We Did It All In A Single Morning

I doubt there are few more unpredictable workplaces than a preschool classroom. Even after more than a decade, I’m still surprised, irritated and flummoxed by what goes on around here.

But every now and then you get a day like yesterday when everything goes just as it would in a dream.

All of these things were going on simultaneously:

Art: As an extension of our Pre-K class' “dangerous” experiments in melting earlier in the week, I’d set up 3 hot plates lined with foil. The kids then drew on the foil with crayons, which, of course, melt as they glide across the smooth, hot surface. If they wanted, they could make a print by pressing a sheet of paper down onto the surface, but most kids were completely satisfied by this soothing, reflective art process-without-product, even with its built-in potential for causing burnt fingertips.

Sensory: We had large and small chunks of ice in our sensory table, which we sprinkled with rock salt during the first half-hour of class. The salt causes the ice to melt at an accelerated rate, but mainly only in the spots where the salt directly comes into contact with the ice, which means that our chunks were soon riddled with holes and ridges. That’s when we broke out the liquid watercolor and eyedroppers. The kids quickly figured out that they could inject the color into the ice creating “rainbow ice.” By the end of the day, the sensory table was a soup of paint, water and ice, which Max insisted were “bloody brains.”

Blocks: We often use our block area – being the largest single area in the room – for dramatic play. Since the firefighters are visiting us on Monday, we prepared for them by setting up the area with our collection of toy firetrucks, helmets, fire hoses (pipe insulation), orange caution cones, and a simple cardboard box facsimile of a kid-sized fire truck, featuring a steering wheel made from a paper plate and an old cell phone standing in for a dispatch radio.

Drama: Our drama area is one of the parts of the classroom that tends to stay the same day-after-day. I think it’s important to have at least one place where things don’t change too much. There’s almost always play dough and our collection of costumes, stuffed animals, dolls, toy food and kitchenware. Alex took over the area early on, declaring she was getting ready for a party, a play theme that carried on throughout the morning, ultimately involving several other kids. She had put on our lone “fancy” dress, which reminded me that the bulk of our costumes had finished serving their “lice quarantine” and were ready to be re-introduced into the classroom. I brought out three bags, two of which were costumes and one contained doll clothes. Soon there were several party-goers and their babies dressed to the nines.

Table Toys: I often think of our table toys station as a place for kids to sit for a bit and concentrate. Yesterday there were three small bear puzzles on one table and more of the fire fighter curriculum materials on another.

Do-It-Yourself: The tape machine continued anchoring this station (I’ll reveal the current state of the door sculpture tomorrow), although I added old magazines to the usual collection of scissors and glue sticks, along with a long piece of butcher paper on the wall easels where they could glue the pictures they cut out.

It was a rare, sunny November day and from the very start the children got down to their business alone and in groups. The play flowed almost seamlessly from station to station almost like it had been choreographed. Knots of engaged kids formed first around the firefighter play, then around the melting crayons. At one point the sensory table was surrounded by at least half the class, feverishly drawing paint into their pipettes and squirting it onto and into the ice. The party really took off for awhile as everyone donned costumes and pretended to eat play dough cookies. At one point the do-it-yourself area had become a dense tangle of tape, some of the pieces well over 10 ft. long. There were even moments when 3-4 kids took a break from the action together to focus on the bear puzzles.

There was ongoing, excited chatter among the kids with barely an adult voice to be heard (except maybe mine). Conflicts were almost non-existent and the few that did erupt were quickly and easily settled. No one separated herself off into a corner or got “stuck” at the snack table.

All the children were involved with our clean up. Circle Time was a bit unruly, but it often is, and none of it distracted us from our marathon session of adding to our compliment chain, running through the rest of our firefighter curriculum, and heading outside for a fire drill.

The rainbow ice chunks reappeared on the playground and were slid down the slide, broken on the asphalt, and added to the sand box. Our decomposing pumpkins attracted several diggers who “splated” the mushy pulp against the fence and the exterior walls of the school until Peter got some in his hair and we had to make a new rule about rotting pumpkin staying on the ground.

From beginning to end, the children were in charge, and the community they created was inclusive, enriching and exciting. And we did it all in a single morning.

Why Should I Support This Health Care Reform Bill?

(Note: I occasionally write political pieces, like this, this, this, this, this, and this. Here’s another one. 

Can someone please explain why I should support the health care reform bill that seems to be taking shape? This is a genuine plea for answers.

In the last presidential election I was an early supporter of John Edwards because of his advocacy of Medicare-for-all. I wound up supporting Barack Obama in large measure because of his promise to reform health care, including a “robust public option.” Although it seemed a lot like re-inventing the Medicare wheel, I always took “public option” to mean a government run health insurance program that anyone could buy into.

This makes sense to me mostly because private health insurance companies are very inefficient in that they need to take about 30 percent off the top to pay incredible executive compensation, profits, and marketing/advertising (no small potatoes). In many respects they’ve become this way because, inexplicably, it is the only industry other than Major League Baseball that enjoys an exemption from anti-trust laws. In other words, it’s legal for insurance companies to collude with one another and do things like fix pricing based on things other than the laws of supply and demand. This has lead to what are essentially bloated health insurance monopolies, with nothing better to do with their money than pay executive salaries and stockholder dividends. In most parts of the country, people only have 1-2 legitimate choices. A robust public option as I envisioned it would offer real competition which is the free market antidote to monopolies.

Medicare runs on about 5 percent overhead because it pays modest salaries, doesn’t need to earn a profit, and has no marketing expenses to speak of, which means that 95 percent of the money it takes in goes to actually paying for healthcare. I’d always assumed that a public option could be run on a similar model, which would pose a formidable competitor to private health insurance. I can see how this would require private companies to get lean in order to compete. It would force the break-up of these monopolies. That’s how capitalism in a democracy should work – competition should be making things increasingly better for we the people, not the capitalists. When that isn’t happening, something is out of whack.

This does not mean that I'm not a supporter of real capitalism. In fact, I have no doubt I that there’s an entrepreneur out there right now who will figure out a way “beat” the public option in spite of its built-in advantages. That is something I’d like to see. That will be American ingenuity at its finest. One of the reasons I support a robust public health care option that is available to everyone is because I’m convinced we can produce an entrepreneur who can do it even better and more efficiently. And if current health insurance behemoths can’t compete, they’ll have to change, shrink, or die, which is what would have happened long ago if they had had real competition.

But the House bill does not propose a public option that will create competition. According the Congressional Budget Office, only 2 percent of us will wind up using the public option as proposed by the House bill. That’s because, as I understand it, only people who are currently uninsurable will qualify for “the exchange,” which will be the only place the public option is available. Largely, these will be the sickest people; those who aren’t profitable anyway. How does that provide competition to private insurers? I simply don’t understand how this version of the “public option” will work to keep down costs unless we can all buy into it. I suppose it will insure a few more people, which is a good thing, but as proposed, it seems anemic at best. Some studies have concluded that the pubic option will actually cost more than private sector policies, which means it will really just become the health insurance of last resort.

