Learning At Full Capacity

There are few things that get under my skin more than the common knowledge that children need to spend time outside to "blow off steam." I know it's well intended, and the result is that children do get to be outside, but implied is that the real learning takes place within four walls; that outside is merely the empty calorie reward for eating a meal that's "good for you."

I think what we mean is that outside, as opposed to inside, is a good place for running, climbing, jumping, and shouting, and that's true. And that's what sucks about indoors: you don't get to do those things when you really need to in order to fully understand the objects, interactions, and ideas you're exploring. When we get outside, we're finally allowed to learn at full capacity, because in an outdoor classroom that isn't just climbers and slides, we get to add running, climbing, jumping, and shouting as necessary, without subtracting any of the other "indoor" learning tools.

Anyone who's spent time in this business, knows what I'm talking about when I discuss kids who bounce off the walls. I used to think they just needed to grow up, to learn some basic social skills, to calm down, but now I understand it's the fault of the walls which are simply in the way. I'm amazed at how often these children, the ones who can't abide more than a few seconds in a single place, who need to be constantly watched lest they knock down their friends or climb atop the cabinets, suddenly drop into a squat to make a deep study of motes the moment they are outside.

When we look at outdoor places designed for kids, we first notice the large features such as the swings, the trees, the slopes, the sandpits, and the slides, and it's important to have those things because large motor learning is vital to our intellectual, physical and spiritual education. But that's where we too often stop when we think of outdoors as just a place to blow off steam. Over the past few years, our community has come to realize that this is not enough, that there is simply nothing we do indoors that we can't do outdoors. 

We take our art outside daily, we have a workbench for tinkering, a garden, and, wonderfully, a space bestrewn with "loose parts." These can be anything really, from plastic figurines and florist marbles, to tree parts, rocks, lengths of rope, and wine bottle corks; things that live out there all the time. They might get buried in the sand for weeks or months, then resurface accidentally and surprisingly, then integrated naturally into whatever game is being played.

These loose parts are containers for carrying and sorting, parts of things that are broken, pieces from games or play sets that can no longer be used the way in which they were intended. Yesterday, for instance, a group of us were floating wooden letters in rainwater that had collected in one of our wagons. They had originally been part of a kind of alphabet stacking puzzle, but were frustrating indoors because a few of the letters were missing. Outside, they are floating islands named things like "G" or "I" or "P." Spontaneously, several of the kids started finding the letters that start their names, tossing them on the ground and standing on their own, eventually "walking the alphabet," not caring about the letters they couldn't find.

Our loose parts, in contrast to the idea of blowing off steam, are things that cause children to drop to their knees, to put their heads together, and to play stories.

Sometimes we make our own loose parts, like when we draw pictures on rocks with acrylic paint pens.

When they were dry, we piled them together near the garden.

They are now scattered about the place, waiting to be found again, perhaps even destined to be one day reassembled into a similar pile.

And sometimes our loose parts become part of our artwork or inventions.

Naturally, our loose parts sometimes go home in pockets as treasures found, but much of it is stuff that would have been thrown out anyway so it's easy come, easy go, not to mention the additions that arrive in pockets as treasures found elsewhere, more than making up for the subtractions.

We, of course, are still running, jumping, climbing, and shouting out here, but we're doing everything else as well, learning at full capacity.

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The Trick To Being A Dog

I can be a dog. It's something I do when I want. 

You can pat my back, stroking the fur along my spine. I'll wag for you.

Everyone knows I'm a dog because I'm panting; because my tongue's hanging out. They say, "Come here, doggy," and "Do you have a name, doggy?" but I don't answer because I'm a dog.

I like to be scratched behind the ears, and to crawl into your lap. You say this is my imagination, but it's you who is imagining. I am a dog; it's you who sees a child on all fours.

You were once able to do it too, but if you're old enough to read this, it's likely you've lost the courage to travel to this Never Never Land that occupies the very same space and time as the humdrum affairs. Some of you pretend you're a dog, camping it up with sly winks to the crowd. I like it, don't get me wrong, but you aren't really a dog.

Did I say you can't do this? Of course you can, and of course you do, just not out here in the world where the rest of the people can see you. Those few who do let it out are the rocket men who live their dreams among the stars. But most grown-ups keep it inside, not letting any part of it leak out, lest the rest of the world point and say, "You're not a dog," "You're just pretending," "You will fail," "You cannot," "I will not let you," "It cannot be." That's what really sucks about being a grown-up. The other people try to fill you up with their doubts, with their own imagination that can only see a child on all-fours.

