Institutionalized Child Abuse

Last year at this time Seattle's Public School teachers were on strike. They had a list of demands, most of which were ultimately met, including the requirement that all elementary school children receive a minimum of 30 minutes a day on the playground. As pathetic as that victory might sound to those of us who live and work in the world of play-based education, some schools were limiting their charges to 15 minutes of recess over a school day. This is not an uncommon phenomenon in America and indeed many other parts of the world.

As heartlessly cruel as this sounds, it's the result of administrators and teachers who have bought into the entirely unsupported myth that more "instruction time" will result in "better results," and that every moment of free play, especially outdoors, is a waste of time. Meanwhile, 17 million children worldwide have been prescribed addictive stimulants (like Ritalin), antidepressants and other mind-altering drugs for "educational" and behavioral problems, over half of them in the US. Already one in ten American students are on these drugs and the fastest growing segment are children five and under.

And now this from the UK: 

Tests to assess . . . children's physical development at the start of the first school year found that almost a third to be "of concern" for lack of motor skills and reflexes. Almost 90 per cent of children demonstrated some degree of movement difficulty for their age . . . The tests suggest up to 30 per cent of children are starting school with symptoms typically associated with dyslexia, dyspraxia, and ADHD -- conditions which can be improved with correct levels of physical activity, experts say.

What's to blame? Lack of physical play is a big part of it, but there's more. According researcher Dr. Rebecca Duncombe:

"Young children have access to iPads and are much more likely to be sat in car seats or chairs . . . But the problem can also be attributed to competitive parenting -- parents who want they children to walk as soon as possible risk letting them miss out on key mobility developments which help a child to find their strength and balance."

And why do we have competitive parenting: because our schools, indeed our entire educational environment, is built around the idea of competition; around the cruel caution that "You don't want your child to fall behind." Bill Gates has succeeded in "unleashing powerful market forces" on our children and this is the result. Because we have to get them ready for the "competitive job market of tomorrow," we've herded them indoors, where they spend their days locked in being force-fed "knowledge" like it's some sort of factory farm. It's so bad that we have to drug them. It's so bad that  90 percent of our four-year-olds aren't even getting the opportunity to learn how to move their bodies properly. The only other human institutions of which I'm aware that regularly drug and confine people are prisons and mental wards.

Instead of understanding the truth about young children -- that they need to move their bodies, a lot, and preferably outdoors -- we have created a very, very narrow range of "normal" into which we are forcing our children. This is outrageous. It's malpractice. And it's on all of us for letting it happen.

I usually try to end these posts on a positive or hopeful note, but the best I can do right now is to say that at least Seattle's Public School kids are getting their 30 minutes outdoors this year . . . Unless, of course, they are being punished, because taking away recess is one of the more common "consequences" for children who can't sit still and focus. And if they fail too often, we drug them.

Parents: the more time your child spends outdoors, playing, the smarter she will be. Create it at home and demand if from our schools. Teachers: the more time your students spend outdoors, playing, the smarter they will be. Create it at school and demand more of it from your administrators. This is the science. This is what we know about children. What's happening now is nothing short of institutionalized child abuse and we're all a part of permitting it to happen.

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Journey And Quest

It was her first day playing on our playground. 

I was hanging around the swing set near the top of the slope that defines our entire outdoor space. She said to me, "I want some wood."

I answered, "I'll show you where we keep it" and walked with her down the hill to the workbench were I pointed out our collection of scrapes. She picked out piece from a picture frame.

I watched her carry her wood to the play house, then around it, as if looking for something.

Her mother was standing nearby, watching her daughter as well. I said to her, "She told me she needed some wood."

"Oh, I think she wanted that because she was going to try using the vices on the work bench. I thought she had forgotten about that."

When the girl came back into view, I called out to her, "Here is a vice!"

Her face showed recognition and then determination as she got to work fixing her wood into the vice. 

She had had a question about herself and that vice. Not immediately finding everything she needed to answer that question, she had set out on a journey to find me, a person who she thought might have the information she needed: knowledge about where to find wood. She had come to the top of the hill, a place far enough away that she had gotten a little lost. Wood in hand she then continued her quest on her own, finally achieving it, answering the question that had sent her on that journey in the first place.

