "kind of person" who doesn't like their hat being messed with.

Indeed, this probably goes for every article of clothing we wear. Except in very special circumstances (like being on fire) to snatch at someone's clothing is a violation of their bodily autonomy. By virtue of having elected to wear this or that, we have declared it to be a part of ourselves. And by the same token, when some stuffy restaurant insists that I wear this or that, they are at some level also challenging my sense of self.

Our clothing is important even if we declare that we're the "kind of person" who doesn't care about fashion, and not just because it protects us from the elements.

We dress to impress. We dress for success. We dress to provoke. We dress to attract. We dress to express ourselves. We dress to deceive. We dress to influence. We dress to tell the world that we're "that kind of person." When we're caught in our underwear, we feel embarrassed. When we're caught fully undressed we feel exposed.

When our children are very little, we select their clothing for them, so what they wear is more an expression of us than them, but before long they begin to have an opinion, often a strong one. On any given day, there will be at least a handful of kids who arrive at school "in costume." Some version of a princess is probably the most common around Woodland Park, but you can almost always find capes, wings, and various types of headgear as well. Our daughter had a collection of crowns and between the ages of two and five, she would not leave the house without one. 

But even the kids in t-shirts and jeans are, in a way, trying on a costume. "Teacher Tom, look at my flower dress!" "Today I'm wearing my Thor shirt!" "These are my Teacher Tom pants!"

We can properly see these costumes as aspirational or imitative, aspects of a child's efforts to play around with aspects of their world in an instinctive effort to understand them, but we can also view it as the beginnings of their efforts to come to grips with the relationship between clothing and self. 

Does changing our clothing change us? I know many people who insist that it does, that if they are dressed a certain way, they "feel" differently and therefore behave differently. I've even known people who insist that wearing certain underwear changes them in some way. We all have our own take on this, but it's not something we're born with: it's something important that we've had to learn.

I'm not a fan of dress codes, especially for young children who are in the midst of learning about the transformative magic of clothing. When adults impose clothing upon children, we violate, in a very real sense, not just their bodily autonomy, but their right to become, for a moment a day or a lifetime, the "kind of person" they want to be.

******

 

If you liked reading this post, you might also enjoy one of my books. To find out more, Click here! 

"Ready for a book that makes you want to underline and highlight? One that makes you draw arrows and write 'THIS!!!!!' in the margin? Then you are in for a treat." ~Lisa Murphy, M.Ed., author and Early Childhood Specialist, Ooey Gooey, Inc.

I put a lot of time and effort into this blog. If you'd like to support me please consider a small contribution to the cause. Thank you!

"Bad Guys"

Most years, there are play themes chosen by our five-year-olds that cause concern. Usually, it's some version of "bad guy" play -- pirates, zombies, spies, superheroes. A couple years back, they were going with the generic "bad guy," which largely played itself out as making fierce faces, posing threateningly, and attempting to capture one another, although it sometimes took the form of attempting to dam up the "river" others were creating in the sand pit.

Typically, the concerns come up because other children begin to report, either to me or to their parents at home, that they're afraid of the "bad guys." It's a delicate balance between the perfectly normal interest of some children to explore the dark side of power and human nature and the perfectly valid desire to not be fearful at school, especially given that some kids are still working out the line between "real" and "pretend." Our parent community had been discussing the subtleties of how we should address this balance for a couple months, both formally and informally, and we had engaged in a lot of circle time discussions among the kids as well, but one day Francis brought things to a head by proposing that we make a new rule: "No bad guys."

The children at Woodland Park make their own rules, a process that requires consensus. When Francis suggested her new rule, dueling cries rose up from those present, one side supporting her and the other against. It was clear that there would be no consensus, but that didn't mean it wasn't a good prompt for a public discussion, one that I hoped would at least get everyone's cards out on the table.

Once everyone settled down, we began to take turns by raising hands and sharing our thoughts on this proposed legislation. It became quickly evident to me that most of the children were actually in favor of banning "bad guy" play, with a small group of boys committed to continuing their favored game. 

I said, "I have an idea, how about everyone who wants to make the no bad guys rule move to that side of the rug and everyone who wants to keep playing bad guys move to that side." 

Gio piped up, "And if you don't care, sit in the middle," a move of diplomatic genius given that he had friends on both sides of the divide. 

My knee-jerk idea had been to create a visual demonstration for our "bad guys" that showed that they were in the minority. Even with a large block of kids choosing the non-commital position in the center of the rug, it was immediately clear that most of the kids with an opinion were all for banning bad guy play, with only five boys remaining staunchly against Francis' proposed rule.

We started with those in favor of the rule, giving them, one-by-one, the opportunity to tell the "bad guys" how their play made them feel, most of whom said they either felt afraid or angry. It was an oddly quiet and sincere five minutes during which everyone seemed to genuinely be listening to one another. As they spoke, some of the kids in the middle shifted to that side. 

When they were done, I turned to the "bad guys," asking, "And why do you guys like playing bad guys?" Each of them took a turn making their case, citing "fun" as their main support, although several made the point that it was "just pretend." A couple of the fence sitters moved to their side.

I then said, "We can't make Francis' rule because everyone doesn't agree, but some people are afraid and some people think it's fun. What can we do?"

After some discussion, most of which was just restatements of the already established pros and cons, the "bad guys" made what I thought was a brilliant and magnanimous offer, "How about we can be bad guys, but we act like good guys." This received widespread approval, but there remained a new minority of those who still supported an all-out ban. By this time, most of the kids were sitting in the middle of the rug, growing restless.

We had been at this discussion for quite some time. We had had a terrific air-clearing discussion in which everyone made their case. But now we were at a logger-head. It was obvious that the matter was not going to be addressed via the formal rules, at least not on this day.

