Seeing Our Children Through The Perspective Of One Another

Maddie was a kid who could concentrate. From the time I met her as a two-year-old, she showed an amazing capacity to block out the entire world to focus on the self-assigned task at hand. You could stand over her saying her name, but she simply didn't hear you, so all-encompassing was her focus on, say, the puzzle in front of her or the flow of paint across her page.

Her classmate Cyrus was the opposite. When he was two, both hands were always full, which meant that he always had to drop something in order to grasp the new apple of his eye. He would walk through the classroom, leaving a trail of abandoned objects behind him, often collecting an entourage of other children as he went. I sometimes thought of him as a kind of swimmer or climber, moving through life stroke-by-stroke or handhold to handhold.

The parents of both Maddie and Cyrus worried about their respective children, not because their tendencies were a problem for a two-year-old, but because of what those tendencies might foretell about their futures. Fortunately, they were in our cooperative school, which meant they spent time each week in the classroom with all the children working with them as assistant teachers. Maddie's mother envied Cyrus' "outgoingness" while Cyrus' mother envied Maddie's ability to stay on task. The two women became close friends as parents often do in a cooperative school, bonding over their children.

I often found them huddled together in the classroom or on the playground, shoulder-to-shoulder, their eyes on the children, while discussing them. Sometimes they included me, although I had very little to contribute as these women shaped one another.

"Look at Cyrus," Maddie's mother would say, "He's right in the middle of things. I wish Maddie would do more of that."

"Well, look at Maddie," Cyrus' mom would answer, "She's been working on that painting all morning. I don't think Cyrus has spent more than 30 seconds at the art table this entire week."

I often found Maddie's mother playing with Cyrus, often showing him motes to contemplate or engaging with him in projects, like puzzles, that involved several steps. Likewise, Cyrus' mom would go out of her way to invite Maddie into this or that game or activity. 

One day, I heard Maddie's mom joke that her daughter only came to school to play with "Cyrus' mommy." Likewise, Cyrus's mom felt that "Maddie's mommy" was her son's best friend.

Over the course of their three years in preschool, I rarely saw Maddie and Cyrus play with one another. Indeed, Maddie was always prone to getting lost in her own activities, while Cyrus tended to be at the center of whatever promised the most action, but I know they spent a lot of time together both after school and on weekends as their parents' friendship continued to blossom.

The children continued to blossom as well. But what was most beautiful to me was how the two women learned, through one another, how to stop worrying so much about their children, not because of anything their children did, but because they had taught one another to see their own children through the perspective of one another. 

This is what we mean when we quote the old African proverb, "It takes a village to raise a child." And it's why I find myself adding, "It takes a child to raise a village."

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"Teacher Tom, our caped hero of all things righteous in the early childhood world, inspires us to be heroic in our own work with young children, and reminds us that it is the children who are the heroes of the story as they embark on adventures of discovery, wonder, democracy, and play." ~Rusty Keeler

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The Thing That "Works" Every Time

Einar Jónsson

A two-year-old was standing at the gate, his fingers through the slats, crying after his mommy who had left. The grandmother of another child was sitting with him. I wanted to go take her place, not because she was doing anything wrong, but it was the first day of a summer session, I imagined she was there to enjoy it with her own grandson, and I see it as a big part of my job to be with the kids when they struggle with the transition into their time with us. That said, there were some 30 other kids to be welcomed, along with their parents, and I had several other things to do to get things launched, so I left them there, knowing that at least the poor boy wasn't abandoned, even if he was feeling a bit that way.

It took about 10 minutes in order to carve out the time to get to them. He was still crying. This was the first time we had spoken, other than me saying, "I'm happy to see you," when he first arrived in his mother's arms. I sat beside him on the steps, used his name, and asked by way of confirmation, "Are you sad because your mommy left?"

He nodded.

Several of my old friends had followed me, excited to see me after a break, wanting to be in my sphere for a bit to start their days. 

"Why is he crying?" 

"What's wrong?" 

"Teacher Tom, I want to show you that I learned to pump myself on the swings." 

I told them that I was going to talk to this boy for awhile, using his name again, letting them know that I would be with them shortly, saying, "We'll come find you when he's finished with his cry."