Children asking their own questions, then setting out to answer them: this is self-directed learning.

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The Enemy Of Learning

I went to kindergarten back in the 1960's. We played outdoors, built with blocks, pretended, and made some art. I don't think there was any particular curriculum or ideology behind the program offered by Mrs. Jennings and Mrs. Ruiz. We mostly played, much like the kids do at Woodland Park, although I remember one classroom project in which we sat around tables, each responsible for coloring in a part of a train -- box cars, coal cars, passenger cars. I got the engine. Mrs. Jennings gave very specific instructions about how to color our pictures. We were to strive to color side-to-side, using only horizontal motions, and to stay within the lines.

It was the kind of project I always enjoyed. To this day I love the challenge of creating artwork that requires fine motor deftness and precision. I chose to make my engine mostly red and was quite impressed with how wonderful the finished product looked. I'd already learned to take aesthetic pleasure in staying within the lines, but the whole horizontal coloring concept was an epiphany to me, a concept I employed in coloring projects throughout the rest of my youth.

The following day we arrived at school to find that Mrs. Jennings had taped our individual pictures to the wall to create a train, my red engine at the front. I was proud of that engine, but man was I appalled at my classmates' work. Most of them had failed to stay within the lines, and from what I could tell only I had adhered to the horizontal coloring method. Yet there was Mrs. Jennings, not scolding anyone, not correcting anyone, not making anyone do it over, but rather enthusing about the beautiful train we had made together.

Of course, today I can see that the problem was not with the other kids, but rather with my own expectations. You see, I was apparently a coloring within the lines prodigy, much in the way some four-year-olds prodigiously teach themselves to read in preschool, while most of their classmates are still years away from being developmentally ready for it. Mrs. Jennings instructions had hit the five-year-old me right where I lived, while it went right over the heads of most of my classmates: she knew this, which is why she didn't scold or correct. It's why she saw beauty.

The development of human beings, especially in the early years, is notoriously spiky. My own daughter began to speak at three months, but didn't crawl until her first birthday, and wasn't walking until she was closer to two. Some kids are capable of reading at an early age, some are genius climbers, others have advanced social or artistic or musical skills. Every parent knows their own child is a genius: every preschool teacher knows that every child is a genius. And we all know that every child is also "behind" in some areas. This is all normal and it's not something that needs to be "fixed."

Indeed, the range of "normal" is enormous. This is one of the most powerful aspects of a cooperative preschool. As parents work with me in the classroom as my assistant teachers, they come to appreciate this, and even, as Mrs. Jennings did, find it beautiful. And this is why a play-based curriculum is ideal for young children, it allows each child to focus like a laser her own personalized educational objectives in a way that meshes perfectly with her developmental stage.

Sadly, kindergarten, at least he public school variety, no longer accommodates this wide range of "normal." Over the past decade or so, kindergarten has transformed dramatically, and not for the better:

A new University of Virginia study found that kindergarten changed in disturbing ways from 1999-2006. There was a marked decline in exposure to social studies, science, music, art and physical education and an increased emphasis on reading instruction. Teachers reported spending as much time on reading as all other subjects combined . . . The time spent in child-selected activity dropped by more than one-third. Direct instruction and testing increased. Moreover, more teachers reported holding all children to the same standard.

The whole idea of standardization runs counter to what we know about how young children learn and develop, yet that has been the focus of the corporate education "reform" movement, which spawned this era of the federally mandated Common Core State Standards and high stakes standardized testing. The cabal that created this pedagogically indefensible mess, lead by Bill Gates through his foundation, have ignored what professionals know about how children actually learn:

To make matters worse, the drafters of the Common Core ignored the research on child development. In 2010, 500 child development experts warned the drafters that the standards called for exactly the kind of damaging practices that inhibit learning: direct instruction, inappropriate content and testing . . . These warnings went unheeded . . . Consequently, the Common Core exacerbates the developmentally inappropriate practices on the rise since NCLB (No Child Left Behind).