I know that everyone else is a dog too, behind their self-imposed kennel fences, barking their envy, trying to bark you back behind your own fence, craving in their souls to join you on the outside, collecting pats on the back and scratches behind the ears.

The trick to being a dog, is to be one.

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A Fuller Understanding Of The Light

You can't have a light without a dark to stick it in. ~Arlo Guthrie 

Before we've even convened our Pre-3 class for the first time each year, our parent educator Dawn and I have already told the parents during our fall orientation meeting to expect that children will hit, kick, push, scratch, and bite, and that their child is likely to be involved one way or another. Then, after the first month of school, at our first parent meeting, with parents abuzz about all the hitting, kicking, pushing, scratching, and biting they've witnessed in class, Dawn's parent ed topic is "normal" development, including the inevitable experiments in hitting, kicking, pushing, scratching, and biting, and what we can do about it.

For the purposes of this post, I'm also going to add such behaviors as taking, spitting, screaming, destroying the work of others, bossing, hoarding, and just about anything else that can fall into the category of "socially unacceptable."

Dawn goes through the research, pointing out that all of this is well within the range of normal, and that we should strive to seize these obvious teaching moments. (For further discussion about how we try to do this at Woodland Park, you might want to click here and here.)

But it does raise for me the deeper question: why is this typical behavior?

Some of it is mere oblivion. Children this age are notoriously suns around which the universe revolves and one of the reasons we bring them together in the first place, is to give them the chance to experience bumping up against all those other suns and figuring out how to live in a constellation with them. It's not uncommon at all, for instance, for a child to run right through another on their way somewhere else or to simply push someone when they're in their way. It's not rudeness: they are really just so absorbed in their pursuits that they don't notice the other people. Experience and development will bring them around in time.

Another part of the answer is that young children are essentially mad scientists running around this laboratory of life poking at buttons, throwing switches, and tugging on levers, sometimes over and over, driven to understand what they do. This is why, for instance, you don't want to have your nuclear launch button in the same room as a 2-year-old. 

But that's not entirely fair. It's certainly more complex than either of these summations suggest. From an evolutionary perspective, children are born with only one tool for survival: crying. The species produces a next generation only because enough adults instinctively respond to crying. For adults that cry is something that pierces our hearts, calling us to action, pumping our blood, making us feel as if something is wrong, while for the baby that cry is merely the tool for connecting with the world outside herself, with none of the emotional baggage we bring to it.

We've evolved into an animal with great big brains and relatively fragile bodies, with so much to learn before it can survive on its own that we must go through years, even decades of dependency on others, if we are ever truly able to be independent. From the moment we are born, however, we begin to play, reaching out first with our crying voices, then ears and eyes. As we combine natural development with experience, our hands and feet come into play, until our whole bodies are engaged in the playful process of learning about our world. And it's the other people who engage us the most intensely.

(T)he children who "take" the most are invariably the ones who give the most. ~Janet Lansbury

Development might dictate when we are ready for things, but it's play that determines what and how we actually learn. If you watch babies play, as parent educator Janet Lansbury spends her days doing, you'll see how, when allowed to freely explore, they manipulate objects, turning them over and over, studying them from all sides, banging them on the floor, sticking them in their mouths, and generally putting them through their paces as they teach themselves the important things to know about these objects. And when that "object" is another person with whom they are allowed to freely explore, they seek to manipulate him, turn him over and over, study him from all sides, bang him on the floor, stick him in their mouths, and generally put him through his paces. This is done, of course, without malice or intention other than that urge to engage and learn through play.

As Janet points out, we grown-ups are inclined to intervene, and we should when someone is getting hurt, but too often in our efforts to somehow manage the interaction, we try to teach them things rather than allow them the freedom to actually learn the way humans are designed to learn, thereby discouraging play. "Our interruptions put the brakes on valuable social exchanges and leave toddlers with the message that they're incapable of interacting with their peers."

An example she uses is the concept of "sharing" or "ownership," ideas that are simply beyond the developmental abilities of babies. When one baby takes something from another and we jump in by insisting, no matter how gently, that it must be returned, we are attempting to "teach" an idea that they are incapable of understanding, thus putting an end to a playful, social interaction. In other words, we prevent them from manipulating the world before them, as is their natural inclination, not letting them, in fact study this situation from all sides, bang it on the floor, stick it their mouth, or generally put it through its paces. It's no wonder that Janet has found that the babies in her classes, where they are given this opportunity, who are most likely to "take" are also the ones most likely to give: they've been allowed to learn about the entire interaction, understand it, and understand the light.