As I'd managed our space in this way, he had turned away from the gate, still whimpering, but obviously listening. When they had gone he turned his face back to the gate and resumed his cry.

I said, "You're sad your mommy left. It's okay to be sad about that. I'm going to be with you while you're sad, but I want you to know that mommy's always come back. Your mommy will come back." I then verbally walked him through our daily schedule, ending with, "Then I'll read a story and mommy will come back." I had a passing thought about what I would do if this didn't "work," before remembering that the goal is not to end his crying, but to create a space in which he could finish his cry. Of course, it would "work," it always "works" when one person sits with another like this, calmly making statements of fact.

I asked if he wanted me to hold him. He nodded yes, but when I touched him, the recoil of his body said no. I asked if he wanted to sit beside me. He wanted to keep standing. I said, "Okay, then I'll sit here with you while you're sad about mommy leaving." After a couple minutes, one of my old friends raced up, demanding excitedly, "Teacher Tom, you have to come see our major overflow." "Major overflow" is the term the kids had coined for when they fill a 20 gallon tub with water using the the cast iron hand pump, then dump it down the hill, creating a river with a waterfall as it plunges from the upper level of the sandpit to the lower. I answered that I couldn't come right away because (and I used his name again) I was sitting with this boy who was missing his mommy. The older girl widened her eyes, looked at him, then said insistently, "He can come watch it too!"

I asked him if he wanted to see the major overflow. Still weeping, he nodded. I stood and said, "I will go with you. I can hold your hand." He took my proffered hand, and slowly we walked to the sandpit where we witnessed the promised event, which was accompanied by big kids cheering with the kind of joy that can only come from a collective accomplishment. "Did you see it, Teacher Tom?"

I answered that we had seen it, referring of course to the two-year-old who had, it seemed, finished his cry. Soon, he was engaged with the water, probably still missing mommy, but no longer incapacitated by the feelings it evoked.

This is my job. I'm not here to make things better, to end the crying, or to distract them from missing their mommies. I'm not even there to soothe them any more than I'm there to "good job" them: that is not my job. Becoming soothed is their job. Cheering for their own accomplishments is their job. My job is to be with them when they're crying and when they're cheering, speaking truth, and creating space for them to feel exactly how they feel for as long as they need to feel it. It "works" every time.

******

 

"Teacher Tom, our caped hero of all things righteous in the early childhood world, inspires us to be heroic in our own work with young children, and reminds us that it is the children who are the heroes of the story as they embark on adventures of discovery, wonder, democracy, and play." ~Rusty Keeler

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The Super Power Of Seeing One Another

Recently, someone using the photo of a ruggedly handsome man tried to the get the attention of women commenting under some of the posts on my Teacher Tom Facebook page. It was the same message over and over, complementing the women and suggesting that they get to know one another. He was easily identified as a "troll" and I banned the account from my page. I don't know exactly what he was up to, but since there are a lot better sites than Facebook for finding dates, I imagine he was trying to rope women into some sort of relationship that would allow him to scam them financially. Whatever the case, he was undoubtedly, like all trolls, up to no good.

In H.G. Wells 1897 novella The Invisible Man, the protagonist, Griffin, discovers how to cause his body to neither reflect nor absorb light, rendering himself invisible. He imagines that this super power makes him like a "god among men." After all, an invisible person can go about undetected, doing pretty much what he wants with impunity. He begins by playing pranks, then segues into committing petty crimes, and before long he is terrorizing his fellow humans.

In other words, invisibility turned him into a monstrous troll in the same way that anonymity turns otherwise normal people into trolls on the internet. At one time or another, most of us have imagined the benefits of being "a fly on the wall," but it doesn't take much deep thought to understand why "invisible" people, like trolls, behave the way they do. What else are you going to do with invisibility or anonymity other than to terrorize or victimize others? Some suggest that Well's story reveals the true evil nature of humans, just as anonymity on the internet allows people to be their true evil selves. But I'm more inclined to the conclusion that the state of not being "seen" by our fellow humans causes this evil behavior.

Humans, from the time we are born, crave connection with others. We know the psychological harm caused by a sense of alienation, of not being a part of society. Inevitably, when we hear the stories of people who have committed atrocities they are nearly always tales of abuse and neglect. And they are almost always found to have left evidence of their guilt as an anonymous online troll. Of course, they are mentally ill, but it is, I assert, a mental illness caused by the fact of their invisibility.