No, the goal of these "reformers" was never to meet the children where they were developmentally, nor to shape a curriculum around the way children learn, but rather, as Bill Gates famously said in an interview with the Washington Post: "(T)o unleash powerful market forces on education." You see, standardization makes it easier for businesspeople to develop products to sell to schools. The dehumanizing metaphor Gates used was to compare it to standardizing electrical outlets.

Mrs. Jennings understood, as all professional early childhood educators do, that children cannot be standardized like computers or washing machines or electrical outlets. Some of us can stay within the lines, but most of us can't, and that's what makes us beautiful.

Standardization is always the enemy of learning.

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Anarchy

Last May, I was permitted the "stage" for a few minutes at the Play Iceland conference in Reykjavik. In part, I spoke about what I often call "deep democracy," a term that for me embraces the sort of day-to-day-neighbors-talking-over-their-back-fences kind of retail democracy that was envisioned by at least some of the founders of modern democracy. Some folks complain that I discuss politics too much in this space, but I don't understand how I cannot share my thoughts and opinions on the issues of the day. If democracy is really going to work, or so goes my theory, it will only work when we all take part, daily, discussing the issues with our families, friends, neighbors, and colleagues whenever we come together. In part, of course, we seek to persuade one another, but more importantly, the goal ought to be to simply understand one another.

Yesterday's post about how the community of children resolved a festering problem, I think, is an excellent example of what I mean by the term "deep democracy."

Immediately after my talk in Iceland, I was sitting at dinner with one of the other presenters who asked, "You talk about democracy, but aren't you really talking about anarchy?" I knew he meant the term "anarchy" in the academic sense, as a political ideology. I had studied the writings of Emma Goldman and others at university and had a general idea of what he was talking about. I also know that the term can refer to any number of strains of political thought that range right across our modern political spectrum, all of which intersect at the ideas of self-governance, voluntary participation, and a lack of leaders or permanent hierarchy. I answered that I reckoned he was right, that my democratic idealism tended in the direction of anarchy, in the best, most utopian sense of that word. I said, "I've never thought about it before, but I guess I tend to use the term 'deep democracy' because 'anarchy' has become a non-starter for a lot of people."

In response to yesterday's post, several commenters wondered why adults can't be more like those kids who were able to listen to one another and come to agreements without having any sort of compulsion. Part of the answer to that is that we adults have been conditioned to turn to "the rules" as the tool for organizing ourselves, while children tend to view them simply as one of the tools at their disposal. Of course, in our case, our classroom rules are made by the children via a process of consensus and implied in that is the idea that those rule, those agreements we've made with one another, are a living breathing thing, subject to change should circumstances call for it. Indeed, as we live with our agreements, as these children had for the better part of two full school years, we come to at least intuitively understand that the rules will always be inadequate for every circumstance. And since physical violence (which the children usually reject on day one) and the compulsion of hierarchy are off the table, what we're left with is to talk and to listen.

At our all-school spring orientation meeting earlier this week, with the entire parent community together, speaker after speaker emphasized that this is "our" community; that this is "your" community. The ideals of "deep democracy," of anarchy, stand at the heart of not only how we run our classrooms, but also our organization as a whole. I sometimes joke that we're actually a communist society, because sometimes it looks like that as well, as those of us with the wherewithal or the time or the energy carry the burden for those who, for whatever reason, can't carry their share. Yes, sometimes we vote on things, but for most of us, most of the time, we make decisions via consensus, often after long discussions. Everyone may not always agree, but like the kids in yesterday's post, we are willing to compromise and even sometimes set aside our own "best interest" in favor of those of our fellow citizens.

Anarchy, democracy, communism, socialism . . . I don't really know what to call what it is we do: no one's the leader, everyone's the leader, we're all in this together, and we're all both equal and individual. It's hard not to reflect on what I know of hunter-gatherer societies, the conditions under which humans thrived for more than 90 percent of human existence, where life was lived in smaller groups, not exactly voluntary, but not compulsory either, and were characterized by a free-form, ongoing negotiation among people of goodwill whose continued existence depended upon one another.

