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!

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

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"I'm Not Going To Move"

The other day I moderated a debate between a pair of three year olds that went more or less like this:

"I'm not going to move."

"I'm not going to move."

"I'm not going to move."

"I'm not going to move."

You get the idea, they went back-and-forth for probably two dozen rounds as I knelt there, occasionally reminding them whose turn it was to talk. It might have sounded to an onlooker that they weren't making progress in this debate over a square foot of carpet space, but looks can be deceiving. They started by arguing their cases fiercely, but with each round the energy dissipated a bit, until, by the end, they were merely mouthing the words as they gradually went back to playing with the toys they held in their hands.

We both want to drive our trains in the same place at the same time.

This is a pair of strong willed kids. Both of whom have had major "success" in their short lives with the tactic of being fierce and immovable. In most cases, especially with adults or older children, they've figured out that being fierce and immovable is a good way to get the other side to relent, at least a little, to concede something, but in this conflict, with pushing and hitting off the table, it was evident that they were both working their way through to the realization that they had each met his match. After a few minutes, they were back to playing side-by-side as if nothing had happened, neither of them having budged an inch.

For me, this is why we come to school: to learn to live in a community with other people, and a huge part of that is getting practice in dealing with conflict. I'm still reeling from having learned two months ago that administrators who were against the Seattle teacher's strike demand to guarantee elementary-aged children a minimum of 30 minutes of recess per day, objected in part with the rationale, When they have longer recesses, they get into fights. How crazy is that? If there's one thing I know about making this world a better place it's that we humans need way more practice in settling disputes without resorting to violence.

Then we figure out a way to make it work for both of us.

Woodland Park is a robustly enrolled school located in a small facility. When we're all together it can be crowded and noisy, just like the city in which we live. There is no way to avoid bumping up against the other people, there is no way to avoid conflict, there is no way to avoid negotiation, and there is no way to avoid learning about our own feelings and the feelings of others, which is the first step in becoming the sort of empathetic humans I wrote about on Monday. 

It isn't always pretty because at Woodland Park we strive to ensure that there is plenty of time in which to get into "fights." That's because we know that this is the only way practice such vital skills as standing up for ourselves and listening to others. It's how we begin to develop the foresight and self-knowledge that allows us to pick our battles and avoid unnecessary conflict in the first place. And it's how we begin to create the agreements and courtesies that underpin every thriving community.

This may not be the way the real world works, but it's how the world should work. I'm proud that we send children off in to that world with this expectation.

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

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The Truth About Teaching

I wish we could tell the truth about teaching, that it's really the simplest, most natural thing in the world.

I wish our profession wasn't in a fight for its life against deep pocket foes with a political or economic agenda, because this simplicity is really its beauty and joy.

For days, we'd been anticipating the wind and rain. Forecasters were sure of it: an atmospheric river was going to hit us and we were going to "swim" in it. And they were right, especially about the wind part. We took our parachute outside which is one of our favorite ways to play together with the wind.

We've learned to protect ourselves with an armor of jargon like every other profession as a way to sell ourselves in this sell-or-be-sold world.

At first we just held it together, feeling the wind's power, feeling it lift our arms and tear at our grips. When the gusts were particularly strong, everyone let go of their handles, leaving just me to hold it up in the wind as they danced under it. When I let go, the parachute flew over the fence and out into the street.

But teaching is not every other profession. I'm not even sure it is a profession as much as a calling. Because when we strip all that "professionalism" away, we see that the core of teaching is to love the children: every one of us knows that. And when you love, you listen. That's what teachers do.

It's when we listen with our ears and eyes and hearts that we can access not only their genius, but our own.

Again, they wanted to do it again, but by now the fabric was saturated, so when I let it go, the parachute failed to gain the height it needed to clear the fence and instead captured a line up of unsuspecting children in its cold, damp embrace. They screamed and laughed and I shouted, "Parachute attack!"

Teaching greatness is not a rare thing, I don't think, but it's hard for others to see because it takes place in intimate moments when we're down on our knees, face to face with the children, ears, eyes, and heart wide open. And then to try to talk about it after the fact, to try to satisfy the demands to make learning "transparent," we wind up wraping the moments of genius in words that detail techniques and strategies that describe only the surface manifestation of what happened because to say, "We connected," sounds too hippy dippy and namby pamby.

Again and again and again we did it. And when the wind died down, we shook our fists at the sky and cursed it for not giving us more.

Teaching is not a complicated thing, but it does take practice, lots of it, every day with lots of different kids, and even after ten or twenty years there's still a new thing to learn every day, its profundity often lost in its simplicity.

When we play with children, we engage them as they engage with their passions and curiosities, and when we listen with our whole selves, we notice instantly when that moment comes around, and then it's just a simple matter of making a statement of fact, or asking just the right question, or sitting quietly in the knowledge that that is what this child needs right now. How much better that is than to assume they are all ready for this particular knowledge at this particular time delivered in this particular manner by virtue of being more or less the same age -- what Ken Robinson calls their "manufacture date" -- then bang heads against the wall in frustration that many of them just don't get it.

To be a "gifted" teacher is really just possessing the knowledge that children are people and then proceeding to treat them like people, loving them, and listening.

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Playing In The Fallow Field

The bane of many school playgrounds, even the most beautiful ones, is that they tend to be fixed in time. In other words, their reliance on climbers and slides and other large, fixed pieces, means that they struggle to evolve along with the children's play. On the other hand, the "junkyard chic" style of playground of the sort favored by our Woodland Park community may not be as beautiful, but, by the same token, it is not nearly as prone to stagnation.

For instance, there is a corner of our space right now that's in transition. It used to be home to a sort of temporary greenhouse that a family donated, but, sadly, we never got around to using it to grow things so it instead became additional storage. The kids figured out how to open the zippered doors and would occasionally play in there, but because there were things inside that we adults didn't necessarily want them getting into, there was quite a bit of chasing them out, which was pretty much the main game we played over there.

With the advent of our new greenhouse, the plan has been to remove the old one and fill it's footprint with a deck that kids can use as a stage or whatever. The longer term plan is to then surround the platform on two sides with an installation of large, sturdy doll/fairy houses. I removed the greenhouse cover at the beginning of the year to signal the start of the transition, leaving only the frame, but that's as far as the project has gotten. In the meantime, however, we adults still use the area as a place to stash things that are in our way, like old tables, planks of wood, plastic tubs, and other largish things that don't have a proper home. 

Naturally, the children are drawn to this junky transitional corner of our space so much so that I'm beginning to wonder if we even need to proceed to our bigger plans. Maybe this is our destiny.

As I watch children play there these past couple months, swinging on the greenhouse frame, jumping from table top to table top, piling up junk into fortresses and castles, I'm reminded of the magic and power of truly free play. The adults hardly ever go over there because, frankly, its hard to walk around with all the junk, but there are always kids there in this corner of our playground that has been left to go "wild." The metaphor that occurs to me is the farmer who rotates his crops, leaving certain fields to lie fallow for a time before again planting them. 

I reckon we will eventually carry out our plans, but there is certainly no hurry. A good playground needs corners like this.

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

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