"He Doesn't Listen To Me!"

When people complain, "He doesn't listen to me" what they really mean is that their kid doesn't do what they want them to do when they want them to do it. Believe me: they are listening to you. They are almost always listening to you. You just disagree with what they opted to do, or continue doing, after listening to your words.

Of course, some of the time, they simply don't understand us, they're not ready to "get" what we're saying to them, like when I talk to young two-year-olds about knocking down other people's block constructions, but more often than not they are listening, then choosing something else.

We know they're listening because our own words come back to us, channelled through them, often days or weeks or even months later. I remember when my own daughter first cursed traffic from her carseat. We know they're listening because they repeat word-for-word, usually at a holiday party right in front of everyone, the mean joke we made about the harvest of hair growing from Aunt Millie's nose. I know a child's been listening when she can repeat, word for word, the argument her parents had that morning over a piece of dropped toast.

We know they are listening when they insist on wearing their unicorn bicycle helmet ice skating, like a four-year-old did last week, saying, "I'm going to wear my helmet because I might really fall instead of almost."

We know they are listening when they turn to us and say, like a three-year-old did yesterday, "When someone does something mean to me I talk to them to stop."

We know they are listening when they are courteous to their friends, like a two-year-old was earlier this week when he said, "Hello Anna. My name is Elliott. Let's play!"

And we know they are listening when they put their arm around a sobbing friend, like one two-year-old year old did to another, saying softly into his ear, "You're crying about something. I'll take care of you."

They are always listening. Not just to the words we say to them, but those we say in their presence to others. That is their real classroom. When we adults take that seriously, that's when our children begin to make us better people, the kind who think about the words they say and the tones we use with the people in our lives. They make us work to become the people we've always wanted to be if only because that's the sort of person we want them to be.

Children don't learn anything from obedience other than how to command and obey, a dubious education at best. They learn everything else by listening (and watching, of course). Real learning requires processing, repetition, time, and experience to fully comprehend. It takes place on their schedule, not yours, which is why it can seem as if they are not listening. But they are, know it, and strive to be the person you want them to be. That's the real work of teaching.

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The Technology Of How To Treat Human Beings

I remember my first formal exposure to the "technology" of treating children like fully formed human beings -- and I often do think of it as a kind of technology in that it's the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes. I'd previously been exposed to this technology via my daughter's preschool teacher, with whom I'd been working as a cooperative classroom parent for many months, but, as technology often does for the uninitiated, it just looked like magic, something Teacher Chris was able to do because she was Teacher Chris.

I was in one of Tom Drummond's classes at North Seattle College and he began to explain the ultimate ineffectiveness of "directive" statements. You know the kind, "Sit over here," "Stand there," "Pick that up," the sorts of adult communications with which most of our childhoods were filled. I had a small epiphany as he explained our assignment to us, which was to simply keep track of the number of directive statements we made during our next classroom day. And even as I had the epiphany that this was a part of Teacher Chris' magic trick, I doubted that it could really work, at least not all time, not for all kids, not for all ages. It was good that our assignment was simply about ourselves, about listening to our words, practicing using this new technology, not being burdened with the complications of having to make judgments about how the children were responding, just focusing on ourselves and the words we were using.

It felt incredibly awkward, then, replacing my directive statements with informative ones. For instance, instead of saying, "Pick up that block," I would try to make the more cumbersome informative statement, "I see a block on the floor and it's clean up time." One of the basic ideas, Tom explained, was that unlike directive statements which tend to shut things down, informative statements create a space in which the kids get to do their own thinking, make their own decisions about their own behavior, instead of merely engaging in the power struggle that inevitably emerges from being bossed around. It made sense to me even while it felt strange and artificial. It was true, I couldn't help but notice, that when I took the time to be informative, children were far less likely to push back rebelliously, and instead take a beat (which, I've learned means they are taking a moment to process the information you've given them) then pick up that block and put it away. 

I discovered, on my own, the truth of Tom's assertion that the ultimate weakness of relying upon directive statements is that, over time, they need to be escalated in intensity. I recall standing in our school's parking lot with a much more experienced parent as she yelled angrily after her kids, "Get your butts over here!" only to have them giggle and scamper away. When she grumbled, "I never thought I'd be the kind of parent who spanked her kids, but I'm almost there," I saw a glimpse of a place I didn't want to go.