The children don't care what it's called and perhaps neither should we. Life is best for the most when it's about talking, listening, and always looking for ways to agree. We can never expect utopia, but this is the only way we will ever approach it. I suppose I'll keep calling it "deep democracy," but it probably doesn't need a name because, at bottom, it's not about theory, but rather a day-to-day practice, which stands at the heart of what we try to do in our school.

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"Because Francis Doesn't Like It"

Most years, there are certain play themes chosen by our five year old boys that cause concern. Usually, it's some version of "bad guy" play -- pirates, zombies, spies, superheroes. A couple years back, they were going with the generic "bad guy," which largely played itself out as making fierce faces, posing threateningly, and attempting to capture one another, although it sometimes took the form of attempting to dam up the "river" others are creating in the sand pit.

Typically, the concerns come up because other children begin to report, either to me or to their parents at home, that they're afraid of the "bad guys." It's a delicate balance between the perfectly normal interest of some children to explore the dark side of power and human nature and the perfectly valid desire to not be fearful at school, especially given that some kids are still working out the line between "real" and "pretend." Our parent community had been discussing the subtleties of how we should address this balance for a couple months, both formally and informally, and we had engaged in a lot of playground the circle time discussions among the kids as well, but one day Francis brought things to a head by proposing that we make a new rule: "No bad guys."

The children at Woodland Park make their own rules, a process that requires consensus. When Francis suggested her new rule, dueling cries rose up from those present, one side supporting her and the other against. It was clear that there would be no consensus, but that didn't mean it wasn't a good prompt for a public discussion, one that I hoped would at least get everyone's cards out on the table.

Once everyone settled down, we began to take turns by raising hands and sharing our thoughts on this proposed legislation. It became quickly evident to me that most of the children were actually in favor of banning "bad guy" play, with a small group of boys committed to continuing their favored game. 

I said, "I have an idea, how about everyone who wants to make the no bad guys rule move to that side of the rug and everyone who wants to keep playing bad guys move to that side." 

Gio piped up, "And if you don't care, sit in the middle," a move of diplomatic genius given that he had friends on both sides of the divide. 

My knee-jerk idea had been to create a visual demonstration for our "bad guys" that showed that they were in the minority. Even with a large block of kids choosing the non-commital position in the center of the rug, it was immediately clear that most of the kids were all for banning bad guy play, with only five boys remaining staunchly against Francis' proposed rule.

I started with those in favor of the rule, giving them, one-by-one, the opportunity to tell the "bad guys" how their play made them feel, most of whom said they either felt afraid or angry. It was an oddly quiet and sincere five minutes during which everyone seemed to genuinely be listening to one another. As they spoke, some of the kids in the middle shifted to their side. 

When they were done, I turned to the "bad guys," asking, "And why do you guys like playing bad guys?" Each of them took a turn making their case, citing "fun" as their main support, although several made the point that it was "just pretend." A couple of the fence sitters moved to their side.

I then said, "We can't make Francis' rule because everyone doesn't agree, but some people are afraid and some people think it's fun. What can we do?"

After some discussion, most of which was just restatements of the already established pros and cons, the "bad guys" made what I thought was a brilliant and magnanimous offer, "How about we can be bad guys, but we act like good guys." This received widespread approval, but there remained a new minority of those who still supported an all-out ban. By this time, most of the kids were sitting in the middle of the rug, growing restless.

We had been at this discussion for quite some time, we had had a terrific air-clearing discussion in which everyone made their case, but now we were at a logger-head. It was obvious that the matter was not going to be addressed via the formal rules, at least not on this day.

I said, "It looks like we're not going to be able to make a new rule. Some people still want to play bad guys and some people still want them to stop."

And Gio piped up, "And some people don't care."

"And some people don't care . . . But I will remind everyone that we already have an important rule that we sometimes forget." I turned toward the list of rules we have mounted on the wall: "We all agreed, don't do anything to anybody before you ask them." I turned to the bad guys, "That means you have to ask people before being bad guys to them." I then turned to the rest of the kids, "And I want the rest of you to remember that it's just pretend and that you can always just tell the bad guys to stop." With that I looked back at the bad guys for their agreement on this point, "Right?" They nodded.

