May Your Wishes Be Granted

When our daughter was little and frightening news of the world got to her, I would try to put things in perspective, "Most people, most of the time are having a fine day." This has been true throughout all of history, even when great tragedy is unfolding in one part of it. And indeed when is it not?

Maybe it's not a great day, although someone is also always having one of those as well, but a fine one, because most things involving humans are like that -- a little high a little low, a little hot a little cold, a little smooth a little rough. Both the optimists and the pessimists are right: it could always get better and it could always get worse. 

I suspect that most of us are pro-optimism, even if we're pessimistic by nature. It's hard not to be when you're working with young children, who themselves are generally having fine days, but by virtue of the metaphor of their youth shines for us like a light into the certainty of a better future. And even if we can't help but regret in advance the equal assurance that they will suffer, it just seems that optimism is the proper stance when it comes to the young so we pull ourselves together and say, "It will heal," "The lights will come back on," "The worst is behind us."

Around the time of the Winter Solstice, I tried this out on the grown-ups, saying things like, "This is as dark as it gets, now we can look forward to more light," or "It all gets better from here!" Most thanked me, accepting my invitation to look forward with hope, but many drew back in mock defensiveness, bubbling back, "I love the dark! I love the long night!" denying my assertion that there could be anything wrong. I understand that they were looking into the dark with the certainty of their optimism, wearing it like a shield against doubt.

Hope and fear are the two sides of this coin and both are legal currency in the marketplace of the future. There are those that claim that we create reality through our attitude, that if we anticipate success we make it more certain, while the same goes for failure. And I expect there is some truth to that, although probably a lot less than the pop philosophies would lead us to believe. In her book Bright Sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America, inspired by her struggle with breast cancer, Barbara Ehrenreich, calls this faith in the determinism of attitude "the new Calvinism," seeing a world in which we are all ultimately and personally responsible for the evils that befall us, be it cancer or unemployment, casting every set-back as a personal failure, having nothing to do with the pernicious randomness of disease or outgoing tide of economic recession.

Optimism is a magnificent thing. I hardly think I'd want to go on living without it. Living hopefully does not call for optimism of the blind variety, but rather the eyes-wide-open knowledge that this sure as hell can work given what I know to be true about the world and myself. Optimism backed up by thoughtfulness, experience, and confidence is always justified, but when worn merely as a prophylactic against fear, it sets us at the roulette wheel feverishly spinning away, doomed to go bust no matter what our attitude.

Pessimism gets a bad rap and I understand that. Relentlessly pessimistic people are hard to be around unless they're able to temper it with a cynic's humor, and even that wears thin after awhile. But that doesn't mean that the fear at the heart of the pessimist isn't justified. It could always go wrong. The future is full of pitfalls: we count on our wary pessimists to point them out. Whose investment advice would you be more likely to take: the optimist or the pessimist? The pessimist's, of course, after all if they're willing to place a bet on the future, you can be darned sure they've done their homework and is not relying on the vagaries of a "good vibe."

Young children don't think in terms of optimism and pessimism, especially the very young for whom the future really doesn't exist, let alone with enough concreteness to evoke hope or fear. And sure, as they get older they quite reasonably adopt the cloak most appropriate for the occasion; dressing for instance in eager anticipation of the holidays or in fearful anticipation of the doctor's needles. Rational responses both, ones that belie the reality that the gifts are rarely as incredible as one hopes nor the pain as bad as one fears: our attitude, be it hope or fear, doesn't necessarily alter reality, but rather helps us temper our experience with reality in a way to prevent the highs from being too high and the lows from being too low.

I'm thinking of all this today in the last day of 2025 because as I reflect back on the year now past with all it's ups and downs, I can't help but think of the "curse" that is usually attributed to the ancient Chinese: "May you live in interesting times."

And indeed, I have been cursed; we have been cursed. The brilliance of this curse, of course, is that it can just as easily be a blessing, because really, who would want to live in boring times? And indeed, I have been blessed; we have been blessed.

I'm going to try this year, as a resolution, as I do every year, to approach the future more like a child, setting aside the dogmatism of optimism and pessimism. I will let my feelings flourish, learn what I can from them, then wearing them on my sleeve, I'll seize the day while worrying about tomorrow when it comes.

When I succeed, I will credit those who hugged me when it was dark. When I fail, I will shrug and not heap all the blame on myself, knowing that I have no control over the weather.

There is a companion curse, also two-sided, that goes along with the more famous one. It's one we habitually evoke for one another this time of year as a blessing, so take it as you will: "May your wishes be granted."

And in the meantime, however, have a fine year.

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Even the most thriving play-based environments can grow stale at times. I've created this collection of my favorite free (or nearly free) resources for educators, parents, and others who work with young children. It's my gift to you! Click here to download your own copy and never run out of ideas again!

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 Know! We Can Both Be Anna!"

"I'm Anna."

"No, I'm Anna!"