A long time ago, a petty thief managed to slip into the hallway of our school as we were finishing up our day with a song the way we always did. As we sang goodbye to one another, he made off with a number of purses that had been left hanging on the hooks out there. Piecing together what happened, several of us realized that we had seen the man, but had assumed he was there, like the rest of us were, to pick up one of the kids. In other words, he had used the power of invisibility and anonymity to take advantage of us. In the aftermath, we implemented security measures, but the centerpiece of our community plan was friendliness. We agreed that whenever we encountered an adult around the place with whom we were unfamiliar, we would welcome them warmly, shake their hands, and, most importantly, let them know they had been seen.

A few weeks later, my father came by the school to take me out to lunch. When he finally found me indoors tidying up, he was beaming, "Wow," he said, "Everyone here is so friendly."

It's visibility, not invisibility, that is the true super power. When we let others know they are seen, we bring them into the fold of humanity, at least a little bit, and it's there that we are all finally most human. And it's a power that we can only bestow upon others.

******

 

"Teacher Tom, our caped hero of all things righteous in the early childhood world, inspires us to be heroic in our own work with young children, and reminds us that it is the children who are the heroes of the story as they embark on adventures of discovery, wonder, democracy, and play." ~Rusty Keeler

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

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!

We Don't Often Tell Our Children The Truth About Money

When we're little, people tell us we can be whatever we want to be so we imagine ourselves to be princesses and superheroes. We don't aspire to become these things, we embody them. 

Then we're taught we're just pretending so we start to aspire. We believe that we can one day be ballerinas and baseball players.

A precious few are never taught the long odds and go on to the stage or the diamond, while the rest learn that we must be more realistic. People still tell us we can be anything we want to be, but already our choices have been limited. We assert, "But I am an artist!" or "I am an actor!" or "I am an entrepreneur!" or "I am an inventor!" while the world says, "Of course you are," while advising us that we still might want to consider back up plans in case that doesn't "work out."

"Work out," of course, means to result in sufficient income. And that from the start has been the bottom line. We've never been free to be whatever we want.

We don't often tell our children the truth about money in our culture. Oh sure, we scold them that this longed for item is too expensive or that we go to the office most days only so we can put food on the table. But when we tell them they can be anything they want to be, we know we are speaking the language of fairy tales. We don't mean to lie, of course. We do it in the spirit of bucking them up, of inspiring them, of demonstrating our belief in their capabilities, but at bottom we know the odds are too long and that money will eventually claim them. 

That said, it would be a cruelty to tell our four-year-olds that they will never fly to the moon, so we let them dream. We even encourage them to dream. Many of us join them in their bubble for a time, temporarily convincing ourselves that they will one day fly a space ship, but we ourselves have learned the hard truth about money, even as we try, for these precious years, to protect them from it. Barring extraordinary luck or talent, we know that even hard work is unlikely to set them free from money's incessant demand that it be earned and managed and grudgingly spent. We've absorbed the dubious lessons of thrift. Some of us even believe that the entire purpose of childhood is to be shaped into an employee. 

Money is nothing but an idea. It is a story we collectively tell ourselves. 

Children who grow up in poverty begin to learn the story much earlier than those born to families that are well off. These children learn it because there is nowhere to hide from it. Their parents run themselves ragged in minimum wage, dead-end work. Any money that does come their way is converted directly into the food on their plates, a reality that is hidden from the children of wealthier families. Any dreams they might have are exposed as chimera beside the reality of money in a household in which money is scarce. It takes longer for a middle class child to learn the story of money because it can survive longer as an abstraction, but even those of us who try to protect our children from it for as long as possible, can't help ourselves. We buy them piggybanks in which they are to "save" each precious coin. We discourage them from "wasting" it. We even forbid them things that we can afford under the guise of teaching them that "money doesn't grow on trees." 

Italian writer Natalia Ginzburg writes in her essay The Little Virtues: "If we deny him a bicycle which he wants and which we could buy him we only prevent him from having something that it is reasonable a boy should have, we only make his childhood less happy in the name of an abstract principle and without any real justification. And we are tacitly saying to him that money is better than a bicycle; on the contrary he should learn that a bicycle is always better than money."

