Listening

As many of you know, and especially those of you who have befriended me via my personal page on Facebook, I'm what is generally labelled a political progressive. I've been quite active, both as an outsider and insider having been a part of street protests like Occupy and Black Lives Matter as well as caucusing for Bernie Sanders and twice serving as a delegate for Barack Obama. I've often been quite loud about my convictions, using whatever platform I've had, be it social media, street art, or casual conversations in the supermarket to try to persuade people about my beliefs, to motivate them to act, and to generally push for what I consider to be the best way forward for my city, state and nation.

And yes, regretfully, I've engaged in my fair share of angry back-and-forth. Try as I might, I've too often slipped into arrogance, name-calling, and other unfair attacks on those who don't agree with me. And although I've made a conscious decision to try to remain friendly with people with whom I disagree, some have pushed me away, and frankly I don't blame them.

I've been doing a lot of reflecting on my role as a citizen since the most recent election. I'd be lying if I said the results didn't feel like a punch to the gut, but as I've recovered my breath, I've begun to recognize that maybe I've been doing it all wrong: the evidence is that I find the decision of approximately half of my fellow citizens to be incomprehensible. I'd always assumed that they were simply deluded, and they may be, but this election has made me realize that I'm at least as deluded as they are, perhaps more so. It's my responsibility to become less deluded and that won't happen if I just keep doing what I've been doing.

More and more I've come to understand that listening is one of the most important things we can do for one another. Whether the other be an adult or a child, our engagement in listening to who that person is can often be our greatest gift. Whether that person is speaking or playing or dancing, building or singing or painting, if we care we can listen. ~Mister Rogers

I've never been one for New Year's resolutions, so perhaps I'll call this one a "solstice resolution," but going forward I'm attempting to commit myself to listening, especially to those with whom I disagree. I mean, this is what I do all day long with the children I teach, it's the cornerstone of how I work with kids, so I know I have the ability to actively listen. It's not something one can do via a medium like social media, it has to be face-to-face. So, I've been breaking bread with people with whom I've argued, asking them questions, and listening to their answers. It's been hard for me to just listen, to not jump in to "correct" them, but it's getting easier, especially now that my goal is not to persuade them (as if arguing has ever persuaded anyone) or to win points (as if anyone is keeping score), but rather simply to understand.

And you know, it's starting to change me. I'm still a political progressive, of course, but I'm finding it easier to be less outraged, less insistent, less in a hurry. I'm fighting against my bad habit of planning my response as other people talk, but rather concentrating on really hearing them until they're finished; I'm still not doing it every time, but more often. If I can do it with kids, I can do it with adults. The key, I think, is to strive to love them even when it's a hard thing to do. I'm not writing this to make the case that I've become a better person or that I've succeeded at this, but rather as an acknowledgement that I'm striving to find for myself a new way of engaging in the project of self-governance.

I've been looking about for inspiration. I've found a great deal, for instance, in the dialogs between Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama. I've been studying video of Mister Rogers listening to both children and adults. And I've been inspired by things like this:

While you are actively learning about someone else, you are passively teaching them about yourself. ~Darryl Davis

Perhaps there will be a day for outrage and anger, but it's not healthy for that day to be every day. Fighting may hurt my "enemy" but it also hurts myself. Listening costs me nothing but my ignorance, and maybe it will change the world.

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An Important Project

If it's an important project, we all have to work together because, being important, we naturally want to get it just right.

First we made sure the giant tube is properly positioned at an angle that would take advantage of gravity while also forming an incline shallow enough that a human preschooler could properly position herself.

We thought she should be lower down the tube, with her bottom closer to the opening, but she objected, pointing out that she needed to be able to grab the top rim of the tube in order to remain in place. There was more back-and-forth about positioning until we finally managed it as best we could given the immutable realities of physics, our own physical abilities, and the mandates of theatrics.

We made a last check to make sure the channel was clear. Last time we tried it someone had messed things up buy shoving a big box up there. We weren't going to let that happen again.

After assembling a crowd of interested observers, a pair of us carried a large bucket full of tennis balls to the top of the tube, then after a countdown, we dumped them, the balls pouring out from behind our friend straddling the tube.

