The Primal Power Of Being A Fire Starter

On Thursday I mentioned that we'd succeeded in re-creating a little smoke, although not fire, by using our concave mirror to reflect and concentrate the sun's rays. Coincidentally, Konghai's grandmother recently came across a large box of small magnifying glasses at Goodwill for $1 and sent them in with her grandson to share with his classmates. 

I have a long history of curating cool preschool supplies, you know, instead of just using them up and counting on the universe to supply more (which it always does), but the last couple years I've been consciously working on myself to become a different kind of supply room manager. When something new comes into my hands, I've lately been asking myself, not "What can we do with this?" but rather, "What can we do with this today?" 

In fact, in my quest to produce a quick turn-around, in many cases I've even stopped asking myself that question, instead leaving it up to the kids to both ask and answer, which is why I simply handed our new magnifiers to the kids in our new 5's class. (We have plenty, so I assume next week, I'll be inviting our 3-5's and Pre-3's classes ask and answer the question for themselves.)

The 5's kids dropped to their knees and got busy trying to start their own fires, working to understand the sharp angle of our early Fall sun. I'll be honest, it was slightly unsettling to find children in every corner of the outdoor classroom, striving to scorch bits of wood, hoping, each of them, to produce flame. 

When it had been me controlling the "fire-making" materials, I'd spent a lot of time urging them to not block the sun, jostle the mirror, or step on the "target" materials. When they were controlling their own experiment, it was a small epiphany to watch them figure out how to manage all those moving parts for themselves: moving their own bodies to the proper place, angling their magnifiers just so, calculating where the sun hung in the sky, figuring out where the hot spots were, moving into less populated sunny patches, and generally showing far more patience than they had the day before when I'd been the one handling the materials.

A couple days ago, in describing what I'd seen in "regular" schools, I described what I'd seen as watching "children lean across their desks to touch their noses to worksheets." Well, here were our kids nearly touching their noses to their magnifying glasses as they leaned over them to study the effects of those concentrated sun rays on the bits of wood they'd piled in the hopes of experiencing the primal power of being a fire starter, a kind of magic that is as old as humanity. Of course, then they pulled back, because they found if they leaned too far forward they blocked the sun.

After awhile a couple of the kids raced over to me, claiming that they'd made "black marks." I couldn't see them, but they could, and that's what matters.

(This is the first year of our 5's class. If you have a 4-5 year old, live in Seattle, or know someone who does, we still have a few spots available. Contact woodlandpark5s@gmail.com to set up a tour.)

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!

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Don't Let Anybody Tell You Different

(A while back I posted my Greatest Hits as determined by readership statistics, which then got me thinking about older posts that I wish more people had read, which has now become a sort of irregular series. This one is from April of this year, originally published under the title "Why We're Here On Earth." To be honest, I'm not sure if I'm re-posting this one because I want more of you to read it or because I need to read it again here at the beginning of the school year, a reminder of a teachers proper classroom stance in a play-based classroom. At the bottom of the post you'll find links to others in this series of posts I wish more people had read.)

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different. ~Kurt Vonnegut

Yesterday's circle time on our old blue rug was a perfect example of its type. We spent a good 10 minutes making up painful, icky, cold, and silly things to sit on, including a discussion of what exactly constitutes potty talk, then we sang a song, then we gave each other compliments (which were mostly just invitations to play dates), finishing by counting all of the links in our compliment chain aloud (371, give or take). And then we were done. You know, we just farted around.

The hamster wheel doesn't come apart on it's own. Someone has to work on taking it apart, removing the wheel from its stand.

I'd been wondering why someone would be doing it every day. I now know who's been doing it.

And I also know why: he's just been farting around.

Kids have been asking why we have this giant pencil. I tell them it's for drawing and writing.

They've figured out, however, that it's just for farting around.

Sometimes we fart around by putting cowboys in Wyoming and grandpas in Ohio and Winnie the Pooh in Georgia . . .

. . . or by lining up the "big boys" . . .

. . . or combing the ponies' manes.

We fart around with our whole bodies . . .

. . . inside and out . . .

. . . or up in the trees.

It's why we're here on Earth, man. The people who try to make it about anything else are wrong.