Ginzburg suggests that our goal should not be to teach children the value of money, but rather "an indifference to money." After all, for most of us money is something that comes and goes all through life. If we overvalue it, when it goes it's such a blow that it tends to destroy everything else on the way out the door. We can hardly think any more. It makes people jump from tall buildings. It even threatens our most important relationships. If we overvalue it, when it does finally come, it's a boon that it ascends to a pedestal. We then cling to it to the exclusion of all else, praying that it never leaves us again, as if it is our savior or a loved one who can never love us back. 

Being indifferent to money is such a shocking idea for many of us because it flies in the face of the story we tell about money. To be indifferent to money is to risk not having money, after all, and of all the things one might dream about being or doing, money is the one that we must never give up on. At the same time, isn't it objectively true that a bicycle is always better than money? It certainly should be for a child. Perhaps it should be for all of us.

People who think about money more than I do, tell me that money is simply a tool. When we drop a coin in our piggy bank it is the equivalent of hanging our hammer on a hook in our tool shed or storing our spatula away in a kitchen drawer so we can find them when there is a nail to be driven or a pancake to be flipped. But from a very young age, when we go to our piggy banks to use the money we've collected, say for a piece of candy, our parents caution us. "Are you sure you really want to waste your money on that?" "Didn't you say you were saving up for that bicycle?" And even when we've scrimped and saved enough to purchase the bicycle, it isn't long before the newness wears off and we begin to miss the money. Indeed, the empty piggy bank taunts us with its emptiness, sneering, You see, money is better than a bicycle. No one ever regrets using their hammers and spatulas, but there is always loss attached to the use of money. If money is a tool, it is a tool unlike any other.

These same money experts tell me to think of money as blood. It's meant to flow through the system, carrying the fiscal equivalents of oxygen and nutrients. Then doesn't that mean that when it stops flowing, like it does when left to sit in a piggy bank, it has clotted? Don't billionaires represent the ultimate blood clot? Blood clots kill. No, money is not anything like blood because if it were we would all understand it to be a sin to impede its flow by saving it. We would all know the very idea of accumulated wealth as pure evil. No, money is nothing like blood.

As we learn the story our culture tells about money our dreams begin to disappear to be replaced by years of striving at things we would rather not do in service to money. No wonder so many of us feel disillusioned and exhausted. This is what the pursuit of money instead of dreams does to us. We rationalize, telling ourselves that we will live life at the grindstone until we have enough and then, finally, in the few years we have left, we will pursue our dreams. Or as the character David Howard says in Albert Brooks' movie Lost in America, "I've finally reached a level of responsibility. Now I can afford to be irresponsible!" 

And that's exactly the worst thing that our story of money does to all of us: it casts our dreams, the best of ourselves, as irresponsible. This, I assert, is why so many of us look back on childhood with so much sepia toned fondness or why we believe that young children live ideal lives compared to our own. That is the one place that the stories we tell about money have not yet penetrated. It's the one place where bicycles really are always better than money.

******

 

"Teacher Tom, our caped hero of all things righteous in the early childhood world, inspires us to be heroic in our own work with young children, and reminds us that it is the children who are the heroes of the story as they embark on adventures of discovery, wonder, democracy, and play." ~Rusty Keeler

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

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

The Myth Of The Brain

We've been conditioned to equate our self with our mind, which we've been taught to think of as residing in our brains. Bodies, Thomas Edison asserted, are there to "carry the brain around." There are even those so convinced that their brains contain who they are that they've had this particular organ cryonically preserved (frozen) in the anticipation that some day in the future we will be able to re-animate them by implanting their mind in a new body.

Anything is possible, I suppose, but cognative psychologists, neuroscientists, and biologists and are increasingly locating this thing called mind, our self, throughout our bodies. 

The ancient Egyptians and Greeks believed that our minds were located in our hearts. Others have located it in the spleen. Neuroscientist and author Antonio Damasio theorizes that the mind emerges from the process of mapping "the state of life" in our own bodies. When our mind represents our own internal states, feelings emerge, which is, according to him, the emergence of consciousness. It comes not from appreciating the outside world, but rather from appreciating what's going on inside our body in a two-way "conversation" between the nervous system and the rest of the body. 