But what strikes me as most outrageous is that the House bill will require most of us to enter into contractual relationships with private health insurance companies. We will all be compelled under penalty of federal law (via what is referred to as the “health insurance mandate”) to enter into contractual relationships with companies that have already demonstrated their willingness to place profits over our well-being. As for-profit enterprises, our courts have held that they can, in fact, be sued by stockholders if they don’t do everything in their power to maximize profits. One of the easiest ways to maximize profits is to deny or delay health care. If I’m diagnosed with cancer, for instance, it doesn’t take a genius to understand that the best way to bolster profits would be for me to die quickly so it minimizes payouts. I do not trust these people, yet I’m going to be mandated to enter into a contractual relationship with them. (As far as I’m concerned this is the equivalent of being coerced into signing a contract, which should automatically invalidate it.)

This is particularly heinous because the House bill offers only mild regulations on the behavior of private health insurance companies. Yes, it will curb some of their most heinous abuses, but without a real public option there’s nothing in this bill that will lead to cost control, which leaves affordability at the hands of their profit margin. In other words, our health care – our lives and the lives of our children – is going to be in the hands of corporations that stand to profit from providing as little heath care as they possibly can. I repeat, I do not trust these people. What they do can legitimately be called “murder by spreadsheet,” but if this bill becomes law, we'll all be required to go into business with them.

Then there’s the so-call Stupack Amendment, which essentially makes abortion only available to wealthy women. This disgusting amendment amounts to the greatest impingement on a woman’s right to choose since the Hyde Amendment passed in 1976, and this in an era during which the Democrats control two of the three branches of government. I pray that this is the kind of thing that will be stripped out of the final bill the president signs.

And the cherry on top of this mud and pickle sundae is that most of it won’t go into effect until 2013, which means that even if the final law will taste better than it looks, we’re going to be at the mercy of these unregulated corporations who have already announced their intention to jack their prices into the stratosphere if health care reform legislation passes. 

As it now stands, I’m going to be urging my congressman to vote against this bill. I believe it contains a public option that is designed to fail because it will not provide real competition. I’m deeply troubled by the fact that we will be compelled by law to sign contracts with untrustworthy business partners. Not to mention the anti-choice amendment and the long delay before the key components of the bill are implemented.

I’ve spent the last couple days reading the bill passed by the House, which I understand won’t differ greatly from the one the Senate will pass. These are my conclusions. As much as I hate to write this, I think we ought to scrap the whole thing and start over with Medicare-for-all as our starting point. We might have to wait until we’ve elected more and better Democrats.

Now, I know that there are a number of readers of this blog who are strong supporters of this legislation, which I was until I really got a look at what it’s going to do. I’m hoping that I’m somehow missing the hidden beauty of this bill. Please point them out to me. I really don’t want us to miss this opportunity for real reform, but I fear that we already have missed it with this weak, weak bill. I will be moderating comments to avoid having to publish flames, cursing, and name-calling, but I promise to publish your comment as long it’s civil.

I hope I just misunderstand. Please help me.

Dangerous Play

At the 3-5’s class parent meeting on Monday night our parent education topic was toys. Our educator Elizabeth Bird got things rolling by having us discuss our own memories of toys and play. It was remarkable how similar our experiences were. Mostly we remembered playing outside, relatively unsupervised, with few if any toys. And most of the toys people did mention tended to be those either of their own creation, or of the bicycle, crayon, blocks, dolls, and balls variety, open-ended play stuff that lent itself to physical, intellectual, and creative exploration.

Of course, scientists tell us that most adults have very few reliable memories that come from those years before 5 – the core preschool years – so I’m assuming that most of these memories are of somewhat older children. I suspect our parents were keeping a closer eye on us as toddlers than we were perhaps aware, but the point is nevertheless well-taken.

My own recollections of those years are similar ones of outdoor free play, and I try very hard to draw on those experiences as a teacher. I often think of our school as a neighborhood and each of our stations (blocks, art, sensory, table toys, drama, snack, library) as someone’s backyard. As a cooperative preschool a parent is responsible for supervising each of these station, and I urge them to think of themselves as a suburban or rural mom standing in the kitchen window keeping an eye on the kids who happen to be playing in her backyard. Ideally, her role is simply to keep the children safe, to make sure they’re not mistreating each other, and to help only when help is obviously needed. Otherwise, the job is to stand back and let the children experiment with one another and the stuff they find there.

One of the ways that I differ, it seems, from my fellow Woodland Park adults is that I have very clear memories of my childhood toys, many of which have since been banned by various regulatory agencies. There were, of course, the infamous Jarts (lawn darts). And I have many fond memories of lighting off firecrackers and bottle rockets. SST’s were a kind of racecar that used a rip cord to get its large center wheel spinning at such high speeds that the vehicle, once released, could put a hole in dry wall and raise nasty welts on shins. We didn’t have many battery-powered toys, instead they had to be plugged into wall sockets. I had a wood-burning set, and several “toy” heating elements that got hot enough to melt plastics that we then poured into molds and cooled in water. My friend even had a set that allowed us to melt down hunks of lead that we then used to make toy soldiers. I understand why these toys are no longer available, but looking back, I’m impressed by all the science I learned through these “dangerous” toys.

Some of my less potentially hazardous “science” toys, however, were preserved in my parent’s attic and have now found a home at the school.

The “Skittle Bowl” game, which involves tossing a wooden ball on a chain around a pivot to knock down bowling pins, comes out when we’re experimenting with pendulums. Fortunately, this toy retains the inherent risk of being knocked on the head by a wooden ball if you're not careful

Our old “Battling Tops” game involves high-speed tops contesting against one another for supremacy in a convex arena. Fortunately, this toy retains the inherent risk of tops flying out of the arena so you need to watch out.

One of our single most popular toys is an old Fisher-Price Sisyphusian garage that features three dump trucks that leave their payloads (wooden balls) on the upper level, then drive down a ramp to collect them again by backing into the garage causing the balls to fall into the truck bed. When it’s out, it tends to be in such demand that I have to duct tape it to a table top to avoid someone walking off with it. Fortunately, this toy retains the inherent risk that you'll wind up in a tussle with someone, so you need to learn to negotiate.

And then there is the game “Rebound” that is a tabletop version of shuffle board, using marble-based pucks that you have to bounce off taut rubber bands. Fortunately, this toy retains the inherent risk that your knuckles or fingertips will be bruised by a fast-moving puck, so you make sure to keep clear when its someone else's turn.

We don’t necessarily play with any of these games in the way in which they were intended, but as a collection they offer a pretty solid basis for a preschool physics curriculum, complete with a slight sense of danger.

Still, I worry that children are missing something important in this world of “safe” toys. That undercurrent of danger simply isn’t present in a world of guard-railed and padded playgrounds. Danger teaches caution. Bumps, bruises and even burns teach concentration.  As our mantra goes, “The only way to learn about asphalt is to fall on it.” Learning to not get hurt is a much shallower thing than learning to not get hurt again.

