The Ability to Forget and Be Forgotten

In her book Monsters Claire Dederer considers the question of what to do about artists who have created beloved works of art, but who have also been revealed to be, well, monsters. Woody Allen is one of her prime examples. At one point she uses the metaphor of a beautiful piece of lace that has been stained. It still might be a beautiful piece of lace, but it’s nearly impossible to not notice the stain. 

Dederer points out that many, too many, of our artistic icons have turned out to be monsters. We all know about Allen, Roman Polanski, and Bill Cosby because their transgressions are relatively recent. Maybe we’ve even taken part in “canceling” them. But even if we don’t approve of so-called “cancel culture” I doubt that any of us can fully enjoy their work the way we once did – the stain is always right there. But many of us are unaware, or have forgotten, that Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and even William Shaespeare have left stains on their masterpieces. Do we forgive them because it happened so long ago? Or did we, collectively, just forget? And is forgetting okay? And if so, how long ago does it have to be for that forgetting to be okay?

As people who work with and care for young children, we are in the business of forgiving and forgetting. Of course, we don’t let a preschooler's missteps stain them. Even our teenagers get to leave most of their transgressions in the past, or at least they did until the advent of the internet where nothing is forgotten. 

Reflecting on my own teenage years, I'm happy that the internet didn't exist in those days. I don't know if I would be the man I am today if I wasn't free to leave my mistakes behind. Much of therapy involves dredging up those old memories and that will always be a part of social-emotional healing and growth, but there is a growing body of psychological research that finds that forgetting negative experiences is perhaps just as important to our social identity development because to remember every shameful or humiliating experience would be immobilizing. 

In her book The End of Forgetting, Kate Eichhorn writes, "I understand that forgetting can . . . be incredibly dangerous but there are times when the ability to forget and be forgotten is integral to social transformation."

I worry about our young people who are, increasingly, living in a world that never forgets. Growing up, we were often warned about how our behaviors would wind up on our "permanent record," but that was a boogyman compared to today. I can't imagine the pressure young people must feel to manage their reputations because a single slip-up can genuinely have lifelong ramifications. Risk taking is essential to cognitive and social development, but today, the stakes of failure are so much higher than for past generations that it's no wonder we are seeing what Jonathan Haight calls "the anxious generation." He lays the blame largely on a loss of childhood autonomy and smart phones, and I don't think he's wrong, but the prospect of a permanent record on steroids certainly plays a part in the rise in anxiety in our youngest citizens. The impact of "celebrity" on young people is well documented. Today, we have an entire generation that is faced with life "in the public eye."

One of the benefits of being allowed to forget our shameful and humiliating moments is that it creates the freedom necessary to transform ourselves into new and better people. That's nearly impossible if there are those out there who continually remind us about that one time we behaved like a "monster."

It’s been decades since Woody Allen was accused of his crimes. Has the stain faded? Should it? If we still enjoy his movies, are we condoning his past behavior? Are we forgetting about his victims and justice?

It’s easier to forgive preschoolers, of course, because they’re so young. Their brains aren’t fully developed. Even if they hit or bite or abuse a classmate, we don’t let that stain them. They’re not monsters; they just made a bad choice. They didn’t know any better. But when should they know better? There are teens who are tried in court as adults. I guess we assume that they should have known better. On the other hand, we commonly expunge crimes from the records of teens under the assumption that they have learned their lesson and they don’t deserve to start life with a stain. But today, courts may forgive and forget, but there is no undo button for the internet.

I don't think I'll ever forgive Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, or Bill Cosby. I remember what they did. Youthful indiscretions are a far cry from using one's position of power prey on the weak and vulnerable. That's a stain I can't not see. Perhaps future generations will be able to enjoy their art without condoning their monstrous behaviors the way I do with Picasso, Hemingway, and Shakespeare. Maybe I'll feel differently when they are in their graves. In the end, perhaps it's only then, when they can do no more harm, that we are able to start separating monsters from their art.

But no child is a monster. As preschool teachers and parents of young children we forgive and forget every day. Indeed, it's our responsibility to help young children move beyond their impulses, their mistakes, and their "monstrous" behaviors. From day-to-day we forget and forgive, setting our children free to live today anew as better people. 