Other posts I wish more people had read:

Can You Teach Me?

We Are Only Two

Mister Rogers

Rebellion Is Built Into Us

The Real Life For Which We Prepare Children

Courage To Screw Things Up

Teaching Self-Governance

To Live Is To Play, And To Play Is To Live

How Our Cooperative Preschool Works

They Will Grow Into Gentle, Loving Men

How To Make Adults Who Will Not Be Pushed Around

This Is How The Species Progresses

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!

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Fire In The Sky

I don't have a lot of time this morning, so I thought I'd just share a moment that made the adults laugh yesterday, being fully aware that it might be one of those cases in which you "had to be there."

The 5's class was monkeying around with a magnifying glass and decided to see if we could use it to start a fire. We cleared out a little circle on the ground and the kids brought a fistful of dried out grass. I doubted it would work. We tried it a couple times in the middle of summer and only after a long time finally got a wisp or two of smoke. In Seattle during this time of year, and at this time of day, the sun is even farther away, but it's still an adventure to try.

Four or 5 kids eagerly ran up to the cast iron water pump to retrieve buckets of water -- just in case. They stood around me in a tight circle, water slopping from their pails, perpetually needing to be reminded to not block the sun. As we waited, I told the story of how last year our concave mirrors had almost set Paddington Bear on fire. That lead to us ditching the magnifier and switching over to the mirror. I still had little hope: in the bear-fire case the sun had been intensified by angling though a window, in a very still controlled circumstance, and we still only got smoke.

The kids eventually figured out how to stand out of the sun, but those buckets of water were challenging, every second was fraught with the potential of having the "fire" prematurely doused. Several of our fire brigade just couldn't help themselves, too eager, finally just dumping their water on the ground, often very close to the dried grass.

"Hey!" I said, "If you get the grass wet we won't be able to make a fire. You can't make fire on water."

Konghai's dad Aaron sang, "Smoke on the water."

And without missing a beat, Ben finished, "Fire in the sky."

Later, we finally got a little smoke, scorching a wood chip, but it took two adults holding everything perfectly still for several minutes. I guess I'd been wrong about the intensity of that fire in the sky, as well as of our working knowledge of classic rock lyrics.

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!

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Something To Think About

"The pig says, Moo."

It's not exactly how I greet 2-year-olds on their first day of school, but pretty close, holding a toy pig in the air and asserting this thing that they all know to be false. 

There were wrinkled brows, perplexed stares, and knowing grins. Sometimes a child will respond by handing me a toy cow.  Others will shake their heads, like Silas did yesterday; shaking his head, smiling and saying directly to me, softly, "No." None of them agree with me (although in a week or two some of them will, joining me in what they'll understand to be a silly game). This is one of the many wonders of 2-year-olds: they've not yet learned the knee-jerk responses of "Yes," "No," "Thank you," "Please," "I'm fine and you?" They've not yet formed the habits of simply agreeing with teachers or other authority figures. And as long as they're at Woodland Park I hope they never come to think of teachers as having any kind of authority. If they're going to "follow" Teacher Tom I want it to be because he's a good playmate, because cool things happen when he's around, because he causes my brow to wrinkle, my brain to fire, my ears to perk up, my eyes to open wider.

"The sheep says, Oink."

Parents were on their knees with us. It's hard for many of them to not press gently when the silence stretches for more than a few seconds, "Is that what a pig says?" or "What does a pig say?" It sounds like a joke to them, I suppose, and they want their child to get it, they want them not to appear rude, they want to hear a response, although all of the children are already responding, even if it's just through their silence. Yesterday, none of the children answered their parent's questions, at least not so I could hear them, but rather continued to look from me to the animal I held in my hand. A few of them began to play nearby, still pausing every now and then to look my way, from the corners of their eyes, as I persisted in saying things they knew were not true. Amelie kept stopping in her play to stare at me full on, as if to ask, "What is going on with this guy?" then got busy before stopping to stare again.

"The cow says, Baa."

After Silas broke the ice, a few more of them began to correct me and I accepted the correction, giving the toy animals their proper voice, but that's not the important part of this exercise. I'm not looking for anything correct: neither a correction nor a correct answer. What I'm really after are those wrinkled brows, perplexed stares, and knowing grins, evidence that I've sparked thought, evidence that this guy everyone is calling Teacher Tom bears watching, a careful ear, a critical mind. 