That said, I’m a teacher. I wouldn’t be long for the profession if I was sending home too many injured kids and we have to keep our insurance, so it’s a balancing act. Our Pre-K class is my place to introduce a bit of that risk-taking in a controlled way. For instance, we always do at least one project that involves hot glue guns. And our “break or bounce” experiment (which involves me dropping various things, including glass, from the top of a ladder onto the asphalt) gets our hearts racing. But nothing tops yesterday’s Pre-K science experiments for creating the giddy sense that danger is lurking nearby.

We started off by playing with chunks of ice in the sensory table until the conversation turned, as it always will, to melting. That was our cue to turn on our electric burner and use it to rapidly melt a piece of ice until it turned into liquid, then into steam. We talked about what was happening at the molecular level with molecules moving faster and faster as water moved from it’s solid state into a gas.  The children cheered at each stage of the process. Jack was so excited he bounced around the blue rug, although it’s important to note that he separated himself from the group and only did so at a safe distance from the red-hot burner. We then talked about what else could melt. We knew that paper and wood would burn, but we thought we could melt a candle stub. Sure enough, it melted and we cheered again. We then tried a crayon. Same result.

When it came to metal, however, there was a lot of doubt about what would happen. We passed around a small piece of lead, feeling it and discussing it. Would it burn? Would it melt? Maybe it wouldn’t do anything. Memories of those lead soldiers dancing in my mind, we put on our coats and went outside to avoid breathing the fumes that melting lead would put off. I used a lighter (danger!) to light a candle (danger!) then put the lead in a spoon and held it in the flame. I told the children they could run around and play in the playground while we waited, and they did a bit, but mostly they hung around watching to see if we could really melt metal.

Finally Ella, who hadn’t left her post, said, “It’s melting!” and sure enough the edges were shimmering fluidly. Within seconds we had a spoonful of molten lead. We cheered. I shook it gently to prove the point, repeating over and over that melted metal was “very hot.” I then tossed it into a bucket of cold water where it instantly turned back into a solid. We passed it around, discussing again what had happened to the molecules.

When I blew out the candle several of the children cheered again. I guess that was in appreciation of our survival.

Fire! Fire! Fire!

The firefighters are visiting our 3-5 classroom next Monday, so yesterday I started in on our fire safety curriculum. I guess I shouldn’t say our curriculum since it’s based on a kit supplied by the Bic lighter company and distributed by the Seattle Fire Department. The expectation is that teachers have run through the material in preparation for the firefighters’ arrival.

We don’t use the dvd – we strive to be a low-tech school – and some of the stuff is designed for older kids, but much of the material is really spot on. There’s a playing card matching game that did some pretty good “business” yesterday, and re-usable sticker sets for dressing and redressing a cardboard firefighter in his full turnout suit, among other things. But the most popular classroom activity by far is one in which I hide pictures of “dangerous” items (e.g., lighters, matches, candles, stoves, grills) around the classroom along with pictures of “safe to play” items (e.g., balls, watering cans, crayons). When children find the dangerous items we put them up high for safety, while the “safe to play” items are put on the floor so “even babies can play with them.”

This game has proven so reliably popular that I’ve made my own tagboard-reinforced, laminated set from the plain paper ones supplied in the kit. In fact, I’ve acquired four of the kits over the years and have made a giant set. Yesterday, I spent the first part of the morning hiding and re-hiding the cards, while children chased after me keeping the classroom safe from potential fire. Sarah and Katherine were particularly enthusiastic fire safety advocates, so after awhile I put them in charge of hiding the cards. They made it much more difficult than I had, sticking them inside of books, under puzzles and inside boxes. I’m sure I’ll be finding these hazardous items around the room for the next several weeks.

At Circle Time we started running through the discussion cards from the kit. I’m so glad we’ve been practicing our group discussion skills, because it makes it possible for us to get through this rather “talky” curriculum. Some of the kids already knew the “stop, drop, and roll” procedure for putting out a fire on oneself, which we all practiced together. But the most important part of this curriculum in my opinion, and the primary reason we have firefighters visit, is to talk about what to do if you see a firefighter in your house.

When fully outfitted in their turnout suits, including their eye screens and oxygen masks, real-life firefighters can be intimidating figures, especially when they speak like Darth Vader. Apparently, it’s very common for young children to flee and even hide when confronted by such a figure in a real emergency, which obviously, is the opposite of what we want them to do. Yesterday, I walked the kids through pictures of firefighters in action, repeatedly asking, “What do you do if you see a firefighter in your house?”

By the time we came to the end of the session, most of the kids were answering, “Go to him,” but I still heard several voices saying, “Run away!” So we have work to do.

The firefighters will bring their truck on Monday and the kids will have the chance to clamber all over it. Last year they showed the children how to turn the flashing lights on, which was a huge hit, but the real reason they come is to let the kids see one of them don a full turnout suit. And even then, even though they know there is a friendly firefighter inside all that equipment, some of the children will be wide-eyed with fear.

This particular firefighter visit is coming at an opportune time if only because our school’s neighborhood has recently been hit by a spate of arson fires. There’s an undercurrent of heightened nervousness around the subject right now and I’m sure some of the children have picked up from their parents or from the news.

But even in normal times, children’s fears are a real concern. Last night at our parent meeting, Lisa told me that her daughter Sarah (in spite of her enthusiasm for hiding our fire safety cards) had cried earlier in the evening, saying she didn’t want to come to school next Monday. The idea of firefighters in her school was too frightening. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this. I always strongly urge parents to bring their children to school anyway, even if it means that you have to promise to stay with them. This is an important, even potentially life-saving, fear to overcome.

Most of the kids, of course, are eager for this visit (as are, I’m guessing, a few of our moms – hey, they’re firefighters!), but it’s the nervous ones I’m focusing on. When that strange, large figure stands among us next Monday, speaking to us in an electronically-enhanced voice, I’ll be scanning the children’s faces for signs of anxiety. I have no illusion that we’ll completely alleviate their trepidation during the next couple weeks – overcoming our fears is usually a multi-stage process – but hopefully we will have taken some first steps.

My real hope is that the next steps will be taken at home. Sarah is Lisa's third child to come through Woodland Park, so their family has experienced this curriculum many times. It made me feel good when she said that our fire safety curriculum is what reminds her family each year to run through their own fire safety plans. It's an important dinner table conversation for everyone.

Boxes

This is a post about the single most useful and simply elegant pieces of equipment at the Woodland Park Cooperative Preschool.

If you’ve been following this blog, you might have noticed that most of the pictures from our classroom have included these objects (for instance, here and here):

They are made from wood and are approximately 18”X24”X36”. These boxes with two open ends and handles cut into the sides have proven to be remarkably versatile to the point that I wonder how anyone runs a classroom without them. I currently have 8 of them, but I could easily use a dozen.

On their sides, as shown above, they're the perfect height for children to stand and work, or we can give them a turn to make them higher for taller kids. We use them singly or push several together for a larger surface. Of course, we have regular tables and chairs in the classroom, but these are great for temporary stations of all kinds.