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I've been writing about play-based learning almost every day for the past 14 years. I've recently gone back through the 4000+ blog posts(!) I've written since 2009. Here are my 10 favorite in a nifty free download. Click here to get yours.

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!

Humans Are Ultra Social Learning Machines

Most of us take it for granted that human beings are smarter than other animals. After all, we have exceptionally large brains for our body size, comprising, on average, about two percent of our body weight. But when scientists in Germany used a series of thirty-eight tests designed to compare our innate intelligence with animals we assume are pretty smart, such as orangutans and chimpanzees, on things like spatial awareness, calculation, and causality, we performed about the same. This doesn't surprise me, actually. Having lived with a series of dogs over the course of the past three decades, I'm convinced there are times that they've pitied me as a sweet little puddin' head, lovable, but not that bright, especially when it comes to things like being aware of a rabbit hiding in the shrubbery or understanding what they want or need when they could not be communicating more clearly. 

The only area of intelligence in which the researchers found that humans surpass our ape cousins is when it comes to social learning: the ability to learn from others. As Rutger Bregman writes in his book Humankind:

Human beings, it turns out, are ultra social learning machines. We're born to learn, to bond and to play. Maybe it's not so strange, then, that blushing is the only human expression that's uniquely human. blushing, after all, is quintessentially social -- it's people showing they care what others think, which fosters trust and enables cooperation. 

That we need one another in order to take advantage of our great big brains shouldn't surprise any early childhood educators. 

Other research, and most significantly, the Perry School Project, the longest running study of the impact of high quality preschool on the lives of children, finds that far more important than anything that can be measured by standardized testing, the traits most linked to children going on to live "successful" lives are the development of traits like "self-motivation, the ability to work well with others, and sociability." And the key thing that makes a preschool "high quality" is programs that foster trust and enable cooperation.

Too much of what passes for education today is about the individual, about shoehorning various kinds of trivia into their brains, then patting ourselves on the back when they can regurgitate it on a test. During the pandemic, when schools were closed and children were forced to learn remotely, we got a glimpse of what happens when we strip education of its social dimension. There were those who insisted that this was an opportunity to really figure out what kinds of shoehorning worked "best" without the data being "tainted" by the distractions of social interactions.

But without one another, without being able to see other people blush, without the ability to look into one another's eyes, without the information embedded in our subtle smiles, flared nostrils, or tensed muscles, we learn no better than apes. Screens are very limited in what they can convey. They make trust and cooperation far more difficult. The same for physical distancing. No wonder we were all so tired. We were working overtime to gather the social information we need in order to learn at full capacity.

Whether we know it or not, this is why "school" isn't working very well right now. We tend to think of our schools as places for shoehorning the old reading, writing, and 'rithmatic into their little heads, but its real value (beyond the economic value of child care) has always been the opportunity for children simply be together, to learn from one another, to practice being sociable, to cooperate, to develop the habits of working with others, to play, and to grow the trust necessary for their brains to develop to their highest potential. This is where or focus ought to be..

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Even the most thriving play-based environments can grow stale at times. I've created this collection of my favorite free (or nearly free) resources for educators, parents, and others who work with young children. It's my gift to you! Click here to download your own copy and never run out of ideas again!

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!

It's a Pretty Good Joke

There is no evidence that Albert Einstein said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results," although he often gets credit for it. Novelist Rita Mae Brown was the first to use it in print, although she probably learned it from Alcoholics Anonymous.

The Woodland Park Cooperative Preschool is housed in the lower level of the Fremont Baptist Church, a congregation that serves its community by providing space for several 12-step programs. There was one very early morning group that met in a room adjacent to the school rooms and shared our kitchen space. As I prepared for the children, I tried to honor their privacy, but I couldn't help but overhear much of what was said. Over the years, I got to know several of the regulars quite well and, to some extent, I was considered an "honorary" member of the group.

That quote about insanity punctuated many of the stories people told of their struggles, usually expressed as an if-I-didn't-laugh-I'd-cry-all-day joke. It never failed to raise a chuckle of recognition.