There are many, including author and psychologist Christine Caldwell who believe that our current plague of modern bodily problems, like addiction, high blood pressure, diabetes, and general aches and pains, are directly caused by this artificial, yet psychologically very real, separation between mind and body.

Neuroscientist Candace Pert encourages us to think of our minds as a kind of circulating flow of information throughout our bodies, and our nerves and blood vessels are the highways conducting that flow.

In other words, it would be impossible to separate the brain from the body without losing the fullness of our minds, no matter what the science fiction writers imagine.

Yet as author and professor bell hooks noted, "many of us have accepted the notion that there is a split between the body and the mind. Believing this, individuals enter the classroom to teach as though only the mind is present, and not the body."

But that isn't how children enter our classrooms, especially in the early years when they have not yet learned to divide themselves. They come to us fully embodied. Unlike us, who tend to walk around like bodies carrying brains, they arrive fully enmeshed with the environment through every bodily sense. Unlike us, they are listening to the complex conversation going on within their bodies, their whole, undivided bodies, and therefore understanding the world in ways that many of us adults simply can't comprehend.

When we rush them into what we all "academic" learning, like literacy or mathematics, we are unwittingly teaching them to divide their mind from their body. When we insist that they sit still, eyes forward, we are telling them that their bodies are secondary. When we punish them by taking away recess or play time we reinforce Edison's false notion that that body is only there to serve the brain. 

We have been so conditioned by the myth of the brain as the seat of the mind that most of us have to really concentrate to connect to our bodies.

It's said that one of the things that distinguishes humans from other lifeforms is that we are capable of knowing that we are intelligent. Indeed, some, like Damasio, define the human mind as the ability to possess this knowledge of knowing. After all, he points out, we know that bacteria and plants are intelligent, we can tell by their behavior, but since they don't know they are intelligent, they can't be said to possess a mind. (This notion is not supported by many indigenous ways of thinking about bacteria-people and plant-people.) In some ways, we are born like the bacteria and plants: we do intelligent things, but we don't know we are doing them. Our minds are something that develop over time. In other words, these brand new humans are cognitively more like the rest of the living world than they are like those of us who have been taught to divide our minds from our bodies.

I will stop short of asserting that this makes young children superior to us, but it should cause us to pause and consider what we are doing when we unthinkingly teach children in a way that causes them to neglect and devalue their bodies in the narrow quest of academic learning. 

When children play, they show us the "bodyfulness" of their minds at work, flowing, conversing, and learning, the way it is done by the rest of the living universe. Don't we owe it to them, and ourselves, to take that seriously?

******

 

"Teacher Tom, our caped hero of all things righteous in the early childhood world, inspires us to be heroic in our own work with young children, and reminds us that it is the children who are the heroes of the story as they embark on adventures of discovery, wonder, democracy, and play." ~Rusty Keeler

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

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!

Wearing Darth Vader Underpants Every Day

I looked up to see a familiar face. For a moment, however, I couldn't place it, but then recognized my friend who I'd not seen since he was five-years-old.

"I recognize you!" I blurted before his name came back to me. He was standing with his mom, pressed into her legs shyly, a posture I didn't recall from a couple years ago when we had seen one another almost every day. But, of course, he would feel that way. For a preschooler, two years is a very long time, nearly a quarter of his life, long enough to have completely forgotten his old preschool teacher.

Yet he hadn't forgotten me. He was here because he had told his mother he wanted to visit me. When she asked if it was okay, I'd said to feel free to drop by any time. It was the pre-Covid world and I always had an open door policy for alumni.

His mother nudged him to respond, "Hi, Teacher Tom."

I'd met Duncan as a two-year-old who was enthralled with his older sister, often coming to class wearing her old clothes, sharing stories about what Bella had done or said, drawing pictures and making paintings to take home to her as gifts. As he got older, he turned his attention to "great apes," which he taught me included chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans. He wore our classroom gorilla costume almost every day, which included an anatomically correct backside that he would shake to make the rest of us laugh. During the three years that he and I were together he took himself along a wandering path of self-directed learning that carried him from Bella to the great apes, then, in a progression that made sense to him, on to dinosaurs, arachnids, outer space, Star Wars . . .