They’re sturdy enough to stand on, so they often turn up in our large motor play. For instance, they make great tunnels and kids love to challenge themselves by jumping off of them. Sometimes I stack them on top of one another, using duct tape to secure them together, and we have “condominiums,” “cubbies,” or a “bee hive” for climbing into. These are the boxes we use under the gym mats to create the “full body sensory experience.” I often arrange them on our large blue rug to create roads for driving our push trikes. Many of the children enjoy the fact that they can move these large objects on their own, or with the help of friends, and spend time and energy just pushing them around the room. When it’s clean up time, these are particularly popular objects to “clean up,” because they need to be pushed to the wall and it’s a fun, muscular way to be helpful.

These boxes make frequent appearances in our block area. When we’re using larger wooden or cardboard blocks, they tend to become parts of structures. When we’re using smaller blocks, like Legos, they provide elevated building surfaces so everything doesn’t have to happen on the floor. Sometimes after we’ve been playing with the same thing for a couple days, I just throw a few out to change the environment and divert the play in a new direction.

I use them all the time as teaching aids. They’re a good height, for instance, for demonstrating science or art projects for groups of kids. I turn them on end and temporarily store items I want to have handy for my use, but out of the children’s hands. When I’m hanging things high up on the walls or on the ceiling, I often use all 8 boxes to form a sort of scaffolding that allows me to accomplish the job without repeatedly moving chairs or stools.

Parents have often used these boxes as seating.

Several of them turn up almost every year as set pieces or props in our annual Pre-K play.

The uses for these boxes are endless and I find new ones almost every week.

The original 5 boxes (blue and green) came with the school, while the 3 orange ones were made several years ago by Conail’s dad Joe, who heard me lauding the boxes one day and asked if we could use more.

If anyone’s asking, I’d love 4 more. Ahem . . . Once a bag lady, always a bag lady.

It’s Not Fair!

In our Pre-K class we vote for which book we’re going to read each day. Up until last Tuesday, our 11-student class had vote tallies of 8-7 and 10-6, which required several “recounts,” with the elections commissioner (me) often resorting to voter-by-voter polling to get an accurate result. That all changed on Tuesday when we got a 7-4 result from our first round of voting.

A few years ago, when I introduced voting, several kids howled, “It’s not fair!” whenever things didn’t go their way. This year’s crew hasn’t raised that objection vocally, but I’ve seen enough disappointed expressions that tell me they’re thinking it. Of course, when it comes to group decision-making, voting is how our society defines fairness.

Four-year-olds are notoriously and selfishly obsessed with fairness and that’s why I strive to incorporate so many opportunities to practice fairness into their school day.

For instance, after I describe our art, math, puzzle, and journal projects, we randomly draw names to decide who gets to “start” at which station. Ultimately, everyone will get the chance to do everything, but sometimes you wind up at a station you really didn’t think you wanted. It might suck, but it is fair.

Our Pre-K class mascot gets to go home with a different, randomly selected student each week. Someone got to take Love Cat home the very first week. Someone will have to wait 10 weeks to get her turn, but the point is that everyone gets the same opportunity.

Even when we don’t intentionally manufacture fairness, the 4 and 5-year-olds demand it. Last week, when Marcus wanted to “smell” the contents of a jar that contains a science experiment that has be congealing on a shelf in the classroom since September, the other children also demanded their turn, and I had to take the time to wave the offensive looking (although surprisingly non-offensive smelling) concoction under each of their noses.

By the time these kids are ready to head off to kindergarten, they will be experts on fairness, going through their days insisting on, and even fighting for, fairness for themselves and others.

The heart of fairness is that we are all “equal” and deserve equal opportunities and equal treatment. That cannot be put up for a vote. There cannot be special laws that apply only to certain people. That is patently unfair. That is, in fact, the heart of our democracy. I once tried an experiment where I allowed the children to vote to exclude one another from various activities. I'm proud to say, they rebelled and ultimately refused to vote, insisting that "everyone gets to do everything." Four-year-olds are capable of understanding this, so why are there so many adults who don’t get it when it comes to marriage rights?

In recent elections the voters of California and now Maine have narrowly decided that some of their fellow citizens should not be allowed to marry the people they love. Since when has it been fair to put the civil rights of a minority up to the vote of a majority? Does anyone really think that the majority in the 1860’s would have voted in favor of banning slavery? In what universe is that fair?

I’m sure I could very easily collect enough signatures to put an initiative on the ballot to ban Republican marriage in Seattle. It might even pass. Would that be fair? (Yes, it would be funny, but definitely not fair.)

Here in Washington state, perhaps lost in the hoopla around Maine’s blatantly un-democratic decision to take civil rights away from some of its citizens, we voted to uphold a law commonly referred to as, “Everything but marriage.” In other words we decided that it was okay for everyone to have the same rights, even if under a different name. That this had to be put up to a vote is obscene, yet I’m proud to live here. My gay friends are happy, albeit still dissatisfied. As one of them said, “It’s a little like separate, but equal.” Personally, I’d like to see government get out of the marriage business altogether, gay or straight, which is the proper domain of churches, and instead sanction and defend secular domestic partnerships for any and all. If it were up to me (and in part it is) I would be advocating “everything but marriage” for straight couples as well.

This is a simple issue of fairness, the core tenant of democracy. It’s an issue any 4-year-old can grasp. If we won’t fight for fairness, then we won’t fight for democracy.

My blogger friend Jesus has Two Daddies has encouraged me to pass this on. I hope it inspires you as it has me. And I hope you see clear to pass it along as well:

Today marks one year ago that I gathered with my family, friends, and fellow Obama campaign volunteers to watch the election results come in to campaign headquarters in celebration of all the things we have worked so hard for. Today I also woke to the news of the repeal in Maine that takes legal rights away from gay & lesbian citizens of that state. My friend and former boyfriend Tom is from Maine and lives there with the love of his life, Ray, with whom he has made a family for 15 years now. I called him this afternoon after hearing how distressed he was to offer some comfort and solace, and to encourage him to not be defined by this or to allow his love, his life, or his family to suffer one millisecond more of pain inflicted by these horrible people responsible for making this happen. Fortunately for us, love wins out and he and I both are fortunate not only that we have such a bounty of love in our own lives, but that we can celebrate it in each other because it matters.

There is a lot of responsibility that needs to be assumed and taken up. It's time once again to stop being complacent and start getting proactive, to start engaging one another and to call out those who mean us harm wherever they might be - loudly, without restraint, and without apology. ALL OF US have this responsibility, not just my GLBT brothers and sisters, but all of our straight friends and allies - if indeed you are our friends and allies. You can no longer stand idly by and watch as we suffer these indignations like it doesn't affect you, and if it doesn't affect you to watch those of us you call loved ones suffering the tyranny of second class citizenship, then we must force ourselves to question our loyalties to you. You cannot have it both ways because this is too important, and we can no longer afford to pretend that your silence isn't complacency. Speaking for myself, I would do that for each and every one of you because it is right and because it matters, and I cannot accept anything less than the same in return.