I'm grateful for that unique experience of preparing for the children against the background of these stories of former children. I couldn't help but think of it that way. Obviously, I strive to "teach" or help raise the kids in my care to avoid the trap of addiction, to protect them, to equip them with the coping skills and self-esteem that I hoped would allow them to not fall into this particular brand of "insanity." At the same time, I found myself chuckling along as well. This isn't just a caution for addicts . . . Or maybe we just need to expand our definition of what addiction means because I don't know any adult who can't identify with the sentiment, who hasn't found themselves once more digging themselves out of a familiar deep hole.

Recently, my wife and I went to an open mic event to support a friend. There were a couple dozen performers, one of whom recited a poem by Portia Nelson called "There's a Hole in My Sidewalk." It made us laugh. It sounded familiar and not just because its message was universal. This morning I awoke knowing where I'd heard it before. Years ago, one of the AA regulars read it to the group. It made me chuckle back then as well.

Chapter One

I walk down the street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I fall in.

I am lost . . . I am helpless.

It isn't my fault.

It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter Two

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I pretend I don't see it.

I fall in again.

I can't believe I am in the same place.

But it isn't my fault.

It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter Three

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I see it is there.

I still fall in . . . it's a habit.

My eyes are open.

I know where I am.

It is my fault . . . I get out immediately.

Chapter Four

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I walk around it.

Chapter Five

I walk down another street.

When we see this story playing out in the lives of others, as we so often do as adults who work with young children, it's so painfully easy to see it coming. We might even shout, "Watch out for that hole!" but they fall in anyway. We're frustrated. It would save them so much pain if they would've just listened to us. We're the adults and they're the children so we, of course, pull them out of that hole, dust them off, bandage their wounds, and hope that they now know what they need to know about that hole in the sidewalk. But more often than not, there are more chapters to come.

This is one of the most difficult parts of working with young children. On the one hand, we know that experience is our best teacher. As Oscar Wilde wrote: "Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes." At the same time, we're there to help and most of us can't bear sitting by as a child suffers and struggles, so of course we help them. We dust them off and bandage their wounds as best we can, then worry if we've somehow, in our solicitude, prevented them from learning what they needed to learn.

One of the things I know from my years of being AA adjacent is that none of us can do it alone. Indeed, that's what 12-step programs are all about. Of course, I want the children in my care to grow into adults who can "stand on their own two feet," but at the same time none of us are capable of doing that. Not all the time. We all have our sidewalks. We all have our holes. We all live our chapters. If we always steer them around the holes in their sidewalk, how will they ever learn to recognize the holes for themselves? But at the same time, who's going to let a child fall into a hole? It's tempting to want to help by skipping ahead to Chapter Five, but that isn't the way stories or learning works. Without those middle chapters the ending is meaningless. 

It's a tricky balance that we walk as important adults in the lives of children. Most of the time, I find it in viewing my role as a colleague or fellow traveller: two people learning together. I share my own experience as we go along by pointing out the holes that I can see, but I'm aware that there are an infinite number of holes that I can't see. Life is about falling into them and climbing back out: that's where the learning is. It's hard, sure, and painful, but it's rendered a little less so if we don't have to do it alone. If nothing else, that gives us someone with whom to chuckle as we start digging ourselves out, because, you know, it's a pretty good joke.

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Even the most thriving play-based environments can grow stale at times. I've created this collection of my favorite free (or nearly free) resources for educators, parents, and others who work with young children. It's my gift to you! Click here to download your own copy and never run out of ideas again!

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!

Cobbling Together a Perfectly Age-Appropriate Curriculum

Rog was in love with Marian, who loved him back. It was one of those cute preschool romances where children were exploring the loving adult relationships they see in their lives by acting out one of their own. But one day, Rog arrived to find that Marian had changed her mind. She was, she informed him, going to marry Titus instead.

Rog was frantic. He spent his morning gamely drawing pictures for Marian, offering her snack foods, and otherwise striving to convince her to change her mind. By midday, however, the reality had set in. In despair he threw himself onto the floor amidst the costumes, his head pressed into a corner. I went to console him, but he sent me away. When his friends then tried, he ran from the classroom and down the hallway. I found him in tears behind a door.