I will love the light because it shows me the way. Yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars. ~Og Mandino

How can one understand light without exploring dark? How can one understand up without exploring down? How can one understand gentleness without exploring roughness?

As children get older and begin to find their way to people like me who work with them, it's no less important that we give them the opportunity to freely explore their social world. Of course, as with Janet's babies, we intervene when someone is getting hurt or scared, but that doesn't mean that even these behaviors aren't an important part of their learning. I've seen Janet's take-give phenomenon at work in our own school over the years. The 2-year-old child with the larger, stronger body who so often runs right through his peers will invariably become the 4-year-old skilled in the art of gentleness. The toddler who is most likely to destroy another's block tower will invariably be the first to understand the importance of helping rebuild it. The child who blunders by attempting to show affection for another by biting, will invariably be the one who later touches us with his ability to show his friends how much he loves them.

Again, I must emphasize that I do not want children to be pushed, hit or bitten, but I am a realist and know that short of simply keeping young children apart from one another, these things are a part of how humans learn. We must study the dark before we can understand the light.

It's not always easy and I fail often, but ideally we adults seek to remain calm, to intervene when necessary without judgement, to role model compassion and gentleness toward the injured, and to help children think their way through to alternatives, knowing all the while that as long as we are there loving them with consistency and compassion, experience and development will bring them around in time, invariably to a fuller understanding of the light.

We all walk in the dark and each of us must learn to turn on his or her own light. ~Earl Nightingale

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Water Explosions!

During the summer, we strung up a system of three pulleys over the sand pit, ran a rope through them and tied a bucket to the opposite end. To start off the new school year, I've had it tied up out of reach as we get the kids (and parent-teachers) settled into the outdoor classroom, mostly because it's one of those activities that requires at least one dedicated adult to make sure no one gets brained by a heavy bucket falling from out of a tree. 

Later in the year, we can expect the children to largely take responsibility for their own risk assessment, but for now they need our help.

We started with an empty bucket, light enough for a single child to hoist, which quickly lead to squabbles as a half dozen kids wanted their turn. 

Calder's mom Brooke helped them work out a turn-taking system. 

In the meantime, however, a second group of kids was hard at work filling the bucket with water from our cast-iron water pump. 

The rope pullers kept pulling, the bucket getting slowly heavier.

It wasn't long before that bucket was too heavy for a single child to lift.

That's when we needed each other and turn-taking was called off in favor of a good old-fashioned heave-ho.

And then, perhaps the hardest part. Once we got it up there as high as it would go, we all had to let go together, "One, 2, 3, let go!" sending it plummeting to the ground. A water explosion!

Then we filled the bucket up again and again and again.

Later, we discovered that the wet sand we'd created was perfect for mud pies.

That's how to play in case you were wondering. See ya!

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!

Allow Me To Repeat Myself

I'm a proponent of repetition, which, I suppose, if you read this blog on a regular basis, you probably already know. I have my handful of hobby horses and oh how I ride the diddley-o-dandy out of them. I do, since my readers tend to be adults, at least try to find different ways to express my thoughts and ideas from post to post, deploying new metaphors, evoking fresh images, hoping that if I disguise them well enough you won't notice that it's just the same old ideas. I don't want your adult brain to be bored, but I don't worry about that with the young children I teach. They seem to love and indeed often need word for word repetition.

Normally, I try to include photos that at least somehow illustrate

or reinforce the text of the post, but I just didn't have anything like

that, so today I invite you to enjoy a few totally unrelated photos

of kids playing with coffee beans in our sensory table.

Well, perhaps not all the children. It's a phenomenon I've generally noticed in the kids I teach through about 4-years-old. After that, as they get close to 5, near the end of their third year at Woodland Park, as they prepare themselves for kindergarten, I start to see wider spread signs of zoning out or boredom, even occasional rebellion against the words and phrases they've heard so often. It's not uncommon, for instance, for children who have always jumped up when I say, "I'd like everyone to stand on their feet," to suddenly decide to remain sitting. My friend Teacher Aaron, who teaches the North Seattle 5's program once told me he's constantly scrambling to find new circle time songs because his older kids object to too much repetition. For me, however, this is part of how I know they're ready to move on, a sure sign of "kindergarten readiness."

This, however, is never the case for the younger children I teach. I've had classes of 2-year-olds, for instance -- entire classes, mind you -- who sent up a howl whenever I skip even one of our regular songs at circle time. I've had children ask, "Teacher Tom, aren't you happy to see me?" when I greet them with a simple "Hello," or "Good morning," instead of my usual, "I'm happy to see you." I've had kids angrily call me out when I neglect to notice their camouflage pants by joking, "You have invisible legs today."