My job is to encourage thinkers, and when the pig says, moo, that's something to really think about.

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!

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"The Insides Just Got Old"

The cast iron water pump had recently begun to suck more air than water, requiring it to be repeatedly "primed." This happens from time to time with pumps, requiring that these simple machines be dismantled so the leather fittings can be replaced. Normally, I wait until the kids go home for the day to do the job: there are a number of essential nuts, bolts and washers to keep track of and with all those curious fingers, it's just too likely to lose them. But yesterday afternoon, I risked it with our 5's class, who have, as I've written, gone a bit pump crazy as they start to define who they are together.

We start our days in the outdoor classroom. I set myself up at the workbench along with the pump, having removed it from the cistern at the top of the sand pit. I guessed that as the kids arrived, most of them would head for where the pump is normally installed, find it missing, then come looking for me to ask, "Teacher Tom, what happened to the pump?"

I had a little "paper work" business to handle with each child, so I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone, letting each kid know that once I'd heard from all of their friends, we could get to work on the pump. Those that hadn't come right down to me, were soon rounded up by their classmates, and by the time we got going there was quite a bit of anticipation among them, not to mention some cemented knowledge of everyone's name.

Duncan, Finn, Grey, Charlotte, and Rex formed the core group of workers, although several others came and went during the process, freely choosing to hang out with the project for awhile, then freely choosing something else. I love doing essential work while class is in session, because no matter what else there is to do, there are always a handful of kids who prefer "work" over "play," even if in our school it's all the same.

I started by explaining that we needed to replace the "leather fittings," which were "worn out." There were several "why" questions, which I did my best to answer, explaining how a pump works, while they took turns slowly raising and lowering the pump handle while I demonstrated with my hands what the water would be doing inside. "When you push the handle down, the piston goes up, pulling water up. When you push the handle up, the piston goes down, pushing air out of the cylinder and water out the top." I've kept a collection of old leather fittings which I then distributed to the kids so they could have a look at what I was talking about, saying, "We need new leathers every once in awhile to make everything tight so the air and water don't leak out." They handled the leathers. Finn and Grey also satisfied themselves by sniffing them.

I said, "The leathers we need to replace are inside of this cylinder. The first thing we need to do is take the whole thing apart. Does anyone have any ideas about how we can do that?"

There was a quick consensus that we needed to "unscrew" a pair of bolts at the base of the pump. I asked, "What tool should we try?" A couple of the kids said, "Screwdriver," but sounded unconvinced. After a minute, Ben said, "We need one of those shiny tools that pinches the sides," making his fingers into a kind of wrench and grabbing two of the flat sides of the hexagon-shaped bolt heads. Charlotte provided the proper words, "A wrench! We need a wrench!"

I retrieved our set of crescent wrenches, saying, "We need to figure out what size wrench fits these bolts." It only took a few minutes to figure out that the bolts in question required our 7/16-inch wrench. We have two of them, so I sat back while the kids had a go at the tight, rusty bolts. I wasn't surprised when they couldn't budge them. Finally, they suggested that I do it.

"I like to start by removing the top. See here's another bolt up here," pointing at a smaller bolt under the handle that they'd missed, which holds the entire handle/piston mechanism in place. We took a moment to discover that we'd need the 1/2-inch wrench for that one. When I removed the handle I laid it on the workbench, pointing out the "cup leather" that would need to be replaced, then got to work on the lower bolts, while the kids examined it.

Finn said, "This is the part that sucks the water up," using the word "sucks," which was not a word I'd used in my own description, telling me that he had a genuine understanding. When children put things into their own words, that's how you know they "get it."

When I removed the nut, bolt, and washer I asked Rex to be "in charge" of it, reminding him of the importance of not losing any pieces. He clutched the parts in his fist, grinning, then showing them off to his friends by quickly opening his hand, but shutting it before they could touch.

I pulled out the flat leather that seals the bottom of the cylinder, dropping it on the work bench with the rest of the old ones. I then pulled out the new leather. We could tell it was new because it was a much lighter shade of brown. Finn and Grey, then the rest of the kids, wanted to smell it.