"She's pooping tennis balls!" we shouted, laughing. "Let's do it again!"

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The Return Of The Light

I've been walking home from school in the dark for the last couple weeks. I’d have to say that the short winter days are one of the most challenging aspects of life in the northern tier, but things are turning around. As we sleep tonight, the Winter Solstice will occur in Seattle at 2:44 a.m., marking the end of our ever-longer nights and the return of light.

Not to lessen the significance of Christmas, Hanukkah or any of the other festivals of lights, but this astrological event is the original reason for the season. The Earth is tilted on its axis at, on average, a 23.5-degree angle and today is when the North Pole is farthest from the sun, causing it to appear to rise and set in the same place. We call it the first day of winter, and while the days will now grow longer by increments until the Summer Solstice in June, the average temperature of the “top” part of the globe will continue to drop as the oceans slowly lose the heat they still store from the warm summer months.

Humans can hardly think without resorting to metaphor and there is none more profound than this. It’s not an accident that this is a time for reflection as well as celebrating new beginnings. It’s not an accident that we seek out the people who mean the most to us, family and friends, those we love and without whom we live in perpetual winter. It’s not an accident that Christians retell the story of the birth of a child, the son of God, the light of hope in a darkened world. It’s not an accident that we give one another gifts and wish each other merriness, happiness and cheer – the darkness is passing, buck up, light is returning, have hope.

Winter is often used as a metaphor for death, but the comparison is superficial. The trees may not have leaves, the forests may have been temporarily emptied by hibernation and migration, there may be fewer children on the play grounds and at the beaches, and it may stay that way for some months to come, but we shouldn't mistake stillness for death.

The word “Solstice” comes from the Latin phrase for “sun stands still.” We spend the rest of the year in motion, moving forward, making progress. But if we can hold still long enough to listen, we hear winter whispering to slow down, take stock, cut back, rest, tend to the core of what makes life worthy of its name. All is calm. All is bright.

Even the sun stands still.

(Reprinted with edits from the last seven Winter Solstices. I keep thinking of writing a new one, but this one still says everything I want to say.)

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The Things We Can't Plan

When our daughter Josephine was about eight-years-old she revealed a family tradition to us that we didn't even know we had. At the time we had a living room with a 15-foot ceiling and we tried each year to find a Christmas tree that reached the rafters. This involved traveling out to the Eastside to first locate our own (no easy task even on the tree farms), then lash it to the roof of the car for a trip back across the I-90. As the one responsible for securing the tree to the roof of the car this was nerve wracking for me. I mean, that's a big tree on a small car and I was never completely confident that my tying abilities would handle freeway speeds for the better part of an hour. And then there were the visions of the disaster that would transpire should the tree actually blow off, especially on the bridge itself.

Field trips to Seattle Center to play and see the winter wonderland train exhibit are one of our school's traditions. I wonder if climbing on the orca sculptures will be what these kids remember most.

That year we had already enjoyed our ritual cups of hot cider and stacks of pancakes and were preparing the merge onto the freeway when Josephine said, "This is the dangerous part."

I asked, "What do you mean?"

We made our own lanterns and took a night time lantern walk around Fremont, based on northern European traditions, followed up by hot chocolate and stories. 

"This is where you always say, 'If the tree falls off, we're not stopping and we'll just have to go to Chubby & Tubby's for a $4 tree.'" It made me laugh, albeit nervously, because in that moment I realized this had become one of our most reliable family traditions, one we came to call the "annual cursing of the tree," a name that would make even more sense to you if you could have been present throughout the whole day long process of getting the thing into the house, set up, and then decorated from atop an extension ladder.

We have other more conscious traditions, but none was as meaningful as that one, even as I was happy to let it go when we moved to our downtown apartment seven years later. Traditions and rituals are important to all of us even if we aren't particularly conscious of them. And indeed, most of us value the smaller, personal things, the ritualistic parts of our traditions that make them unique to our families or communities, more than the gala and grandiose.