I'm totally prepared to learn that this is a dynamic that is unique to Woodland Park, a manifestation of my own personality, but it feels to me like an extension of that craving for routine. A part of what we're doing in preschool is helping children learn that they can trust, and therefore become comfortable in, the world beyond their own familiar home and family. Routine and repetition feeds into that, allowing them the opportunity to develop the competence that comes from mastery, from knowing what to expect and what is expected of them.

To celebrate birthdays in our 3-5's class, I ask that parents help their child assemble a display of some kind (typically on a piece of poster board) with photos selected by the child to illustrate things they want to share about themselves. We then break out our birthday throne and the honored child sits in it as we run-through his board for the benefit of the entire class, giving him a chance to say what he wants to say about each of the photos. I usually prompt them through their presentation by going into a kind of routine, usually repeating myself word-for-word for each child, allowing them to piggyback on the children who they've seen to this before them.

"I noticed this picture." "I see a picture of your baby . . . That's not your baby?  That's you when you were a baby? You're a lot bigger now." "I recognize that person . . . Oh, that's mommy." And after we sing Happy Birthday, I always finish with: "Thank you so much for being our friend, and for coming to school and playing with us every day, and for bringing in these terrific pictures so we can learn more about you." 

So ingrained is this habit of repetition, that I really didn't even know how much of a routine it had become until a few years ago when Jarin got up there and presented his entire board of 15 or so pictures, making all of my statements for me, then responding to them in his own words, even leading his own birthday song, then finishing by thanking himself for being our friend. I might have said two words during the entire 10 minute presentation.

Usually, repetition comes naturally to me, but the one place I need to stay conscious is when it comes to problematic behaviors, like hitting, pushing, snatching things from other children, or any of the other rules the children have made for themselves. I have no problem when it comes to the occasional "violation," directing the child to our list of rules on the wall and saying, for instance, "You and your friends agreed, No taking things." And more often than not, that's enough for the day, but when it doesn't work, when a child continues the behavior and his friends are feeling increasingly violated by the behavior, it's tempting to believe after three or four rounds of this that I need to resort to new metaphors and fresh images, as if somehow the problem is simply that he is not listening.

But he is listening. I know he's listening because with each repeat of the behavior, we've followed up my reminder about the rules with a discussion of what else we could do instead of breaking the rule. We could, for example, ask our friend for the toy we want, or request that she move out of our way instead of pushing. He's not ignoring me, he's not bored, he's simply, in the heat of play, forgetting, and it's always my hope and expectation that by repeating, "You and your friends agreed . . ." enough times, the words will become internal to him, part of his self-speak, just the way Jarin had made my birthday board words his own.

Of course, and as anyone else who employs this technique will attest, there are times when it seems like an unbreakable, vicious cycle. But, this is when I know I need to remind myself to persevere. I've watched pushing, biting, hitting two-year-olds evolve over a few weeks into word using, huggers, but the arc is longer for others. They are still unsure of this world outside their home, they are still not confident that it is safe and predictable, perhaps they are even feeling distrust of the tools of interaction we are trying to teach.

As I wrote about yesterday, the Pre-3 class is a place where block buildings get knocked down by others, intentionally and otherwise, and while most of them, by the end of the year are on board with the "not a knocking down building" concept, some of this teaching needs to carry over into our 3-5's class the following year, especially when it comes to our 3-year-old boys. Yesterday, there were a lot of these guys engaged in building, and there were also a lot of these boys engaged in knocking those buildings down. It was such a tenuous situation at one point that I set myself up in the middle of things, trying to remain silent except with my words of repetition. Specifically, there were a couple guys I was hoping to catch just before a knocking down incident in order to remind them with an oft repeated phrase, "This is Susie's building. It is not a knocking down building. If you want to knock down a building, you can build your own building over there."

Parker was working on a precarious tower, one that was on the verge of falling at any moment. Connor was watching him and I wondered if I shouldn't move a little closer to deploy a bit of repetitive intervention. Luca approached his friends. He didn't appear to have knocking down in mind, but I was poised. That's when I heard my own words coming from Connor's mouth, "This is Parker's building. It is not a knocking down building. If you want to knock down a building, you can build your own building over there."

I don't know how many times I repeated those words to him last year. Now they are his own. At the risk of repeating myself, this is why I'm a proponent of repetition.

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!