Later, when we moved from indoors to outdoors, I was prepared to help the children by reminding everyone about our discussion, but it was unnecessary because, for the first time all year, the "bad guys" chose to make mud soup with our playhouse kitchen supplies, while others swept sand back into the sandpit. 

It was clear that we had really listened to one another and it became even more obvious a couple days later when the mother of the "leader" of the bad guys pulled me aside to tell me: "Last night Henry said he wasn't going to play bad guys any more because Francis doesn't like it." And for the rest of the year the boys played "good guys." 

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Good, Bad, And Making Mistakes

She was swinging while wearing her Frozen-theme sweatshirt. The way her hair fell forward, it created the illusion that the thick blonde braid printed on her shoulder was actually a part of her.

I said, "Whoa for a second there I thought the Elsa braid on your jacket was really part of your hair."

She looked down at her sweatshirt, then back at me, "It's not though. Did you know I saw Frozen a lot of times?"

"I did know that, you told me."

"Did you ever see it?"

"No."

"You should. It's really good."

"I'm worried it would be too scary for me. I don't like bad guys."

She thought about that for a moment. "Hans is the only bad guy and he's not very scary."

"What about Elsa? Doesn't she freeze all of Arondale? That's pretty bad. I think she's a bad guy."

She smirked at me, "No, Elsa's not bad. She's good."

"But what about Arondale? That was pretty bad. And she froze her own sister, too. I think she's a bad guy like Darth Vader."

"Darth Vader is a bad guy, but Elsa was bad and then was good."

"But wasn't Darth Vader good and then bad, too?"

By now our conversation had attracted a small crowd.

A boy stepped forward, holding his hands spread before him, "Teacher Tom, Elsa froze everybody, but then it turned out she was good."

And an older girl chimed in, "And Darth Vader was good then he was bad in the end."

"Yeah," said the girl in the sweatshirt on the swing, "Darth Vader was good then he turned bad. Elsa was always good and just made a mistake."

I said, "Oh, so Elsa just made a mistake when she froze all of Arondale . . . Maybe Darth Vader just made a mistake when he went on the Dark Side."

She thought for a moment, then replied, "I guess so, but probably not. No body would like the movie if Darth Vader was good."

She had a point. I was then invited to "Look at me!" as she stood on the swing, signaling the end to our comp lit discussion of good, bad, and making mistakes.

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Human Connection

One of the opportunities that writing this blog has offered me is the chance to travel all over the world, speaking before audiences of teachers and parents, sharing some of my thoughts on play, learning, and children. My hosts always as me in the weeks prior to the event if I have any special audio-visual needs. Most people on this particular speaking circuit at least use a Power Point presentation of some sort, but I don't: I work off a stack of notes, about half of which are hand written, some on the pages of a college ruled spiral notebook.

I'm not a Luddite, but I don't like relying on technology especially when I'm not convinced that it will make things better or easier. I'm not convinced that it's an improvement to have people reading the wall behind me rather than listening to what I have to say and I've never experienced the kind of technological challenges that all too often afflict my fellow presenters when one machine doesn't talk to another. I'm not saying that I'll never include technology, but rather that I'm just not yet convinced that it can improve upon the proven formula of me, my notes and my audience.

I'm in front of an audience of children and parents almost every day of my life without the support of any presentation technology more advanced than a felt board. In my world as a classroom teacher, slickness doesn't count nearly as much as connection and, for me at least, the screens, slides, and projectors would just be something that stands between them and me without adding anything important to the experience.

In the Facebook comments under one of my recent posts critical of the charter school movement in America, a father sought to defend the good intentions of education dilettantes like Bill Gates by writing that Microsoft's founder and leader of the corporate "reform" movement had given every student in his child's charter school a tablet, as if this in and of itself, is a show of commitment to high quality education. This reader is not alone in his knee-jerk faith that screen-based technology is the future of education. Indeed, it's just assumed by many that computers should stand at the center of the modern classroom. This assumption is not based upon any sort of studies or research, but rather the shrugging acceptance that computers are everywhere else, so of course they belong in the classroom. And I suppose to some extent they do, but only as yet another tool, like a pencil or paper, not as a replacement for the teacher, which is too often the case.