I said, "It looks like we're not going to be able to make a new rule. Some people still want to play bad guys and some people still want them to stop."

And Gio piped up, "And some people don't care."

"And some people don't care . . . But I will remind everyone that we already have an important agreement that we sometimes forget." I turned toward the list of rules we have mounted on the wall: "We all agreed, don't do anything to anybody before you ask them." I turned to the bad guys, "That means you have to ask people before being bad guys to them." I then turned to the rest of the kids, "And I want the rest of you to remember that it's just pretend and that you can always just tell the bad guys to stop." With that I looked back at the bad guys for their agreement on this point, "Right?" They nodded.

Later, when we moved from indoors to outdoors, I was prepared to help the children by reminding everyone about our discussion, but it was unnecessary because, for the first time all year, the "bad guys" chose to make mud soup with our playhouse kitchen supplies, while others swept sand back into the sandpit. 

It was clear that we had really listened to one another and it became even more obvious a couple days later when the mother of the "leader" of the bad guys pulled me aside to tell me: "Last night Henry said he wasn't going to play bad guys any more because Francis doesn't like it." And true to his word, for the rest of the year they played "good guys." 

******

 

If you liked reading this post, you might also enjoy one of my books. To find out more, Click here! 

"Ready for a book that makes you want to underline and highlight? One that makes you draw arrows and write 'THIS!!!!!' in the margin? Then you are in for a treat." ~Lisa Murphy, M.Ed., author and Early Childhood Specialist, Ooey Gooey, Inc.

I put a lot of time and effort into this blog. If you'd like to support me please consider a small contribution to the cause. Thank you!

Hard Play

Hard work and planning ahead. It's the not-so-secret ingredient to success. 

How did you get so wealthy? Hard work and keeping my eye on the prize.

How did you win the championship? Hard work and lots of practice.

How did you grow your business? Hard work and a good business plan.

Of course, people will also attribute some of their success to others -- spouses, employees, teammates -- and some are humble enough to credit their god, but at the end of the day, it's the hard work, they tell us, that allowed them to separate themselves from the also-rans.

We want our children to learn to work hard, to have grit, to get back up when they fall down, to learn to set goals and strive. We worry when they seem lazy, overly sensitive, easily discouraged, or aimless. Our schools are set up with the values of hard work and planning at their core. We worry when things are "too easy" for a kid, so we have special programs to challenge them. We worry when they don't know how to concentrate on the task at hand, prioritize, or are too easily diverted. We even go so far as the drug children who struggle with this.

By the same token, we tend to shake our heads when someone fails, tut-tutting that they could have worked harder or that they could have had a smarter plan.

Everyone knows that hard work and planning are the keys to the kingdom. Indeed, it's "common knowledge."

But I'm not convinced that hard work and planning pay off. Or rather, I don't believe there is any real evidence that hard work and planning increase one's odds of success any more than, say, natural talent or sheer good luck.

"Work" is one thing, but "hard work" is quite another. The inclusion of the modifier "hard" suggests that this is something we would rather not be doing; that we would much rather be doing something else, but we've put our nose to the grindstone in service to our plan or goal. By its very nature, "hard work" doesn't pay off now, the only moment any of us truly possess, but rather at some point in the non-existent future. In other words, hard work calls for us to sacrifice our certain joys and pleasures on the alter of planning. And as the Yiddish proverb cautions us, "Man plans and God laughs."

No, despite proclamations of the victors, my experience has been that hard work does not inevitably lead to success. Far from it. Plenty of people, most people in fact, work very hard indeed, and success still eludes them. I'm thinking of those single mothers working three minimum wage jobs, but who still can't pull their family out of poverty. I'm thinking of all those minor league baseball players who work their tails off, but never make it to the big leagues. I'm thinking of the 95 percent of small businesses that fail within five years. Cold-hearted critics will say, "Ah, but if only they had worked harder." Or worse, "If only they had worked smarter," which is a dig at their poor planning. But the evidence seems clear to me that hard work and planning are hardly guarantees of success: most of us will still fail in the hard work and planning paradigm, no matter how heavily we mortgage our present to pay for the future.

There are those who will insist that hard work is its own reward. A life doing the things I'd rather not be doing at the expense of things that could bring me joy or satisfaction right now? Sound like flimflammery to me. There a those who warn us "If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there," but that's a recipe for arriving at a destination only to find you've missed out on the beauty along the way.

Throughout my career as an early childhood educator, a career I never planned for, but rather fell into, I've lived among humans who haven't yet bought into the ethos of hard work and planning. Oh sure, they apply themselves in ways that might look a lot like the proverbial hard work, but because it is entirely self-selected, because it is done in service to the moment rather than some distant goal or objective, we know it as play. Hard play if you will. And unlike hard work, which must come at a cost, hard play is genuinely its own reward. It's how we learn about ourselves, our passions, and what makes us come alive. Hard work is inflexible. The dictate to keep your head down and focus on the prize causes us to ignore the flowers, to set our relationships aside, and to live for an imagined future. Hard play, on the other hand, is infinitely flexible. It ensures that we will stop and smell the flowers, to treasure our relationships, and keeps us anchored in the only thing any of us really have -- Now!

Too often, we adults look at children engaged in hard play, and assume it is our responsibility to impose hard work upon them "for their own good," but we would be much better, I think, to step back and learn from them . . . for our own good. These are the humans who are living authentically. They might not always be happy, but they are successful. They teach us that the real secret to success is hard play and flexibility.

In our society, the "successful" will always claim, in hindsight, that their secret is hard work and planning, but that ignores the vast majority who work hard and plan, yet still find themselves coming up short. 

What I have learned from children is that hard play and flexibility may or may not lead to riches or glory, but it will always leads to success.

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