He intuitively signaled his changing interests by changing costumes, using dress-up as a way to embody his current driving passion. And through it all was woven an abiding interest in connecting with the other children, often bringing them along for portions of his journey.

In other words, he was a kid who always made the most of our days together.

I used my standard line that I use on visiting alumni, "Hey, I used to know a kid who looked a lot like you, but he was a smaller."

"It's me, Teacher Tom -- Duncan."

He was taking an afternoon off from first grade to be here. As much as I wanted to spend more time with him, I had other responsibilities so I left he and his mother to nostalgically go through the arrival routine of signing in, hanging up his jacket, stashing his backpack, and washing his hands. We later reconnected up by the cast iron water pump, which his mother had mentioned as something he particularly remembered. By then he had warmed up.

"This pump seems a lot smaller," he said. "Everything seems smaller. My school is huge."

"Yeah, well you got a lot bigger," I answered, "so you need a bigger school. Is your teacher bigger too?"

He thought about it for a second, not hearing it as a joke, then answered, "She's not bigger . . . but she's meaner."

"Oh, come on! She can't be that mean."

He conceded, "Well, she's not mean, but she made a rule -- no costumes except on Halloween."

"That's too bad."

"And she always wants us to tell her math facts."

"Wow, you know math facts? That's pretty cool."

"It's not cool, Teacher Tom. It's stupid."

"I hate doing stupid stuff."

"Me too, but did you know that I'm the smartest kid in my class?"

"I didn't know that."

"I know all the math facts. None of the other kids know all the math facts."

"That must make you feel good."

"It doesn't," he answered while lazily pumping water as the younger kids scrambled to dig channels in the sand into which it was flowing. The kids are always hoping for someone to pump the water for them and Duncan was obliging. "It makes me feel bored, but Bella told me that school is always boring. She's in fourth grade now."

"I'll bet Bella knows even more math facts."

He nodded earnestly, "She even knows more math facts than me. And she gets really good grades, like As and Bs. I also get As and Bs."

"And that's good?"

"Miss Herring says it's good," he answered brightly before glumly adding, "but I can do better."

I thought of the fully engaged boy from a couple years ago. "Good" and "better" and "smartest" and "bored" were not words anyone could ever attach to his learning. It wasn't the first time, nor would it be the last, that I've seen how this system we call school had taught yet another of my young friends to focus on competing, ranking, rating, and jumping through hoops rather than simply engaging the world through their own curiosity.  

I knew that this was why he had remembered preschool, however, and why he had wanted to return. I also knew that this was why his mother had pulled him out of school for a visit. As he reengaged with his self-selected project of being the big kid pumping water for the little kids, I stepped back to stand with his mother.

I asked her about the family and specifically about Duncan. She told me he was miserable at school. I sympathized, then repeated some of what he had said about math facts and grades. She replied, "Oh, he's doing fine. The school work is easy for him. It's this," she said, waving at arm at the playground, "that we're missing. I want that boy back . . . Look at him!"

He was down on his knees in the mud, taking charge of building a proper dam as the little kids swarmed around this big boy, everyone playing the trail and error game, the research technique that underpins most play.

"I won't be able to take him back to school now," she laughed. "They won't let him in the classroom covered in mud. I packed a couple of towels in the car just in case."

We stood together watching Duncan in his element for a long, silent moment, before she added, "But it's still in there, you know? All that time with you is still in there. I know that's why he needed to come back. Thanks for having us."

We send them off into the world, us play-based educators, knowing that while life itself is ultimately self-directed, schooling stands starkly apart as a place of pleasing adults, competition with your peers, and learning to game the system. It is a kind of battle they will be compelled to fight, one that pits their natural instincts and curiosity against tests, homework, and grades. We can only hope that we've fortified them for it. What gives me hope for Duncan and the other children I've taught is that "it's still in there." And because we're a cooperative school, it's still in their parents as well. 

Later, I found Duncan standing in front of our classroom costume rack looking disappointed. "I'm too big," he shrugged, "None of them fit me."

"Yeah, you always liked our costumes. Too bad you can't wear any at school."

"Actually, I do."

"But I thought you said your teacher has a rule."

"She does, but she doesn't know that I wear Darth Vader underpants every day!" We laughed together subversively.