And I still had doubts, even as I began to practice with my own preschooler, who soon detected the change in my approach and began to object to it as "teacher talk." I felt a little guilty, like a magician letting the public in on my trick, as I explained to her what I was trying to do. I remember my five-year-old agreeing that it sounded like a good idea. She especially appreciated that I wouldn't be bossing her around, even suggesting she would be happy to help me by pointing out when I slipped up. I thought for sure that I'd ruined everything by letting the cat out of the bag, but if anything, the opposite happened. She became my ally in making "teacher talk" a more natural part of my day-to-day language until I've arrived at a point in my life when parents refer to "Teacher Tom magic." 

And still, despite all the evidence, despite all my ever-increasing expertise in using it, I was suspicious that the technology of treating children as fully formed human beings would stop working as they got older and more sophisticated. 

The father of one of my daughter's classmates was a high school teacher, a good one by all accounts; jovial, casual, humorous. I think I would have liked being in his class. As our kids approached middle school he explained his philosophy of dealing with teens to me: "Oh, I'm their best friend until they cross the line, then Bam! I come down like a house of bricks." By this time, I'd become quite confident in the use of my "teacher talk" technology when it came to preschoolers, had seen its effectiveness with my own eyes, had even customized it for my own use, but listening to this guy who everyone admired, I wondered if maybe I was, at least as a parent, going to need to adopt some of this "house of bricks" technique as my own. Well, here I am today, the parent of an adult child, a kid who capably navigated all the regular high school stuff we worry about, and I never felt the need to "come down" like a house of bricks. In fact, just as I did when she was five, I found it much more productive to lay it all out for her as honestly and informatively as possible, revealing my emotions, my dilemma as a parent, my concerns for her safety or her morals or her future or her reputation or whatever. No one makes great decisions all the time, but she's had a lifetime of practice, and most of the time she comes up with perfectly reasonable solutions.

None of this is magic. Like all technology it still works, often even better, when everyone knows how it works.

I've now come to a point at which I have complete trust in the technology of treating children like fully formed human beings. Indeed, it's a technology that works on all fully formed human beings no matter what their age and it starts with the assumption that I can never, whatever your age, command you into doing anything. My primary responsibility is to speak informatively, and to leave a space in which thinking can take place.

And still people say to me, "You're lucky. You teach privileged children," often insisting that there are some children out there who are so "damaged," who have had so little love or attention or whatever in their lives that they are somehow not ready to be treated as fully formed humans, that they need commands and punishment; that they need to learn obedience. I'm left with nothing to say, of course, because they're right in the sense that I teach the children I teach, and without a classroom of older, more damaged kids with whom to experiment, I have nothing but "Sez you!" on which to fall back. Still, I will say that much of the damage probably comes from being either abused or neglected, neither of which will be repaired by being bossed around.

This brings me around to an old article I want to share with you, especially those who doubt this technology, who tend to dismiss it as "namby pamby" or "weenie," even if they are just shadows of words that haunt you when things aren't going well with the fully formed human beings with whom you are interacting. This is a long article about a high school that its principal describes as "the dumping ground," one that was once run by gangs. It's a story about how "punishing misbehavior just doesn't work. You're simply adding trauma to an already traumatized kid." It's the story of how magically this technology is working when applied to poor, disadvantaged, abused, and neglected kids.

The first time that principal Jim Sporleder tried the New Approach to Student Discipline at Lincoln High School in Walla Walla, WA, he was blown away. Because it worked. In fact, it worked so well that he never when back to the the Old Approach to Student Discipline.

If you have any doubts, and even if you don't, this is the article to read. There's a lot great information in here; science about how and why the technology works, even on the most "hardened" kids. If you're already a devotee of this technology, it's still worth the time. This is not written to tug at the heartstrings, but it did mine. I found myself tearing up over and over at the epiphanies of teachers and students, at how they had to overcome a lifetime of believing in the myth of "tough love" and "punishment with dignity," at how the "magic trick" is being revealed to the kids themselves making them experts in their own "recovery." It's a story of teachers and children learning to use this technology together to change their lives, one they all say "is just the beginning." It's my story as well.

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If We Are Afraid Of Play, We Are Afraid Of Freedom

From author and research professor Peter Gray:

Creativity is nurtured by freedom and stifled by the continuous monitoring, evaluation, adult-direction, and pressure to conform that restrict children's lives today. In the real world few questions have one right answer, few problems have one right solution; that's why creativity is crucial to success in the real world. But more and more we are subjecting children to an educational system that assumes one right answer to every question and one correct solution to every problem, a system that punishes children (and their teachers too) for daring to try different routes.