Regret is a terrible, numbing, cancerous thing. A few short decades ago hundreds of thousands of white people in this country stood by and said nothing when black people were denied civil rights, when they were tortured and killed, and they maintained an uncomfortable silence about how wrong this was, how evil discrimination is, all of the things they knew were true yet kept to themselves and those like them for fear of becoming vilified. That's a terrible thing living in that kind of fear, but it is also a wholly unnecessary thing and let's be honest - it's WRONG. It is WRONG to see an act of injustice and say nothing. It is WRONG to hear someone preach hateful speech about people you love and respect and say nothing. It is WRONG to maintain the status quo for the sake of comfort when it creates damage in the homes and lives of those you claim to love and respect. Moreover, it is WRONG to be silent amongst those perpetuating a wrong and not call out what you know is RIGHT. Silence is acceptance, and your silence is not good enough anymore. It never has been.

I am tired as I write this. I am life-tired. With everything that is going on in my personal life, I cannot help but be exhausted. I've been this tired before and I will be this tired again, but damnit - that's NO excuse to sit on my ass and not do any and every thing I can to say and do something that matters. That's all it takes, really - the courage to look fear in the eye and the drive to look into the faces of those who may never agree with you, who may very well even turn on you, even the will to push exhaustion aside long enough to make a declaration.

Because it matters. Because as my beautiful friend Greg recently learned and shared with me, it is a fact that gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioniong teenagers are more likely to complete a suicide attempt than their heterosexual contemporaries - and one of them could be YOUR child. Because approximately one in four underage kids who come out to their parents are kicked out of the house. Because an estimated 40+% of the teenagers in NYC alone are GLBT and were kicked out of their homes are homeless by their god-fearing parents' indifference to love in favor of embracing religious hysteria. Because the average duration of life on the streets is one year after which it's death or prison. Shelters are run internally by gangs like crips, bloods. Sissy boys and butch girls are safer on the streets. Because there are homeless teenagers dying of HIV/AIDS as I type this that are beyond medicine and in support volunteers' homes so that they won't be forced to die alone. Greg knows this because he is volunteering his time for these kids, these children, the very same ones thrown into the trash by parents who are likely the chief constituent voting bloc that is responsible for the decision in Maine. Which, by the way, should never have been up for a vote in the first place.

That's what we're teaching our children, be they heterosexual or otherwise. That is what they are learning whether they are hearing it from the misguided voices harmonizing their collective bigotry or the deafening silence that results when such things are not being called out in opposition for the true evil they represent - and as I stated earlier, silence is acceptance.

So I'm challenging you all to share these words with as many people as you can. Repost word for word or cut and paste what you can personalize if you must, but you have an opportunity to throw a gauntlet down and step up and be a hero for me and people just like me, and we have never needed you to rise to this challenge more than we do now. Do it because it takes balls to do a courageous thing, no matter the cost. Do it because enough people have been beaten, tortured, and killed for simply being who they are and their voices and their hopes and dreams have been stolen from us all - and you can be their voices, hopes, and dreams so that their suffering is not in vain. Do it because nothing is faster than the speed it takes for compassion to die and it is the death of compassion that makes all of this necessary in the first place. Do it because Matthew Shepard can't and you can.

Or do it for the best reason possible - no reason at all - because you don't need a reason to do the right thing.

The choice to speak out in agreement is yours; I can only hope you will share this message with others. As many times as I've done this and seen one flame light a thousand torches to provide illumination for others to see, it isn't a choice for me - it is a necessity - a responsibility - and while your complacency is and will continue to be heartbreaking, I'm never giving up this fight until such a time that conversations in the future refer to this kind of discrimination against families like mine as a thing of the past. Do you understand what I'm saying? I will not be complacent, I will never give in to people telling me what is right and fair when they couldn't be more wrong, and I will no longer stand up to support those who will not do the same thing for me because they'd rather be cowardly and prefer the comfort they take for granted, something I refuse to do.

It is your turn to share this and spread these words so that others may do the same from your example. It's one small action that is all I'm asking for right now. It is your turn to say something, what will YOU do?

The Tape Machine

I can be competitive when it comes to important things, and a few years ago fellow North Seattle Community College co-op teacher Suzanne Sumi got those juices flowing by commenting that her class had gone through an extraordinary amount of colored masking tape over the course of the past school year. I don’t remember the exact number of rolls, but it was a lot, and my first thought was that there was no reason why the Sandhurst 3-5’s should be having that much more fun than the Woodland Park 3-5’s.

The way she had achieved this high level of consumption, as I understood it, was to make a full array of colored tape freely available to the children to play with as they saw fit. That sounded like a solid strategy so my first order of business was to come up with my own down and dirty mass colored tape distribution system, which I did with PVC pipe and duct tape:

Of course, this was only going to be a temporary solution until I could acquire one of those nifty manufactured multi-roll tape dispensers I’d seen in the catalogs. As is too often the case, however, we’ve now broken three of these coveted items, while the original homemade model is still going strong.

On most mornings, we have a do-it-yourself table set up, complete with some combination of paper, crayons, scissors, staplers, hole punches, and glue sticks. To this area, we often add what has come to be referred to as the “tape machine.” Typically, the do-it-yourself table is a place for solo work or a “drive-by” spot for creating props (e.g., flags, signs, money, wands) to be used in dramatic play taking place elsewhere. But the presence of the tape machine typically draws a crowd and more often than not creative cooperative play ensues.

On Thursday, the kids cut lots of short pieces of tape and used it to make dozens of tape collages on construction paper, but soon began experimenting with longer pieces, which evolved into decorating the classroom door:

Sadly, this photo doesn’t capture the artwork at its zenith because much of it had to be removed to allow people to pass through the doorway.

This door has hosted dozens of tape sculptures over the years, but it is by no means our only target. A few years ago I’d scavenged a hollow plastic pony that had once been part of some kind of rocking horse contraption. We spent the better part of the school year creating a “rainbow tape pony.” It really was a beauty.

Sometimes the tape sculptures will stretch into the adjacent block area and the entire quadrant of the classroom becomes a tangle of tape and blocks.

Once we covered our Circle Time rug in a maze of criss-crossing roads then drove tiny cars on them.

Often our sculptures wind up including the paper, crayons, staplers, crayons, hole punches, and glue sticks.

One time we made a tape ball that was over 2-feet in diameter. We learned that if you kicked it hard enough it would stick to the wall. Or if you kicked it to a person it might stick to their legs.

The children themselves often become tape canvases. One year a group of boys spent weeks playing a game that involved taping their own mouths shut, much to the delight of the parents who sometimes struggle with the classroom noise level.

There was a time that we turned several tables on their sides and the kids made an impenetrable “tape fort,” that was just as effective at keeping children in as it was for keeping others out. When one of the kids trapped inside started to panic, her scissor-wielding friends cut their way out in a scene that might have come from the movie Edward Scissorhands.