By now we were a good 20 minutes into the project and time was running short, so I talked my way through the reassembly, applying a thick layer of plumbing grease to the cup fitting with my fingers before inserting it back where it belongs. Duncan and Diego then helped me carry it up to the top of the sand pit where our cistern awaited.

Duncan took the honors of the first test of the newly refurbished pump. It worked right away, not after 10 pumps as had been the case.

Yay!

Duncan, in fact, had been silently attentive throughout the entire process, not budging from the workbench, but not chattering with the other kids. Later in the afternoon one of the adults said to him as he pumped wildly (he likes to pump wildly), "Be careful or you'll break the pump again."

Duncan answered, politely, but with the confidence of authority, "We didn't break it. The insides just got . . . " he hunted for a word for a moment, then said, "The insides just got old."

(This is the first year of our 5's class. If you have a 4-5 year old, live in Seattle, or know someone who does, we still have a few spots available. Contact woodlandpark5s@gmail.com to set up a tour.)

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!

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The Act Of Us Coming Together

We might as well not come to school at all unless at least one of the highest goals is to practice doing things together. If that isn't what school is for, then we could just leave kids to learn in their own bedrooms, backyards, and from the isolation of computers and apps.

I always wonder about all my classes at the start of the school year: what will it be that brings them together? I've done this job for awhile, so I can be confident that it will happen, at least with the 2, 3, and younger 4-year-olds whom I've taught now for a decade and more. It will happen and often I can even "manufacture" some things around which I know their time together will revolve. 

I've had these and other questions about our new 5's class. It's a new thing to all of us this year. Some of these children are already in kindergarten, joining us after a morning in public school; some could be, just barely according to the calendar, but are taking a year with us first; others would be in preschool in any event, but have chosen us, perhaps for the challenge or the afternoon class time. All last year, I referred to this new school to which we were giving birth as a "transitional kindergarten," but for whatever reason I've not been using the term since summer began and we knew for certain the class was a go.

I know what kindergartens look like, at least in "traditional" schools, I've seen them, been in them, watched children lean across their desks to touch their noses to worksheets. I know what children this age look like when they're in school, but what is happening at Woodland Park this year is going to be different than that.

We don't have desks and won't have work sheets and there is no one giving us a list of things children ought to know and by when. It's going to look more like the kindergarten I remember as a boy than the ones I see today: the way they looked before someone pushed a first grade curriculum down into them, shortening childhood by a year.

There might be some who would say that we're irresponsible, going forward with this idea for which there really is no idea, other than old-timey memories and the ideas that will emerge from the act of us coming together. I prefer to label what we are doing as "an experiment," which is, after all what every human endeavor is until it has been done before: a trail and error experiment. The kind of thousand step experiment that leads to the invention of the light bulb. This really is, at bottom, what every class I've ever taught has been. That is the best of us, gathering 'round and asking, "What if?" then working together to answer that question. 

What will bring this 5's class together?

For this first week it has been all about water and sand as our Seattle summer, like last year, has arrived full-blown in September: hot days, cool nights and lots of sun. Someone is always up there pumping the cast iron pump. Our cistern holds 10 gallons. After this week, it's become clear that it's time to trade that out for the 30 gallon model, a project I hope to complete, with the 5's class, this week.

It's been a wonder to watch as nearly all of them are drawn up there to the top of the sand pit with shovels and buckets and gutters, shouting out to these people they've just met, "More water!" and "Pump faster!" I'm accustomed to being busy during the beginning of the year, helping children work their way through conflicts, wiping tears over turn-taking, and that's probably still coming, but so far there's not been much for me to do as they dig canals, strategize their next moves, test what will and won't wend its way through these manmade passages. On the very first day of class, they had the water flowing all the way down to the row boat: the only times that's ever happened before has been with a lot of adult assistance.

It's caught me off guard to be honest, that this is where they've converged to begin forming their friendships, their partnerships, their alliances. I had all kinds of other plans. We were going to build this together, play that game, engage in these art projects, but it's been the sand and water and blue skies that have made them familiars in the matter of days.

We did take a break from the sandpit on Friday to learn how to vote. The very first thing we did was decide, together, that we want to perform a play.