A couple days ago I commented on a Facebook post from Minnesota Senator Al Franken, crowing about the recent passage of the new version of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the 2002 law that ushered in our current era of continuous monitoring, evaluation, adult-direction, and pressure to conform, not to mention high stakes standardized testing in our schools. I wrote:

Oh come on, Al Franken, this re-authorization of NCLB keeps all the worst aspects of the old law intact. As a teacher, I'm disgusted that we missed this opportunity to actually improve our schools. None of you listen to what teachers have to say about education. None of you. This is the only bi-partisan thing in Washington and both parties are wrong. We will continue to opt out of the high stakes standardized testing coal mines that use child labor to enrich corporations like Pearson.

Here is a piece from the Washington Post detailing the "big problems" with the new law, but from where I sit it appears that the only substantial difference between this one and the old one is that the federal government's control has been shifted to the states (where it belongs), without touching any of the other more heinous aspects. In fact, there are a number of toxic additions, including an emphasis being placed on venture philanthropy funded teacher training, which greatly lowers the standards for teacher education programs. That's right, these geniuses have decided to lower teaching standards as a way to improve schools. Or, to put it another way, they are still trying to de-professionalize teaching so they can bust unions and pay teachers even less. I mean, just check out what's going on with charter schools these days, the original union busting, low paying wedge designed to turn teaching into a subsistence occupation.

And, again, teachers and parents were not consulted. According to research cited by Gray, America's children have seen a steep decline in creativity since the 1980's, which he links to the decline in free play. It's not just our schools, of course, that have evolved into creativity squashing machines, but they are leading the way, causing parents to worry that junior isn't keeping up, resulting in even more structured time, more dependence upon adults, trouble regulating their emotions, and less skill in working with others, on top of lowered creativity. In the end, we have adults not prepared for the real world.

Adults have to stop trying to darn hard to control how children play. Indeed, we seem to have grown afraid of free play and in our fear, we are preventing our children from learning life's most important lessons in a way humans are designed to learn. We seem, as a society to have grown afraid of play. And if we are afraid of play, then we are afraid of freedom. And then what do we have?

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None Of Us

None of us are responsible for the Planned Parenthood shooting.

None of us are responsible for San Bernardino, Columbine, or Sandy Hook.

None of us are responsible for poverty.

None of us are responsible for inequality.

None of us are responsible for the next war.

None of us are responsible for abused children, abused spouses, abused nursing home patients.

None of us are responsible for slavery, the Holocaust, or the day when this planet is no longer habitable by humans.

None of us are responsible for any of it. It just happened and is happening and it's horrible and none of us are responsible. None of us pulled any triggers or gassed any Jews.

That's right, none of us are responsible.

If you think it's about evil, then pray night and day because that's the only thing that can save us.

If you think it's about education, then teach night and day because that's the only thing that can save us.

If you think it's about science, then research night and day because that's the only thing that can save us.

If you think it's about community, then get out there and engage your community night and day because that's the only thing that can save us.

If you think it's about love, then love night and day because that's the only thing that can save us.

If you think it's about all of us, then we might just get somewhere.

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The Yellowland Experiment

The way we do school at Woodland Park is for all of us to be learners, children and adults, which means I expect everyone to be playing. That's why we so often refer to ourselves as a learning community.

One of the key aspects of play is the experiment, asking the question "Can I do it?" or "What if?" or "How does that work?" then going about answering it through our play. This week, I've been running an experiment I've been thinking of as the "Yellowland Experiment," with the underlying question being simply, "What will happen?"

At the beginning of each of the morning or afternoon sessions, I've started my day by commandeering the yellow Duplo platform, calling it "Yellowland," then proceed to build upon it using only yellow blocks. When children come to sit with me, many asking, "What are you doing?" I've said, "I'm building Yellowland." A few have shrugged and moved on to other things, but most have stopped to at least watch me. Many have dropped to their knees to help.

"I have a yellow one!"

"That can go in Yellowland."

By this time of year, we've all pretty much figured out to respect one another's creations, to not knock it down or take away or add to without a discussion. I've been saying, "You can help me build it, but you can't help me knock it down," which has become something of a mantra in the block area this year.