Thursday’s tape machine extravaganza was typical in that most of the kids took part in the play over the course of the morning, and at one point I counted 10 children cutting and taping at the same time. There was a certain amount of jostling, and more than a few debates over scissors, but the adults stayed out of it, allowing solutions to come from the momentum of the play. Some of our younger friends operated in their own little zones, snipping and sticking in a pattern of their own device. Older kids were shouting instructions and advice to one another, planning their artwork, and strategizing how to bring their visions to reality.

I expect the tape sculpture to remain where it is for the next few weeks, growing until it genuinely impedes our use of the door, at which point we’ll be faced with the choice of what to do with all that hard work. I can’t wait to find out what we decide.

Top that, Sumi!

“I Just Have To Finish My Cry!”

My favorite preschool epigram:

“Let your feelings flourish and get on with your life of doing. –Lao Tzu 

Yesterday, Charlie L. was crying. I saw what happened. Dennis crawled down through our climber head first – an impressive and challenging physical maneuver. Charlie tried to follow him a bit too closely and got his cheek in the way of Dennis’ foot. It was an accident.

I lifted Charlie from the climber partly to sooth him, but mostly to get a closer look at his face. It hadn’t looked like a big deal, but it’s always good to check. The intensity of his tears abated almost instantly, although they continued to flow. I could detect no visible marks. As I walked Charlie a few feet away from the scene, I said things like, “That was an accident,” and “That must have hurt.” Within seconds, still crying, he started to wiggle his legs, indicating he wanted me to put him down.

The moment he hit the floor he was moving back toward the climber, still crying.

When he got to the climber, he clambered back to the spot where he’d been kicked, still crying.

He stood on the climber, still crying. He turned his head from side to side as if wanting to make sure we all heard him, as if making an announcement: I’m mad. I’m sad. I’m here!

Marcus’ mother Mitchelle responded, but I intercepted her before she could scoop him up. She said, “But he’s crying.”

I answered, “I know, but he’s also climbing. I don’t worry about children who are crying while they’re doing stuff.”

Watching Charlie stand there on the climber crying, I was reminded of my own daughter Josephine, who used to actually get mad at me if I tried too hard to sooth her. After a few minutes she’d say, through her tears, “I just have to finish my cry!” which was my signal to back off and let her take care of herself. That’s what was happening with Charlie. He’d wanted his feet on the floor. He’d wanted to get back up on that climber. Against Mitchelle’s better judgment, I think, she watched with me.

Still crying, he then attempted the maneuver he’d been trying when his cheek had come into contact with Dennis’ foot. By the time he was back on the floor, he’d stopped crying.

I asked him if he wanted a tissue and he answered, “Yes.”

Confessions Of A Middle Class Bag Lady

Parent educator Jean Ward once said to me, “Preschool teachers are middle class bag ladies.”

It’s true. It’s hard to throw anything away knowing that, at minimum, it can be used to glue onto cardboard and called art. I’m forever stopping along the side of the road to dig through collections of “free” items. Defunct machinery and electronics are fun to dismantle because they have so many screws to remove. All those junky toys that well-intended relatives are forever foisting on kids become a collection for our sensory table called, “bottom of a kid’s toy box.” Up until this summer when my wife finally got fed up, not only had I taken over a large closet with potential preschool items, but the attached spare bedroom as well. I’m not exaggerating.

At school, we have over 100 straw and felt child-sized hats that came into our hands from a party store that had overstocked, not to mention the collection of patent leather black and red belts.

We have boxes and boxes of nametag sized sheet magnets that were left over from some industrial process.

There are several crates of frame store display “corners” in our storage closet just waiting for the right art project.

These are all things that were once on their way to the landfill and have now found new life.

But there’s more to being a bag lady than hoarding “garbage.” I’ve also developed what can only be described as advanced begging skills.

Our manufacturing patterns, for instance, came to us by way of my habit of pleading “wee and pitiful.”

I regularly stop by framing shops to beg for matt board scraps that we can use for collage.

When I first saw our light box, it was at one of the Fremont Arts Council’s rummage sales. I was working the event as a volunteer. We’d put a $20 price tag on the box with the understanding that if it didn’t sell I could have it for $5 at the end of the day. Sure enough, one of our first customers took a shine to it. As I helped him test it to make sure it worked, I just happened to tell him the story about how I’d envisioned using it in our small non-profit preschool, but that it was just a bit dear for us. I might have mentioned the joy it would bring to children all over the world. After paying $20 for it, this generous guy turned around and handed it to me saying simply, “Here. It’s yours.”

Sometimes my bag lady powers get me into trouble. One time I came across an artist in the University District who was selling acrylic paintings on the sidewalk that he’d copied from Sendak’s illustrations from Where The Wild Things Are. They were pretty good. I thought it would be nice to both support an artist while adding something magical to the classroom and the $25 price tag didn’t seem unreasonable. Out of habit, however, I told him the story of our love rich, but dollar poor preschool, and before I knew it he was trying to give me one of the paintings. Making matters worse, when I looked in my wallet I only had $11. We went back and forth, me insisting on finding an ATM, him saying he really needed to get going and wanted “the children” to have it. Finally, he sold me the painting for $11. I went back to that spot with $14 every day for a week, but never found the guy again. I tell this story to the children each year as part of reading Where The Wild Things Are.

But then there is the truly shameful side of being a bag lady, and that is when I take advantage of friends and family.

We have, for instance, a real, operating traffic signal with fully functional red, green and yellow lights. It belongs to my father, a retired transportation engineer, who rewired it for home use, and once employed it as a prized decoration in his billiard room. I “borrowed” it several years ago and just haven’t managed to return it. I can’t use it without feeling shame . . . Although obviously not enough to return it.

But my greatest offense involves our “milking cow.”

My friend Garth Stein (best selling author of the novel The Art of Racing in The Rain) made this magnificent cow for our children’s school’s Fall Festival celebration 8 years ago. It’s now been on loan to Woodland Park for 8 years. A latex glove filled with water serves as her udders and children milk her by squeezing the fingers. She’s something of a super cow in that she usually has two sets of udders to accommodate demand. Today, we’re going to fill her udders with “chocolate milk” (brown liquid watercolor diluted with water) and try making “milk” paintings.

Old Bessie’s paper mache head is a bit wobbly these days, and her ears are just barely hanging on, evidence that she’s been well-loved and well-milked over the years. Still, I can’t look at her without a pang of guilt. It would help a lot if some of you ran out and bought a copy of Garth’s novel . . . or even all 3 of them!

I’m sorry, it’s hard to control the inner bag lady.

“Then A Monster Truck Came!”

Yesterday I shared some of the stories that children told during our first storytelling session of the year. I wanted to take advantage of that momentum by following up with a second session as soon as possible. These stories came from last Wednesday, just before our Halloween party.