******

 

"Teacher Tom, our caped hero of all things righteous in the early childhood world, inspires us to be heroic in our own work with young children, and reminds us that it is the children who are the heroes of the story as they embark on adventures of discovery, wonder, democracy, and play." ~Rusty Keeler

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

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!

What Makes All Happy Families Alike

Over the years, thousands of people have written me, or come up to me at an event, with essentially the same question: What would you do about the behavior of this child?

They provide me with context, with examples of the troubling behavior, and even with a list of things they've tried to no avail. If their question is simply about a child who is too loud, impulsive, or reluctant to do what the teacher is demanding of them, then I can usually be helpful. I'll suggest that they need to find a way to say "yes" to loudness, impulsivity, and choice. This generally means making changes to the environment, which might include altering our adult expectations.

For instance, one teacher recently told me about a not yet two-year-old who persisted in throwing toys in the classroom. When I visited the classroom, I found a small (too small) space choc-a-bloc with hand-sized wooden blocks and hand-sized wooden cars. I suggested that she replace the small wooden playthings with larger and softer items, things that he either couldn't throw or that when thrown would be unlikely to cause harm. When I visited their outdoor space I found plenty of large balls, balls that seemed to say "kick me," but none that were hand-sized. I suggested she try adding some small spongy balls to their outdoor play and perhaps some sort of targets where he could throw to his heart's content. 

Most of the time, however, these educators are asking about behavior that harms the other children: hitting, biting, scratching, etc. I ask follow up questions and strive to get to the heart of the matter, but the truth is, I have no idea what I would do until I've actually met the child and observed them, over time, in context.

One of the most famous first lines in literary history is from Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." I think this is true about individual unhappiness as well, and generally speaking, harming others is a way expressing "unhappiness" of some sort. The child is unhappy in their own way. Their unhappiness may have something to to do with the environment as well, but it might also be tracked back to family difficulties, a child's neurological make-up, a recent loss or other traumatic event, or any number of other things that make we humans unhappy. And because of this there are no cookie cutter short cuts.

I've often said that my first goal with every child is to get them on my bandwagon. Failing that, I strive to get on their bandwagon. And failing that, we get to work building a whole new bandwagon that suits us both. This is my way of thinking about creating a relationship of trust between the child and me, one that allows me to be on the "inside" with them, which is the place I need to be if I am going to understand them. It means becoming intensely curious about the child. It does not necessarily mean asking them a bunch of questions (although it might). It does mean asking the parents questions. It does mean close and careful observation. And it does mean falling in love with the child, because ultimately that is the only way I've ever been able to discover the source of their unhappiness.

The only time I've ever had success in helping a child overcome their challenging behaviors is when I've loved them enough to echo the words of Mister Rogers, "I like you just the way you are." This is where healing begins and, I would assert, it is this that makes all happy families alike.

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"I recommend these books to everyone concerned with children and the future of humanity." ~Peter Gray, Ph.D. If you want to see what Dr. Gray is talking about you can find Teacher Tom's First Book and Teacher Tom's Second Book right here. 

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"Once Upon A Time There Was A Big Monster Who Pooped Everywhere"

Give them what they want. ~Winston Churchill

Some time ago, I shared a quite literate story by a four-year-old author. He wrote several other things, but after sharing the first one in front of the whole group he subsequently declined, usually saying, "It's not finished yet." This is, of course, a valid choice for any writer. He loved the creative process, one where he sat in one-to-one intimacy with the adult taking dictation, but the public performance wasn't his thing. 

We always had other authors, however, who were very much interested in having their stories presented in front of the entire group. And then there were some who were mastering the art of writing for their audience, giving them what they want.

The following story was really a creative collaboration between a daughter and her mother, both of whom were aware from the beginning that this story was always going to be destined to be read aloud to room full of four and five year olds:

"Once upon a time there was a

big monster who pooped

everywhere. And he was

called POOP MONSTER!

But he just kept on

pooping. Poop, poop, poop

Poop, poop, poop, poop

Poop, poop, poop, poop.

Poop.

Poop.

Poop.

"This is a big, big poop from that

blue monster! And then it just kept on pooping!

Poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop . . .

"This is a really big, big buh-buh big poop!"