It wasn't the first time that children argued over who was Anna or Elsa or Batman or one of the Paw Patrol characters. Their bodies were rigid beneath the thin fabric of their princess dresses, the faces red and fierce. The other children stood around them, their game at an impasse as the girls stood toe-to-toe.

"There's only one Anna!" one of them shouted, putting a fine point on the obvious. They all knew the story. Some of them had always known the story, having watched it unfold again and again on their screens for as long as their parents had allowed them to view screens. There is only one Anna, yet here we were with two.

Or rather, from where I stood outside the story, there were no Annas, just two children staking a claim to a role in a game of pretend. Neither of them was really Anna. I could see that. The children who encircled them could see it. 

"(W)e think we tell stories," writes Rebecca Solnit in her book The Faraway Nearby, "but often the stories tell us."

Up to this point, the story had been largely telling the girls as they followed the familiar script, but now, with the advent of two Annas, the story had taken an impossible turn. As the children stood in that moment, balanced between the familiar and unfamiliar, known and unknown, everything was up in the air. It would have been easy to step in with my adult-ish stories about getting along and taking turns and sharing, but that would have been missing the point. 

We have all faced these moments when our stories stop telling us, when people or events, make the familiar impossible. This, I think, was at least in part what philosopher Blaise Pascal was getting at when the wrote, "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." If we could, we would simply allow our stories to tell us, but the moment we step out into the world, the moment our scripts must be merged with those of our fellow humans, we must figure out how to tell our story with two Annas or three or, we come to realize, Annas that go all the way down.

Everything we think we know is part of the story we tell about the world. Movies like Frozen in many ways stand-in for the mythologies that always underpin our understanding of ourselves and our place in the world. What makes these modern stories different from those ancient stories is that the telling as been fixed by the nature of movie-making, suggesting that the story is forever and unalterable. For most of human existence, however, before the phonetic alphabet made it possible to create this illusion, our oral tradition meant that every story was either told and retold or forgotten, and each time it happened, invariably, the story changed depending upon the teller and the circumstances. Every telling of every story was an act of creation in which we tell the story while the story tells us.

"I'm Anna!"

"No, I'm Anna!"

"I know! We can both be Anna!"

The old truth had been made into a new truth: two Annas miraculously born from one. It was at once both new and as old as any story ever told; as new and as old as any story that has ever told us.

It took a moment for the children to absorb this amazing new thing that had been created, but not for long, because in the world outside our rooms, the stories can't be paused or bookmarked. They go on telling us and we go on telling them in a never-ending process of creating two Annas from one.

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Even the most thriving play-based environments can grow stale at times. I've created this collection of my favorite free (or nearly free) resources for educators, parents, and others who work with young children. It's my gift to you! Click here to download your own copy and never run out of ideas again!

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!

A Gift That Made Me Feel Loved and Treasured

A friend of mine who I'd known for the entirety of her five years, brought me a gift. It was a picture she had drawn of me along with a message written in her own hand: "Ila (hearts) Teacher Tom." I probably receive a couple of these a week, pictures or other handmade gifts from the children I teach. They are often grubby, wrinkled, and torn from the effort of creation, and as I talk with the gift-giver, I always learn that every little mark or doodle has a story behind it.

Some time ago I found myself in a friendly debate with a professional who I hold in high esteem. He argued that young children are essentially selfish. Not that he was judging them, but rather, he believed, the ability to view the world unselfishly was a developmental stage that most preschoolers had not reached.

I've not found that to be true. Certainly, young children can be selfish, just like all of us, and some of them tend to be more selfish than others, but every day, all around me, I see young children disproving my esteemed colleague's theory. What I do see are children objecting to being told what to do. I see them sulking when commanded into sharing. I see them reacting angrily, sometimes even violently, to having something snatched from their hands, but, almost without fail, when a child asks for a portion or a turn, they receive it, usually gladly. Every day, I bring conflicts to an end, or even nip them in the bud, by simply pointing out, for instance, "Eleanor doesn't have any play dough." It's a piece of information that a young child might not have discerned on their own, but that once clearly stated will respond to by generously breaking off a piece of their own play dough for the child who has none. In the lead up to the December holidays, I've found that children are at least as excited about the gifts they are giving as those they are about to receive.

If "selfishness" is acting without consideration of others for one's own personal profit or benefit, then "unselfishness" is sitting down with a piece of paper and a marker and spending time creating a gift. I would have to be incredibly selfish myself to not see the generosity in Ila's picture. She labored over those letters, shaping them carefully, for me, considering my feelings as she did. She reflected on my physical appearance, drawing a portrait, for me, that included the blue jeans I wear every day, my glasses, a shirt she has seen me wear many times. As she presented the picture to me, I learned that she had wanted to get the color of my eyes right and was disappointed that she had guessed green instead of blue. This picture was not for her own personal profit or benefit, but for mine, one created expressly and thoughtfully for me. If that is not an example of unselfishness then I don't know what is.