It was probably 20 years ago now that the adults in our extended family decided to place not only a $5 limit on holiday gifts, but to put a special value on those that were hand made. We still buy toys for the kids, but the idea was to stop spending hundreds of dollars on things that people may or may not even want and instead spend the lead-up to our holiday making things rather than looking for parking at the mall. A few years back, Josephine asked if she could join the adults. And now my brother's oldest daughter has done the same as if moving up to expecting less has now become a rite of passage in our family. What an unexpected thing.

We may try to do it all, to match our celebrations to the wider social norms, to have a holiday like one sees on TV, and that's all well and good, but in the end it's the things that we don't expect, the things we can't plan, that give them meaning.

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Something's Wrong With This Picture

If you've been reading here for any length of time, you'll already know that I'm not a big fan of most playgrounds, especially those that are anchored by those out-of-the-box climbers. Sure, they can be great "destination" places to play, but they really only hold a kid's interest for, at most, an hour, which is why we don't have one at the school. We need a playground capable of holding their interest day-after-day and climbers tend to eat up real estate while offering ever-decreasing play value.

That said, Seattle Center, the 1962 World's Fair campus that is home to the Space Needle, the opera, Seattle Children's Theater, Pacific Science Center, the Chihuly Glass Garden, and dozens of other artistic and cultural institutions, recently installed it's new playground in the shadow of the Museum of Popular Culture, and their climber is spectacular. Of course, it's not "out-of-the-box" in any sense, which helps, and it has been consciously designed as a destination playground.

And we've made it a destination for our community of children a couple times these past few weeks. The thing is 35-feet tall, with open climbing ropes that put kids a good two-stories in the air. Several of our four and five year olds summoned up the courage to climb to the top, and it takes courage, even for adults, but only one of our three-year-olds succeeded, with most not even attempting it. It's got some real risk built into it and kids know it, which is, of course, what makes it spectacular. I think it was quite courageous of Seattle Center to build it given our cultural (and legal) bias against children taking healthy risks.

But, you know, that culture of catastrophic thinking is still strong. As we played there yesterday, there was one section of the place closed off with caution tape:

That's right -- a puddle. Yes, there was evidence of a bit of ice on the surface, but still . . . We live in Seattle for crying out loud, the place where puddles were practically invented. Stomping in puddles is half the fun of living here! I admire the new climber, but even so, there is still something wrong with this picture:

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The Stories In Which I Live

Yesterday, a parent posted this photo of our school in action on Facebook. 

It's a nice snapshot of how we are together. At one level it shows a moment of our life playing with one another, but for me, the more I look at it, the more stories it tells me of the past that has become the present.

We are standing in a spot that was two feet underground only a couple weeks ago. Our playground is on a long slope and the wood chips with which we pave our surface had worked their way downhill to the point that those raised planting beds just behind us were nearly overtopped. But over the course of a week or so, we bent our backs to the task of digging the garden out, children and parents, filling one wheelbarrow at a time. And it continues to be an ongoing project, especially on these cold days when our fingers are numb, because there's no better way to warm up than to dig a hole.

That plastic shopping cart in the foreground has been at Woodland Park longer than I have. I found it in a back closet where it remained except for one week a year when I set up a pretend grocery store in the classroom. When we moved to our current location, it came with us and filled a similar role, until last summer when, in the interest of freeing up storage space, it was designated a full-time outdoor toy. It gets use almost every day, a much better destiny for any toy. That red plastic wagon you see off to the right: pretty much the same story.

That large saucepan lid in the foreground was originally part of our "sound garden," something to bang to make noise. As cool as the sound garden was, it was a one-trick pony and like all one-trick ponies it needed to learn new tricks in order to earn its keep in our compact, urban space. It still functions as a kind of cymbal at times, but it also earns its keep as a container for "jewels" (florist marbles) and mud pies, a mold for sand castles, or, as was the case in its current position, a landing spot for a jumping game.