Besides, if anyone thinks a man like Bill Gates would give computers to a school out of the goodness of his heart, they've not been paying attention. I'm quite confident that it wasn't just tablets he gave those students, but tablets loaded with educational software, developed by companies like Microsoft who see billions in profits to be made over the coming decades. This is venture philanthropy: we get you hooked on the technology, then, forever, you become an income stream as you must regularly update both the software and hardware.

There has actually been a lot research done on the impact of computers in the classroom and contrary to popular wisdom, it has overwhelmingly found that, to date, despite having spent some $60 billion on the experiment, the educational outcomes have been negligible at best, but in many cases outright damaging to children:

Tech in the classroom not only leads to worse education outcomes for kids . . . it can also clinically hurt them . . . students who have been raised on a high-tech diet not only appear to struggle more with attention and focus, but also seem to suffer from an adolescent malaise that appears to be a direct byproduct of their digital immersion. Indeed, over two hundred peer-reviewed studies point to screen time correlating to increased ADHD, screen addiction, increased aggression, depression, anxiety and even psychosis.

Writing in Time Magazine, Dr. Nicholas Karadaras, author of the new book Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction is Hijacking Our Kids -- and How to Break the Trance, explains how education corporations like Pearson Education are impoverishing our schools by flooding them with unproven technology while raking in billions, money that would be much more wisely spent on actual teachers. It's a nasty game they're playing at the expense of our children. I urge you to click through to the article: it links to some of the research.

As Karadaras writes:

We are projecting our own infatuation with shiny technology, assuming our little digital natives would rather learn using gadgets -- while what they crave and need is human contact with flesh-and-blood educators.

Unsurprisingly, Canadian research shows that children actually prefer "ordinary, real-life lessons" to using technology:

"It is not the portrait that we expected, whereby students would embrace anything that happens on a more highly technological level. On the contrary -- they really seem to like access to human interaction, a smart person in front of the classroom." 

This is why I continue to prefer my stack of notes and my felt board. The fact that I'm not going to help make Bill Gates or Pearson Education any richer than they already are is just a side benefit. I'm not opposed to technology; I'm just in favor of best practices and the research is telling us that the best education technology we have is human connection.

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On Labor Day

It's odd celebrating Labor Day in this country given the war being waged against labor by many of the most powerful members of our society, and the outright vitriol coming from elected representatives who malign working men and women as nothing more than selfish, lazy, union thugs. At the beginning of summer, on Memorial Day, you will find no shortage of people stepping to the front to wave their flags in honor of soldiers who gave their lives. But at the end of summer, on Labor Day, these very people actually become the "selfish, lazy, thugs" they condemn, enjoying a three-day weekend of picnics and family time, ignoring the thousands who gave their lives so that they can enjoy a middle-class privilege, brought to them by unions.

Indeed the middle class exists because of the Labor Movement, although it's not surprising that so many Americans are unaware of this fact, and can be so easily manipulated by politicians with anti-union agendas, because most public schools have relegated this vital piece of our civic history to a few paragraphs in text books, if it's taught at all.

And just because you don't belong to a union, don't think that your life is not better because of the long fight in which labor has been engaged on your behalf.

The very weekend you are currently enjoying has indeed been brought to you by people who fought and even died because of the radical notion that families should have time to be together, that children should not burn up their tragically short lives in sweat shops and coal mines, that mothers and fathers should expect workplaces where they won't be maimed and killed, that they should not be beaten, have their wages arbitrarily withheld, or be forced to work 61 hour weeks (the average in 1870, meaning many worked far more hours than that) with no hope of a day off. Oh, these were great times for business owners, but they were hell for everyone else.

You can thank labor for your employer-based health care coverage, your living wage, your paid sick leave, vacations, and holidays. Without a Labor Movement you would not have workers compensation for on the job injuries, unemployment insurance, pensions, anti-discrimination laws, or family medical leave. You would have no "due process," living at the mercy of your employer, who may well be a good guy, but just as likely is not.