(This is the first year of our 5's class. If you have a 4-5 year old, live in Seattle, or know someone who does, we still have a few spots available. Contact woodlandpark5s@gmail.com to set up a tour.)

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!

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Game Over

I intend to write more about the first week of our new 5's class in the coming days as well as more about our catapults, but I just had to tell this story.

Charlotte has appeared on these pages before. She's one of the kids who's been coming to Woodland Park since before she was born, arriving in our classroom first with her mom to drop off and pick up her older brother, then as a member of our Pre-3, 3-5's, and now 5's class. If I've ever known a student, it would be Charlotte, and among the many things I know is that she is not conflict averse: she will stand up for herself, and for righteousness in general, like few people I've ever known, whatever their age.

To say she knows her way around the place is an understatement, and as we began making our classroom rules on Thursday, she helped us put together a short, but very workable list, including the vital ones of "No hitting," "No kicking," "No biting," and "No taking things from other people." We will, of course, add to this list in the coming days and weeks, but could in theory run our community quite well with these dozen or so rules we've created to get started.

On Friday, we played with our catapults. The kids fell on them with abandon. There are a lot of other more "organized" things we'll be doing with them as the year rolls on, but it was clear, given the wide-eyed enthusiasm, that the best course for this initial session was going to be to simply let the kids figure them out for themselves. Graphing, targeting examining trajectory, and other "games" could wait. It was rather wild at first, although I was proud of how well these kids -- most of whom are just getting to know one another -- figured out how to share the 5 machines without any input from me. 

Naturally, they quickly fell into targeting one another with the ping pong balls. I was trying to stay out of the way, observing, and helping to retrieve balls that had gotten under furniture, waiting all the while for a signal from the kids that we needed to consider a new rule: "No shooting other people with a catapult." It wasn't a problem yet, but I simply assumed that it would become one before too long and we'd soon have to figure out something else to "target," such as the alphabet blocks I had handy for the purpose. This moment never came, at least not on Friday.

At one point, a group of four boys had allied themselves as a team, "the boy team," leaving Charlotte all alone as, "the girl team." Charlotte had her back against some shelves, in possession of one catapult, while the boys were arrayed with their catapults in an arc aimed toward her. The boys boasted to me about their potential fire power, talking about "doubles" and "triples." A couple balls were launched Charlotte's way, which she ducked, then grabbed before they bounced back to the boys. I checked in with her and while she didn't seem particularly happy, she also didn't seem upset. There was a determined look on her face. I asked, "Do you like this game?" She made it clear she didn't need me, so I went back to hunting for lost balls.

Moments later, however, she was objecting loudly, "Hey, no taking things!"

I said, "Did someone take something? We all agreed to a rule: no taking things from other people." I pointed at where the list of rules hung on the wall and all eyes followed my finger.

"But she has all the balls!" 

That's when I noticed that Charlotte indeed had a large collection of  balls between her knees. Reluctantly abiding by our community rule, the boys gave back the one ball they'd taken from her, this girl who'd figured out a way to even those apparently insurmountable odds. I couldn't help observing, "So you guys have all the catapults, and she has all the balls." 

While Charlotte sat upon her stash, the boys, still in their semi-circle, were dumbstruck, feeling, I suppose how one feels every time one has been checkmated. Maybe I should have kiboshed the boy-girl divide earlier. Perhaps I should have been more assertive in getting to the "No shooting each other" rule. I could have handled it all differently, but at the same time, I really couldn't help but be proud of "the girl team." She had used her knowledge of the rules and her experience as a younger sister to masterfully work things around to a kind of victory that must have been satisfying to her. It was to me.

The stand-off lasted for several minutes, with the boys idly flipping their empty catapults while Charlotte proudly stood her ground. A couple of the boys started hunting under furniture for balls, but without luck.

Finally, Archie crossed over to Charlotte and asked as politely as possible, "Could I please have one ball?"

With that Charlotte sat up and pushed the whole pile of balls toward the boys. Game over.

(This is the first year of our 5's class. If you have a 4-5 year old, live in Seattle, or know someone who does, we still have a few spots available. Contact woodlandpark5s@gmail.com to set up a tour.)

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!

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