"I have a yellow one!"

"Hmm, that's mostly yellow," I replied when appropriate, "But I see a little red strawberry on the side. I don't want red in Yellowland." 

"I have a yellow one!"

"Hmm, that's mostly yellow, but I see some blue letters on it. I don't want blue in Yellowland."

Other children have taken inspiration from me, asserting that they were going to create "Blueland" or "Greenland" or "Rainbowland."

I've been spending five or ten minutes setting up the experiment like this, then walking away, leaving Yellowland to the children. Another block area ethic we've developed is that if you walk away, others can knock it down or take away or add to without a discussion, unless you make special arrangements. I made none.

For eight play sessions, I've then been circling back periodically to check on Yellowland. In some cases, children have continued to add to it, taking ownership of it, and adhering closely to my original conditions.

"No! That can't go in Yellowland. It has an eyeball on it!"

"Hey, no red in Yellowland!"

"I found a whole bunch of yellow pieces in this box!"

One day, a group of kids had set up an entire scenario in which non-yellow blocks were arranged around Yellowland as if they wanted in, but were being kept out by the ad hoc segregation laws I had created. In another scenario some children had taken on the role of delivering yellow pieces in toy trucks and Duplo trains while others then added them to the creation like cranes.

These children had taken ownership of the project, having adopted my vision as their own, even expanding it without violating the fundamental principles of Yellowland.

Most of the time, however, when I checked it, I found that Yellowland has been pushed aside, perhaps a bit disheveled, but otherwise intact, not knocked down, taken from or added to. The kids had apparently decided to respect the creation even in my absence. How had that happened? Only a handful of them had been there as I'd first created Yellowland. Once or twice I overheard a child serving as a self-appointed protector -- "Hey, that's Yellowland!" -- but mostly it simply seemed that respect for Yellowland had been passed along from one child to the next until they all decided to just leave it alone. 

Yesterday afternoon, near the end of the indoor portion of our day, I checked on Yellowland and was surprised to find that red and green and blue blocks had been added to it. One boy saw me looking at it and said, "We ruined Yellowland." I could tell he was deeply interested in my response. I understood in that moment that "we" meant "I," and that this was an experiment of his own. How would Teacher Tom respond?

I said, "It's not Yellowland anymore."

"No, it's better!"

I agreed.

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Assuming Responsibility

Yesterday, as we were tidying up the classroom, I spotted one of our parent-teachers taking it upon herself to pick up the square platforms upon which to build with Duplos. She asked me, "Where do you want me to put these?" and I replied, "Back on the floor. The kids know where they go." 

I talk to the parent-teachers quite a bit about how clean-up time is the children's responsibility, but it seems almost impossible for some of them not to pitch in without a reminder from me. It's probably because they learned to assume responsibility when they were young. Many parents have told me how hard it is to not just do it, whatever it is, for the kids.

And sure enough, before long, a boy started collecting the platforms into a stack. It was a job he picked for himself. As he carefully stepped around classmates who were busy piling the blocks into storage bins, he hunted for the third and forth platforms. A friend took hold of the two platforms he did hold and, wordlessly, they began carrying them together, the second boy guiding the first toward the orange boxes where we often temporarily stash things during clean up time. They tried fitting them in one way, then another, until they figured out to stand them on end. 

Meanwhile a girl, the daughter of the mother who had earlier tried to do the children's work for them, picked up another platform, spotted the boys and asked them, "Does this go in there?" They both answered by pointing at the orange box.

I have never told these children that this is their job, but most of them, most days, assume the responsibility for packing things away before we move on to the next thing on our schedule. The important word in that last sentence is the word "assume." No one has ever accepted responsibility for anything under duress. Sure, commands and threats can motivate us to do things, but that's a different thing: that's an aspect of self-preservation, the most primal form of selfishness. 

When we assume responsibilities, we do it of our own volition: we do it because it needs to be done and we're capable of doing it, the most primal form of selflessness. One boy noticed the platforms needed to be put away and so assumed responsibility for them. The second boy knew where they belonged and assumed responsibility for getting them there. And the girl saw that there were still more platforms to put away and assumed responsibility for helping the boys. 

When we do things for children, when we command or threaten them, we rob them of the opportunity to assume these responsibilities for themselves. It's the difference between an act of obedience and an act of freewill.