Wages and the standard of living, even for non-union workers, in states with laws that support unions are higher; states with union-busting laws have lower wages and lower standards of living. That is a simple fact.

I've heard people argue that unions are somehow anti-capitalism (as if that's an inherently bad thing). Of course, I see how a strong union might cut into corporate profits (which are currently, even in this rocky economy, among the highest in the history of the world, in real dollars) but from where I sit unions are pure capitalism. Why can't individuals with a service to sell, be it teaching or steel working, ally themselves together to negotiate the best deal possible? I mean, it's certainly democratic. And isn't that what corporations do all the time with their mergers, acquisitions and strategic partnerships? If capitalism is just for those with capital, then it's clearly and fundamentally anti-democratic and should have no place in our society.

I've heard people argue that unions are somehow selfish. I find that a singularly silly assertion. Really? Selfish? People getting together for the common good, sticking together, sticking up for one another, acting in the best interests of "we" instead of "me." That's selfish? Yet somehow a corporation seeking to  squeeze every nickel out of the hide of it's most lowly worker isn't selfish? Please.

I've heard people use anecdotal arguments that union workers are somehow lazy. I have no doubt that there are actually lazy union workers, just like there is laziness in every aspect of life. But you've got to do better than anecdotes to convince me. The actual research shows that unionized businesses are made more productive through reduced worker turnover which leads to lower training costs and more seasoned workers, which results in not only higher productivity, but better quality. Actual research shows that higher paid workers forces managers to actually do their jobs of more effective and efficient planning.  Actual research shows that employers who involve union workers in their decision-making process see an almost 10 percent increase in productivity. Companies like Costco with a high percentage of its workforce unionized enjoy 20 percent higher profits per worker hour than anti-union bottom feeders like Sam's Club. Productivity statistics put the lie to the claim of laziness.

And as for the argument that union workers are thugs. Look at the history of the Labor Movement and tell me who the real thugs are.

I'm writing about this on my education blog because of the hits teacher's unions have been taking lately, in places like Wisconsin, Florida, Ohio, and Michigan, but really right across the country. In fact, more than just hits, they are under full-on assault, and not just from politicians, but by the corporate "education reformers," who seem to find, without any evidence, that those rotten union teachers are the cause of our "educational crisis" (which in itself is a myth made up solely to serve their agenda of high-stakes testing, privatization and the de-professionalization of the teaching profession).

I am not a union member, nor have I ever been, but I'm waving my flag today not only for abused and hard working teachers, but for all of my brothers and sisters who work for a living, who continue to fight for their fare share of this democracy, and who envision a better more egalitarian and democratic future for our children.

Union!

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Bringing Love Into The Classroom

When we enrolled our daughter Josephine in cooperative preschool, I explained how it worked to a friend, telling her that there was one professional teacher in the room and a dozen assistant teachers in the form of parents. She freaked out saying, “How can you let amateurs teach your child? I only want professional teachers near my child.” She feared that the parents of other children would somehow damage her child’s educational prospects. So while Josephine spent her 3 years in co-op, my friend's son attended a preschool in which parents were not allowed into the classroom, even to observe.

I could no more have made her decision than she could have, apparently, made mine. Even as a new parent who had no inkling that teaching was in my future, I knew I wanted to be there with Josephine as much as possible, and when I wasn’t I wanted her to be surrounded by the love of a community. I didn’t care about her having a teacher who could teach her how to “read” or identify Norway on map before she was 3, like some kind of circus trick, I wanted her to be in a place where she simply got to play with friends and be guided by loving neighbors.

The more I teach, the better I feel about my decision.

What parents may lack as pedagogues (and, indeed, many of them are masters) they more than make up for by bringing love into a co-op classroom. And as Mister Rogers puts it:

Learning and loving go hand in hand. My grandfather was one of those people who loved to live and loved to teach. Every time I was with him, he’d show me something about the world or something about myself that I hadn’t even thought of yet. He’d help me find something wonderful in the smallest of things, and ever so carefully, he helped me understand the enormous worth of every human being. My grandfather was not a professional teacher, but the way he treated me (the way he loved me) and the things he did with me, served me as well as any teacher I’ve ever known.