Several of our friends were clearly in the Halloween spirit, telling us stories full of bats, monsters, ghosts, and spiders:

It’s about a story in a dark, dark place. A bat tried to go in the house, but the door was so locked. And then him rolled, rolled, rolled. And then him hitted into a tree.  –Lachlan (3)

A kitty got lost in the forest. And then the ghost found the kitty and thought it was his kitty and got it in his house. And then a monkey came. And then it knocked on the door with its tail. And then the ghost ran to the door. And then the monkey said, “What are you doing with the kitty?” Then a dog came and knocked at the door and the ghost ran to the door again. –Luna (4)

It’s about a scary ghost. Along came a scary ghost. And it frightened Katherine away. And then I fighted him away. And then the ghost came back again and I needed to do it again. And then along came a funny spider. It’s not a scary spider. It’s a very toasty spider. And it scared the ghost away. And then Lachlan came around and then we scared the ghost away again. Because we wanted to do it because it was fun. And we still scared the ghost away every time. –Katherine (5)

A dark, dark night and a monster came and another. And then a bat came down and rolled over himself. And then the bat flied into the tree. Then a big monster came. And then a monster truck came! –Finn V. (3)

Finn clearly surprised and delighted himself when he came up with the “monster truck” punch line to his story. He went away grinning at his own joke.

Three of our youngest friends told their first stories last week:

A ghost then he went rolling down a hill. And then a bon bon bon bon. Then he went, “Eyow, yow, yow.” –Charlie B. (3)

My about a little cat that it was nighttime and it want food. And mommy put food out for the cat. And the cat ate the food. –Orlando (3)

I’m gonna tell a tractor story. I hear something eat a tractor. I got a tractor. Watched it all the time. I saw . . . Hey, who’s up there?  --Peter (3)

This storytelling session was taking place under the loft and Peter had been distracted by the sound of feet overhead. His curiosity got the better of him, so that was where his story ended.

Some children like to tell the same story over and over again. We’ve had some kids tell essentially the same story for nine full months, with only slight variations. I’ve learned, however, that those variations can be packed with a significance and sometimes tell a deeper story about the storyteller that only reveals itself after all the stories are told.

Isak has told two stories so far. His first was:

The squirrel eats flowers, plants, and mushrooms.

On Wednesday he told it like this:

Once there was a squirrel and it eats flowers, plants, and mushrooms.

I’ll be interested to follow his stories’ progress. Only time will tell if the variations are merely evidence that he’s learning some storytelling conventions, or if they tell the story of a deeper change taking place in his soul.

Last year, Jack rarely wanted to take time out of his free play to tell a story. At the same time he was often deeply disappointed when Circle Time rolled around and he wasn’t included in the parade of friends coming to the front of the room to have their stories read. His solution so far this year has been to pause just long enough to toss a little word salad my way as quickly as possible then getting back to free play. This story came in a rapid fire staccato while keeping his eyes on his friends to make sure he wasn’t missing anything:

Once there was two friends. And then it just found a deer and take pictures. And then they found a bear. Then the bear gobbled them both up. And then the bear bited his own tummy and he falled down.

But Jack wasn’t the only one planning ahead. Finn returned with another story, this one clearly inspired by his own wit from earlier. He came back to pull out all the stops. This story clearly had an audience in mind:

Kitty cat and then another kitty cat. Then the kitty cat ran on a board. And the kitty went in a trash can. And then a kitty monster truck came. And then a monster truck ran over the kitty. And then another monster truck came and then the other monster truck ran over another kitty cat. And then another kitty cat got ran over by a board and a kitty cat. Then a truck came and ran over another kitty cat. And then another monster truck ran over another kitty cat. And then another monster truck ran over another kitty cat.

When I read it at Circle Time I tried to portray it as a sad story, but the children were having nothing of it and laughed from beginning to end. By the look on Finn’s face, it went exactly as he’d anticipated.

“I’m Thinking Something To Ella”

As I mentioned in a post from last week (Partners In Creation) the children in our 3-5 class have begun telling their own stories.

When I got out my story clipboard, the younger children had no idea what it was all about, so I started by soliciting stories from our 4-year-olds, who know how the process works. They take a few minutes out of free-play time to dictate a story to me. I write it down word-for-word, asking only open-ended questions like, “What’s next?” and then the child stands beside me in front of his classmates as I read the stories at Circle Time.

I was both proud and surprised when Josephine was my first storytelling volunteer. It took her the better part of last year, taking One Thing At A Time, to summon up the courage to tell stories for Circle Time, and this year she was first in line! Her story might not be long, but the tale behind it is an epic:

I’m thinking something to Ella.

Ella followed her friend with a seasonal story:

About a spooky little ghost that was really a pumpkin. And then it was just being silly.

I’m grateful to the girls for getting the ball rolling. Thomas was next. Last year his stories were all enthusiastic, rhyming poetry, but this year he's starting off with enthusiastic, full-body prose:

The forklift bought some tools and 100 hard hats and 100 tools. It forklifted it up the way and then it bumped his head into a dump truck. He met a caterpillar, but then it got squooshed. Then it got run over by a dump truck. And then it bought more tools and hard hats. Then it bought a million tools. And then it couldn’t even build. Then it built a whole new forklift.

Katherine was next with our first princess story of the year:

It’s about a beautiful princess. At first everybody thought the princess was a ghost. But then they noticed it was really a princess! And then along came a prince. And then it had a wedding with the princess. And then they lived happily ever after.

I love the way she used the pronoun “it” for the prince. He’s so secondary to the princess that he’s not even a full person.

And Jack got the silly story ball rolling:

There was two men and then I got eaten! And then he falled down and then he ate the other one. And then he bite the bear’s tummy and said, “Aaaaa!” And then he falled down.

Then Sarah took the silliness up a notch:

Once upon a time there was a kitty who ate a chair. And then she goed and he ate a shelf.  And then he goed and walked on a meal.

Our first 3-year-old storyteller was Lachlan, who is a deeply empathetic kid with an abiding interest in emotions. Even as a very young 2-year-old he credibly imitated any facial expression I made while singing songs. They were so believable that I stopped a couple of times to ask if he was really sad or angry. I introduced this to the class as a “sad” story, and he agreed:

It’s a loud story. Every time Mama doesn’t give me a marshmallow I wanted, Daddy said “No” and Mommy said “No.” Her didn’t put me in time out. I had a feel.

You should have seen the droopy face he gave the class as I read this.

Isak is another of our 3-year-old storytellers. Following in the footsteps of his older brother Jarin, he told a non-fiction story:

The squirrels eat flowers, plants and mushrooms.

Finn V. scared us with this creepy Halloween story:

A dark, dark night. A dark, dark night. There was a ghost in a haunted house. And another ghost. And then a big monster came!

The repetition of the first sentence was a terrific intuitive literary device for setting the mood.

There are really two parts to this process. The first is the actual storytelling which is typically done alone with Teacher Tom in the corner of the classroom, while the reading part takes place in front of an audience. When 3-year-old Dennis told his story, he had no way of knowing about the second part, but man he had them rolling in the aisles with this second-person narrative:

A giraffe got on your head. An owl set on your head and your sunglasses. A tiger sat on your teeth. An elephant sat on your computer. And elephant sat on your pen. A elephant broke a computer.

His classmates loved that the story was about them.