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"Thank You, Santa"

In response to yesterday's post about the awful truth, several people asked for my opinion about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy . . .

My siblings and I grew up with Santa, as did my wife, and so did our daughter Josephine. It never occurred to me to "rob" her of the magical tradition. It never occurred to me that I was lying to her, although, of course, I was. I was only focused on the joy that this myth, and the myths like it, brought to her. When I was in Iceland recently, a nation in which some 80 percent of its citizens report a belief in fairies and other "unseen people," I had a wonderful discussion with a five-year-old about trolls. I value the magic of these fables and legends, indeed the truth embedded in the stories. It's why the ancient myths have never died, why we still tell the stories, even as we know they are not true in their particulars.

Still, there is the lying, something that some people find unconscionable. Some have even spoken to me of the deep resentment they felt when they discovered their parents had been lying to them. This hasn't been part of my experience, but I recognize that it has been part of theirs. For me there is a difference between lying to hide ugly truths and lying to create magic.

When Josephine was around eight or nine, we were walking together to the grocery store, and she asked me point blank, "Is Santa real?" In turn, I asked, "What do you think?" and she replied, "I don't think he's real." I nodded and we continued for a bit in silence before she asked again, "So, is he real?" and I bounced it back to her, "Do you really want to know?" We walked on a bit, before she replied, "No," smiling to let me know that we were now "in on it" together. If she had insisted upon an answer, I would have answered, but instead she chose to embrace the magic even as she had seen behind the curtain. To this day, I've never told my nineteen year old the "truth" about Santa.

Santa has been a major subject of discussion at preschool these past couple weeks, as he always is this time of year. I don't bring him up, but in the same way letters and numbers always find their way into the classroom without my help, Santa finds is way into our classroom even though we don't have a chimney. As a teacher, I have a different role than do parents, each of whom must find her own comfort level with the whole myth v. lie business.

I choose to play dumb.

"I went to see Santa!"

"Is he your friend?"

"No, he's Santa. He brings presents on Christmas."

"Is he your grandpa?"

"No, he's Santa. He flies through the air in his sleigh and comes down the chimney to give me presents when I'm asleep on Christmas."

"He comes into your house at night when you're asleep? That sounds more like a burglar . . ."

That kind of thing. I play the role of skeptic, often quite strongly. I express doubts about reindeer that fly and the fact that he can go to every kid's house in just one night. And the more strongly I play this role, the more strongly the children push back, so certain in their knowledge, their faith, that I cannot budge them even when I say it sounds like the elves are Santa's slaves. Often the kids who don't celebrate Christmas in their family traditions will side with me, sometimes with their friends. Some of our best circle time discussions have been on the topic of Santa, with children sharing their family tradition, mixing it with popular culture and their own imaginations, creating an entire world of possibilities about who Santa is, what he does, and what he means.

I do the same sort of things about the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, unicorns, and even Disney characters who come to visit our school through the conversations of the kids.

People have asked me where I stand on the lies we tell children about Santa. Well, this is where I stand. I have no recommendation for anyone other than to urge you to follow your own heart. If the lie feels like a lie, don't tell it; if you feel like you're making magic, revealing aspects of truth beyond mere veracity, then that's what you should do.

Just as I've never "told" my daughter about Santa, my parents never told me about Santa, which is why on Christmas morning, when I visit my parents' house along with my brother, sister and their families, there will be a stocking there for me. And when I want to express gratitude for the gifts I've received, I'll look at mom or dad and say, "Thank you, Santa."

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The Awful Truth

So we raise our glass to the awful truth

That we can't reveal to the ears of youth,

Except to say it isn't worth a dime . . .  

~Leonard Cohen

When my daughter Josephine was 6-years-old she reacted strongly to learning that the catastrophe of 9/11 had happened during her lifetime:

"You mean it happened since I've been alive? Why didn't you tell me?" I explained that she had been too little, just 3-years-old. She scolded me, angrily, "I want to know these things! I want you to tell me the truth about these things!"

It's a story I've told before, and one I'll certainly tell again. It was a moment that changed me forever; my wee, innocent baby demanding truth. Up until then, I thought I'd been the epitome of an honest parent, never shying away from her questions, but that moment, a moment that occurred as we approached the hole in the ground where once the towers of the World Trade Center had stood, caused my own conceit of integrity to collapse within me.