My friend also thought that our co-op sounded too much like “play school.” She wanted her child to go to “real school.” Again, as a new parent, my thoughts on the subject were not well-enough formed to answer her with logical argument (not that it would have done any good), but I just knew she was wrong. Today, I know that to undervalue the importance of play for young children is to make a tragic mistake. Frankly, I think that goes for older children and adults as well. The times in life when my mind has been the most shut down are those times when I felt compelled to do “work” prescribed by others. When I've been playing, however, even if dressed up as hard work, I've learned the most about myself and the world.

Again, from Mister Rogers:

Play does seem to open up another part of the mind that is always there, but that, since childhood, may have become closed off and hard to reach. When we treat children’s play as seriously as it deserves, we are helping them feel the joy that’s to be found in the creative spirit. We’re helping ourselves stay in touch with that spirit, too. It’s the things we play with and the people who help us play that make a great difference in our lives.

It’s love and play that form the foundation of a good education. Without that, the rest is worse than useless, it's meaningless.

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How We Live With The Consequences

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

~Robert Frost 

I was talking the other evening with a man about 15 years my senior with whom I've chatted on an irregular basis for the past decade. I don't know him well. Most of our relationship is based on sidewalk conversations about politics, although this time we were talking about a mutual acquaintance. I mentioned her career aspirations and he responded by telling me that, as a young man, he'd been accepted into the Air Force Academy, but had turned it down, in part because the Vietnam War was such "a horrible mess," but mostly, it seems, for lack of enthusiasm. 

"I could be a retired fighter pilot right now. It's funny how your whole life is changed by decisions that seem so little at the time."

I said what you're supposed to say, reminding him of the life that would not have been had he opted for the Air Force. "Exactly," he said, "I would have probably died in Vietnam. Still, you wonder."

The road not taken calls us all, although speaking for myself, I was never one to stand long and look as far as I could. Impetuosity drove most of the major turning point decisions of my life. I was young. It's in the nature of youth to leap. That's the way we're designed. If by some strange magic we could arrange life such that we got to make all our big choices in the ripeness of our maturity, nothing would ever happen: we'd all still be living in basement apartments below our parents' homes.

But I know what this would-be-retired-fighter-pilot was talking about. I sometimes wonder what might have been had I, say, not turned in my baseball cleats after a senior year in which I'd struggled at the plate, shrugging it off as not fun anymore. One guy I played with back then wound up with a Major League career. We weren't that far apart back then: that could have been me.

Of course, had I gone that way, I could also be dead, but who knows? I might also be a great and humble Hall of Famer who then chose to spend the 20 years of his retirement in a second career as a preschool teacher in Seattle with the exact same family I have now!

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference. 

As the parent of a teenager, I'm quite conscious of the decisions I made around her age that set me on the path of my life. She seems more clear sighted than I was, but really, no one can see beyond where it bends in the undergrowth. The parents of one of her friends recently complained of her son's perceived lack of direction, rolling her eyes, "He told my husband and me that we had it all wrong: he says we need to learn to not take everything so seriously." I didn't say it, but from where I sit a half century in, the kid's got it about right. Youth is the time to follow passions; to chase dreams. You've got nothing to lose and everything to gain. Believe me, there will be plenty of time later to worry about paying bills.

Whether road less traveled or no, we must each be left to make our own decisions when we come to those turning points. It's foolishness to suggest that the wisdom of age has any advantage over youthful impetuosity: a clear sight behind ourselves sheds no special light on the path that lies ahead of another. And besides, if there's anything I've learned, it's that the measure of a life well-lived is not calculated in the rightness of decisions, because in the long run it always comes down to the flip of a coin. No, the better part of living well means making decisions, embracing them, then making a life of the consequences. It's only in knowing this that we old folks have something to teach the kids, and even then most of what they learn from us is by watching how we live with the consequences of our own decisions.

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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