Ila gave me the picture on the playground, so after we had discussed it, I folded it up to fit into my jacket pocket. She had put so much unselfish thought into this gift and it made me feel exactly as she had hoped, I expect: loved and treasured. Several times over the next few days, I felt the paper in my pocket, wondered what it was, then opened it to find that it made me feel loved and treasured all over again.

******

Even the most thriving play-based environments can grow stale at times. I've created this collection of my favorite free (or nearly free) resources for educators, parents, and others who work with young children. It's my gift to you! Click here to download your own copy and never run out of ideas again!

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!

When We Stop Worrying About What Goes into the Boxes

I'd grown to dread the holiday season until about 20 years ago when my extended family decided to drop the shopping crowds, strictly limit our budgets to $5 per person, and strongly encourage handmade gifts. What a boon! Now, instead of spending those weeks trying to find parking and fighting mall crowds, we're in our kitchens, sewing rooms, and garages being creative. It now feels so much more like a season of joy, which lies in the giving and receiving, way more than what's actually inside the boxes.

The preschoolers prove that point each year by wrapping and unwrapping dozens of presents. We provide basket of bows and sheets of wrapping paper (reclaimed from our recent holiday festivities), sturdy boxes (donated several years ago by co-op a parent who was a photographer), ribbon, tape, and scissors. Go! This is a project inspired by the real world; an opportunity to explore this phenomenon of wrapping things up, giving, and receiving.

We didn't provide anything to put in those boxes. That was left up to the kids, who creatively filled them with blocks, kitchen implements, costume parts, jingle bells, toy food, and even wads of tissue paper. Many of them approached the task by declaring they needed help, but I think that was just out of habit. Normally, there are certain "standards" when it comes to a well-wrapped gift, but in preschool it truly is the thought that counts. A few of them did need help operating the tape dispensers, but otherwise they figured it out on their own.

I don't have many photos of wrapped gifts because as soon as they were finished, they were given away, joyfully unwrapped, then wrapped again, each box being the object of anticipation on the part of both giver and receiver over and over again.

What I love most about my family's gift giving tradition is that we've all stopped worrying about what goes into the boxes. That's what has taken the stress out of the whole thing. It's the boxes themselves, the wrapping and unwrapping, the giving and receiving; that's really the whole point. The proof is right here in preschool.

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I've been writing about play-based learning almost every day for the past 16 years. I've recently gone back through the 4000+ blog posts(!) I've written since 2009. Here are my 10 favorite in a nifty free download. Click here to get yours.

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!

Auld Lang Syne

The words "for auld lang syne" translate into modern English as something like, "for old time's sake." The song we sing on New Year's Eve is a Scottish poem, written by Robert Burns in 1788, and is a melancholy farewell.

Every day, we say so long to so much, old times that will never return except as memories. 

As musician Nick Cave writes, "As we grow older, loss becomes the primary condition of living . . . it just means that you carry a deeper understanding of what it is to be human."

Most of the time we don't really think about it in the rush and crush of life, not noticing the changes, the losses, only to be reminded of them in spurts, in reflective moments, or when confronted suddenly by something that evokes days that are gone. Sometimes what we have lost overwhelms us, like the passing of a loved one, but most of the time, we mourn our losses with something like a song, raising a glass with a tear in our eye, then moving on with our deeper understanding, in hope, to create some more. 

I look forward to the new year with eagerness even as I know it will, like this past year, be full of things to which I'll say goodbye, something I've done 63 time already. So let's do it again this year with one more toast. Let's tak' a cup o' kindness yet, for days of auld lang syne.

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I've been writing about play-based learning almost every day for the past 16 years. I've recently gone back through the 4000+ blog posts(!) I've written since 2009. Here are my 10 favorite in a nifty free download. Click here to get yours.

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!

Teacher Tom's Last Minute Gift Ideas for Young Children

We've been bombarded with "last minute" gift idea promotions since at least mid-November, but now, finally, the last minute is truly upon us. As a public service I offer Teacher Tom's last minute gift ideas for children, most of which won't even require a trip to a mall or an Amazon delivery. I mean, at the end of the day, we all know they're going to be playing with the boxes, ribbons, and wrapping paper anyway . . .

Mesh produce bags.

Things that rot.

A place to leave things to rot . . .

. . . and worms to live there.

Sticks.

An old typewriter.

Concrete.

Dominoes.

Tape.

Sand.

Blocks.

Hammers.

Drills.

Boxes and balls.

Nuts, bolts, wrenches and screwdrivers . . .

. . . rubber bands . . .

. . . and put them all together.

Glue guns.

Cars.

Dolls . . .

. . . who need bandages.

Shipping pallets.

Rocks.

Water, gutters, tubes and shovels.

Paint.

Yarn.

Step ladders . . .

. . . and homemade ladders.

Tree parts.

Ropes.

Buckets.

Plants.

Junk . . .

 . . . and jewels.

Happy holidays!

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I've been writing about play-based learning almost every day for the past 15 years. I've recently gone back through the 4000+ blog posts(!) I've written since 2009. Here are my 10 favorite in a nifty free download. Click here to get yours.

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!