I hadn't told her about it, I thought, because I hadn't wanted her to be afraid. And now not only was she afraid three years removed, but feeling betrayed by her own father. I'm just glad she had the fortitude or courage or whatever it was to call me on it. I don't want to ever again be in that position, not with my child, my wife, or anyone for that matter. It's one thing when the world is crap. It's another to make it crappier.

When we lie, either overtly or by omission, especially to a loved one, we might tell ourselves it's altruism, but at bottom it's almost always an act of cowardice. It's us who don't want to face truth. When we say, "She's too young," we're really saying, I'm not ready to face the pain or the shame or the fear. 

We skip pages in books. We fast-forward through the scary parts. We distract their gaze from road kill.

I'm not saying that we should, unsolicited, lay out the whole unvarnished horrible mess before them, if only because we don't need to. It will reveal itself to them soon enough. Our job is neither to distract their gaze nor draw their attention to it. It is rather, out of our love for them, to answer their questions, to speak the truth as we know it, and to say, "I don't know," when that's the truth.

What anchors our children is not a sense that the world is perfect. They already know it isn't. They don't need more happy endings. They need to know we love them enough to tell them the truth, and to accept their emotions, to hold them or talk to them or just be with them. 

It's adults, not children who worship the false idol of childhood innocence. It's only adults who don't want to grow up.

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Learning Piles

You can count on it happening several times every school year: the kids just start heaping everything they can lay their hands ahold into a pile. Last week, the three-year-olds filled in a deep hole the kindergarteners have been working on in the sand pit.

I've heard other teachers, half jokingly, refer to them as "learning piles," these accumulations of moveable items culled from a loose parts playground. 

Sometimes they start off with "Let's build a space ship . . . " or some such thing, but as the game progresses it becomes about what else can we put in the pile. The pile in these photos is a small, tidy one compared to the ones the older kids make that include shipping pallets, old tires, tree branches, house gutters, and, sometimes, even the tables and chairs. There have been times when the project wasn't complete until everything that can be moved, has been moved.

These are never solo projects. Typically, there's a lot of teamwork involved, especially with the heavy things. Indeed, they are meaningful, emergent, child-led projects, these learning piles, that at one level offend my adult sense of both purpose and aesthetics. In fact, I sometimes wonder if this is why this exact process emerges year after year in play-based preschools around the globe: because the adults would never think of doing this in a million years and when one of these piles is being created, we tend to just stay out of the way. The only time we pile things up like this is in preparation for throwing the junk out.

But this is an opposite instinct at work. I've come to think of them as impromptu monuments to the urge to create cooperatively. And when the children stand back and admire their work, the look of accomplishment in their faces is inspiring.

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I'm Hoping You Can Help

I once wrote a book. It was a what's called a "work for hire" in that a publisher approached me to author a book to his specifications, in this case a tour guide for the city of Seattle for parents and their children. The publisher's idea was to publish one for each major city in America. It wasn't a bad idea, I don't think, but for whatever reason, he was belly up within a couple of years. By now, it's seriously out of date, but you can still find copies of A Parent's Guide to Seattle. Here's one for 81 cents.

My point in mentioning this is that it was a lot of work for very little reward. I put thousands of hours into it, between the writing and marketing, but it was worth it in the sense that my name was on the cover of a book, which had been one of my goals coming out of college. Not exactly what I'd had in mind (I'd intended to be the next Faulkner) but, as my wife says, "Better than a sharp stick in the eye."

The whole experience, however, left me quite ambivalent about the prospect of future book projects, but recently I've found myself considering the idea again, mainly because for the past couple years so many of the readers of this blog have asked for one. Up until recently, I took those requests merely as compliments rather than suggestions. I mean, after all, I'm already giving away all my best thinking right here every day. But a reader recently made a compelling case to me for why she would like to see an actual book and it got me thinking.

So, today I'm turning the tables and asking for your advice. If there was going to be a book from Teacher Tom, what would that look like? What would you like to see in it? What should I focus on? And, perhaps most importantly, in a world already full of books on parenting and teaching and young children, why another?

I love writing this blog. I am passionate about my topic, of course, but on a personal level I really love the instant gratification of publishing every day, of receiving your comments, of knowing that people find something in my words with which they can connect. A book is about delayed gratification and I'm still not entirely clear in my own mind why someone would pay for what I'm willing to give away. I'm hoping you can help me with that.

Thank you!

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