If you’re interested, here are some past posts about the children’s storytelling:

And Now The Children Tell Their Stories

And Now The Children Tell Their Stories 2

Where The Wild Things Are

A Muddy Puddle Of Morality

Stories From The Edge

Short, Smart, Sweet And Silly

Removing The Cobwebs Of Halloween

As much as I love celebrating holidays and integrating them into our play at school, there is something equally important about the “morning after.”

For weeks leading up to Halloween, we’ve been singing all of our songs with a Halloween twist. Instead of our school anthem Jump Jim Joe, we’ve been singing Jump Jim Skeleton. Instead of One Little Bird In One Little Tree, it’s been One Little Bat In One Little Tree. Instead of One Butterfly Went Out To Play, it’s been One Big Spider Went Out To Play. And so on.

Most of our art projects have had some sort of Halloween theme, leading to all our bulletin boards being festooned in orange and black.

Pumpkins have been rolling around the classroom for weeks, turning eventually into jacks.

Our sensory table has been full of spiders, small jacks, cauldrons, and rubber skeletons.

Our stories have been full of monsters, jack-o-lanterns, ghosts, and witches.

For the 3-5’s this frenzied build-up came to its climax last Thursday with our party, leading naturally into the big weekend. But the 2-year-olds celebrated in costume on Tuesday evening, and while I’m sure most of them enjoyed some level of trick-or-treating on the weekend, this was probably the biggest event of their holiday season.

By the time they arrived in class on Friday, it was time for Halloween to be over.

Our free-play time included no themed activities, and even with the decorations still up, it felt very much like the morning after.

Making the point even more clearly was the fact that the children went outside to discover our jacks scattered around the garden, on their sides, tops off, burnt out candle embedded in mushy pulp. These had been some of the earliest ones we’d carved, so there was some good, hairy mold growing inside many of them.

Oliver reacted with an, “Uh oh,” and an effort to set things right. Charlie tried to get the top back on one of them, while Aedan scavenged through the mud for mouth and eye parts he could re-insert into their faces. A sense of confusion was in the air as they gently poked and prodded these once prized squash. As they did so, I began using words like “rotting,” and “decompose.” I pointed out the places where it looked like squirrels and crows had been gnawing on them. Some of the children found seeds and tried returning them to the pumpkins, and finally a few ran for shovels and started “planting” them.

This naturally lead to the idea of watering the seeds, which resulted in a rush for watering cans and a crush at our rain barrel to fill them.

At one point Cora noticed that one of the jacks was cracked along the bottom.

I asked, “Shall we break it all the way open?” There was a moment of what I interpreted as stunned silence before Jody grinned and said, “Yes.”

I held the jack over my head and asked, “Shall I drop it?”

Jody’s nodding head was mirrored by several others.

“Will it break or bounce?”

Some predicted “break,” some predicted “bounce.” It was still a pretty fresh pumpkin in spite of the mold so it could have gone either way. Just to increase the odds of a dramatic result I aimed for a length of 2X4 bordering one of the garden beds. “One, two, three . . .”

It landed heavily, splashing water on our shins, but no one cared about that. Everyone stepped in for a closer look. We found a large split running through the face.  Several of the children announced, “Break.” Naturally, we wound up dropping the rest of the jacks, some of them over and over, until all that remained were pieces. When we finally left them, they were partially covered in soil, where they will remain until they’ve fully composted or become food for the urban wild life.

Back at Circle Time we sang the regular Jump Jim Joe, then went to another full body song called Big Ship Sailing, nothing “Halloween” about either of them. Maybe it was just me, but it seemed like participation was more robust than it had been for our past few sessions.  Once everyone returned to their bottoms, instead of getting into the usual finger songs, I told (as opposed to read) my first story of the year, something as unprecedented for these kids as dropping pumpkins and celebrating when they broke.

I told the story Lizard’s Song, with it’s oft-repeated chorus:

Soley, soley, soley
Soley, soley, soley
Rock is my home
Rock is my home

The way I tell it, the story takes around 10 minutes, which is a long time for 2-year-olds, but they were clearly into it, especially as they learned to anticipate the automatic, universally hilarious laugh-line that comes when Bear can’t remember the song:

Homey, rocky, mocko
Solo, rocky, socko . . .

There is truly nothing more wonderful than 20 two-year-olds laughing together.

By the time we were ready to go home, I felt we’d chased the ghosts of Halloween from our school and were ready for what’s next.

This morning I plan to get in to the classroom early to strip the bulletin boards bare and relegate the other decorations into a back hallway before the 3-5 class arrives. I’m sure we’ll all be telling tales of our Halloween adventures, the candy we ate, and the scary things that didn’t scare us, but it they will be stories from the past; legends in which we each played central, dramatic roles. Our free play will be ghost and goblin free, except as memories, and of course, we have 5 more jacks left to drop in the garden.

Then we’ll sing “Soley, soley, soley,” until we’ve removed every last cobweb of Halloween.

One Last Post On Humanities Education (With Guest Appearances By Mister Rogers and John Stewart)

Inspired by Mark Slouka’s Harper’s magazine article “Dehumanized: When Math And Science Rule the School,” I’ve been writing for the past couple days about what I see as the proper role of education in our democracy (here and here).

I thought I was done until I came across this quote from Mister Rogers:

What matters isn’t how a person’s inner life finally puts together the alphabet and numbers of his outer life. What really matters is whether he uses the alphabet for the declaration of a war or the description of a sunrise – his numbers for the final count at Buchenwald or the specifics of a brand-new bridge.

In the wake of our crisis on Wall Street, business schools have tried to re-emphasize ethics. It seems logical. After all, every doctor is expected to sign an ethics oath. Every judge is expected to pledge to serve the Constitution. Why shouldn’t business school graduates, at a minimum, be expected to do the same? Sadly, more than 80 percent of Harvard’s MBA graduates have so far refused. If there has ever been a stronger argument for strengthening humanities education, I don’t know what it would be.

As Slouka asks:

How does one “do” the humanities value-free? How does one teach history, say, without grappling with what that long parade of genius and folly suggests to us? How does one teach literature other than as an invitation, a challenge, a gauntlet—a force fully capable of altering not only what we believe but how we see?

In effect, as we’ve marginalized humanities education, we’ve essentially removed “values” from our curriculums entirely, ghettoizing this vital democratic subject by relegating it to the home or the church. I’m not saying that we should be teaching children what values to have, but I am saying that our democracy will not survive without a population capable of thinking critically about their own values and the values of society at large. It’s clear to me that the only way to do this is through the rigorous teaching of history, art, and literature.

I’m not a regular viewer of The Daily Show, mainly because I’m usually asleep when it airs, but I did catch this one during the summer. It’s hilarious, of course, but also chilling. From the pathetic Columbia business ethics professor to the terrifyingly amoral MBA students (I would be mortified if they were my kids) this piece shook me when it aired and did so again when I re-watched it.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
MBA Ethics Oath
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

We can do better.

Okay, now I’m done with the topic. Back to preschool posts.