I had the honor of reading this masterpiece to the class. She had them rolling in the aisles, every last one of them.

******

 

"I recommend these books to everyone concerned with children and the future of humanity." ~Peter Gray, Ph.D. If you want to see what Dr. Gray is talking about you can find Teacher Tom's First Book and Teacher Tom's Second Book right here. 

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!

"Children Are Constantly Healing Themselves"

Wrestling was a regular feature of our curriculum at Woodland Park. Of course, it happened spontaneously, as it does in every preschool, but we would also sometimes throw down the gym mats and play in a pig pile. Before long, everyone who participated knew that crying was a part of wrestling, which is why we innovated the "crying chair." I would sometimes forget to set up the crying chair as we prepared to wrestle, but the children never did. The idea of the crying chair was that when someone got hurt, and someone always did, they could remove themselves from the action. The crying chair was the place to go until you were ready to return to the fray.

In some ways and for some children, the crying chair was the most important part of wrestling. Sometimes we had to set up a second or even third crying chair. Once we had an entire row of crying chairs while the gym mats were entirely vacated. This isn't to say there were a dozen kids crying. Some were, but others used the crying chair to stew in their anger. Others simply sat there looking sad. And there were always a few who used the crying chair to giggle and be silly. One girl who didn't like to wrestle would use the crying chair as a place to sit looking increasingly bored as she waited for her friends to be finished.

Over time, I began to see that the crying chair was being interpreted by the kids as a safe place to go and simply express emotions, whatever they were.

We all know that children tend to heal more quickly than adults. Their skin sometimes seems to mend as we watch. Even their bones heal far more rapidly. It's a blessing, of course, one for which we adults are required to compensate with experience, making us more capable and then, as we get older, more cautious when it comes to risk taking.

Indeed, children are master healers and not just when it comes to physical injury. We rightfully worry about the traumatic effects of certain impactful events on a child's life, but most children, most of the time, begin healing almost immediately if we leave them to their process. With our without a crying chair, they cry, they shout, they fully express their heartbreak or fear without holding back or, as we too often learn to do, stuffing it. As my friend Janet Lansbury points out, "Children are constantly healing themselves," which is how I came to view our crying chair: a place for self healing.

Of course, there are many exceptions to Janet's assertion, both in terms of physical as well as emotional injuries, but by and large, when given the time and space to express their feelings, and the loving support of adults who are there to listen, children are capable of healing themselves, often without scarring, and most assuredly with the result of having acquired wisdom. The sad truth is that as we age, our skin and bones change in ways that make healing a longer, more involved process. The same happens with our ability to heal emotionally, although I expect that this is more a matter of social conditioning than biology.

As a man, I know about stuffing my emotions. From a very young age, I began to learn the lesson that "big boys don't cry" even though I don't recall anyone saying those specific words to me. I doubt that many of the parents of the children I've taught at Woodland Park have said those words to their kids, but I see the beginnings of it as children approach four and five years old, when they begin to mask their emotions. For instance, there is no noticeable gender difference in infants when it comes to smiling, but by the time they are five, girls smile significantly more often than boys, an observation that is often used as an indicator of how young boys learn to suppress their negative emotions. But it's not just boys who learn to mask their feelings. Research indicates that preschool aged girls might smile more than their male peers, but often those smiles belie a "less acceptable" negative emotion underneath. In other words, we at least in part teach children of all genders, in both overt and subtle ways, to stop healing themselves emotionally.

Learning to express emotion is an important aspect of healthy social-emotional development. It is part of how we communicate, but also part of how we minimize the "scarring" that might result from social-emotional wounds. Few of us, however, are fully adept at emotional expression and this is probably why we struggle with it in our children, often shushing or bribing or shaming or otherwise discouraging "negative" emotions, because that is what we were taught -- even as we know intellectually they must express those feelings if they are to be emotionally healthy.

That said, even though we ourselves are not experts, it doesn't mean that we can't support our children. The best crying chair in the world is a loved one's lap and most of the time that is all they need to heal themselves.

******

 

"I recommend these books to everyone concerned with children and the future of humanity." ~Peter Gray, Ph.D. If you want to see what Dr. Gray is talking about you can find Teacher Tom's First Book and Teacher Tom's Second Book right here. 

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!