The large metal windmill you see behind my head with the swimming pool noodle vanes arrived on the playground along with us some six years ago. It started life as a performer, a giant puppet actually, that had been used by a local circus called Cirque de Flambé. The misshapen hula hoop you see in the upper left-hand corner of the photo has been placed around the neck of the dragon whose head emerges from the back of the windmill. There's a dragon wing on there as well; the second wing and tail are stashed away in a corner right now along with the proper vanes. It had been a set piece for a bit the circus performed based upon what many call the very first proper western novel, Don Quixote, by Cervantes. The dragon, operated by a system of pulleys would emerge, fully ablaze, at the crucial moment, representing the protagonist's inflamed imagination. When the circus went defunct, the windmill went into storage under a bridge, but is now enjoying a fuller retirement among us.

The table behind my knees is literally on its last legs. It was designed for life in a backyard, not the rigors of a playground used by 40-60 children a day. It was part of an inexpensive set of furniture we purchased when we moved, but quickly realized it wouldn't survive for our purposes for long. In the upper right-hand part of the photo, you'll see the set of very sturdy tables and chairs we purchased a few years ago to replace the rickety wooden stuff. They are made from recycled milk jugs. It's been five years and they're still as solid as ever. That said, I admire that cheap wooden table. It's been through a lot, having lived at different times in every corner of the playground depending on where the children dragged it. Preschools can and should run on garbage and cast-offs, but there are two places where, rickety table aside, it doesn't pay to scrimp: outdoor furniture and vacuum cleaners.

In the distance, you might be able to make out our workbench. It's down there behind the large dog crate that was purchased to transport my own dogs on airplanes. If you squint, you'll see an orange table down there as well (our back-up workbench) and then slightly to the left, the black frame of a large stand-up abacus. I'm happy see those objects in those places. They create a natural and perfect caution zone around the workbench. That's where kids use hammers, saws, glue guns, and other real tools. I constantly remind the kids that it is a "work area," not a "play area." The crate, orange table, and abacus serves as obstacles to slow children down when they enter the area, helping to remind them that they are entering a place where care and concentration are necessary. 

I could go on telling you about those tires or the storage sheds or where I see our next digging project needs to take place, but you get the idea. There are so many ongoing stories here and I've not even mentioned the children. I'm blessed that I get to not just tell these stories, but to live in them.

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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Obedience Is Not The Goal

Disobedience is not an issue if obedience is not the goal. ~Daron Quinlan

I have never been interested in obedient children. They tend to either grow into rebellious teens who are a danger to themselves as they try to "make up for" all that time spent living under a regimen of artificially repressed urges, or perhaps worse, obedient adults who are a danger to the rest of us.

This is why the children at Woodland park make their own rules. This is why we adhere in to the law of natural consequences. This is why we strive to avoid bossing the children around with directives like, "Sit here," or "Put the blocks away." This is why I actively teach children to question authority and why we celebrate when they engage in civil disobedience.

I have no patience for people who justify their authoritarian approach to children by arguing that it works. If I'm bigger and stronger than you, if I have more power than you, if I have more money than you, I can use that strength, power or money to force you into doing my bidding no matter how hard you fight back. Of course it works if the goal is mere obedience. It's a lazy, short-term, adversarial approach, one that will ultimately backfire, but sure, in the immediate moment threats and violence shut the kid up and make him submissive.

What children learn from authoritarian parenting and teaching is that might makes right. What they learn is to follow leaders, not because they are doing something great, but because they can punish you if you don't. What they learn is that someone else is responsible for their behavior and decisions, that the powerful know best, and that knowing "their place" is their highest calling.

Adults who have internalized these messages make wonderful cubicle and factory employees. They are reliable votes for one political party or another. They are easy prey for cults and crazies. And when they do find themselves with an upper hand over someone else, like a child, they are far more likely to wield that authority abusively because that's what, in their experience, the powerful do.

As a teacher, I am always looking for ways to give away whatever power is implied by that title, to let the children be in charge of their own learning, of their own bodies, of their own small society. I want them to make the "right" decisions, not because I've told them so, but because they have learned through experience that it is the right decision. I want them to know that they are always responsible for their own behavior. I want them to know that their feelings, their thoughts, and their opinions are just as important as anyone else's.

I want them to know, most of all, that this is true even for people who are stronger, more powerful or wealthier. I want them to grow to be adults who make their own decisions and will not be pushed around.

And yes, it's often more work for the loving adults in a child's life, but man, it's worth it.

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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