It wasn't so cute any more. The emotions he was feeling were real. I sat near him until he had calmed himself enough to say, "I want to marry her, but she only wants to marry Titus!" which cast him back into despair.

As he finally emerged into the initial pain of acceptance, I listened to him. At one point he had the idea of talking about it with the whole group at circle time.

This immediately struck me as a bad idea. Certainly, no one wants to share their broken heart with the world, but he was insistent so I told him that if he still wanted to talk about it when we gathered together on the checkerboard rug, he should raise his hand and I'd call on him. I assumed that after some time to reflect he would think better of it. After all, these aren't the sorts of things one wants discussed in public.

His hand, however, was up before we had even all assembled. When I called on him, he declared, "I love Marian but she doesn't love me any more. She loves Titus." I realized even as he said it that he wasn't telling anyone anything they didn't already know. Everything about their preschool relationship had been public knowledge from the start.

Marian confirmed Rog's assessment matter-of-factly from where she sat beside Titus.

One of Rog's buddies said, "That's okay, you can just marry somebody else!"

"Yeah," said another, "Marian gets to marry whoever she wants and you get to marry somebody else."

Rog made some comment about how he didn't want to marry any of the other girls in the class and his friend responded, "Well then just marry one of the boys. I'll marry you if you want."

Someone else chimed in that they were going to wait until they were a grown-up to get married and the conversation took off from there. We discussed love and divorce and how babies are made. We shared what we knew about body parts and their functions. Before long I realized that these children, in many ways, understood more than I had at 18.

You see, I grew up in places and in an era in which talking about relationships and particularly sexual ones was taboo. It wasn't a topic of conversation in my home, my church, or my school. Or rather, it wasn't discussed when adults were present, because we kids tended to share what we knew in whispers, which wasn't a lot, and even that was largely, and often profoundly, inaccurate. Pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, and toxic relationships were hidden away in the dark corners where we discussed them, in our ignorance, not knowing what to believe.  So we were left alone in the dark with one another.

There are still large swaths of the US where we leave our children to learn about sex and relationships in this way, but for the past couple decades, I've been a part of a community in which most of the preschool-aged children in my life come from families who are striving to normalize these conversations.

These children consoled their friend through frank, honest, philosophical talk, cobbling together a perfectly age-appropriate curriculum, supported by adults who corrected misinformation and refrained from judgment. Children don't need us to make their lives into lessons. Their lives already contain the lessons. I saw clearly that not talking about sex certainly stands among the worst ideas humans have ever had.

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I've been writing about play-based learning almost every day for the past 14 years. I've recently gone back through the 4000+ blog posts(!) I've written since 2009. Here are my 10 favorite in a nifty free download. Click here to get yours.

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!

Countering Alienation With Connection: Play Can Save Humanity

Yesterday, I listened to Pink Floyd's masterpiece The Wall. The album came out in 1979. I was a high school senior and on my way to university the following year. For those unfamiliar with it, the album was conceived as a rock opera and is the story of an alienated young man who responds to the slings and arrows of his life by building a metaphorical wall around himself ("All in all it's just another brick in the wall"). 

At the time, I appreciated it as a work of art that showed me a person struggling with mental health, who had suffered at the hands of society, and who was undergoing a kind of ongoing existential crisis. Although I didn't necessarily identify with it, I knew that there were many kids around me who did, who had not had the kind of privilege that I had lucked into. I was a relatively well-adjusted youth with decent grades, plenty of friends and lots to look forward to in life. That doesn't mean I wasn't inspired to "try on" the affectations of youthful alienation and angst, but it was never really me, even as I found myself romanticizing the moodiness.

The record came back into my life when our daughter Josephine was 12. The entire sixth grade was given the assignment to create some sort of artistic response to The Wall. It was a project that took weeks, so once more the album regularly played in our home. By now, I was an educator and the story seemed more tragic than it had when I was younger. I didn't think that I was one of the adults who contributed bricks to the wall. I certainly didn't want to be that adult. I wanted to be a person who tore walls down, both for my child as well as the children I taught.

Perhaps the best known song from the album is the anthemic "Another Brick in the Wall," with its unforgettable lines:

We don't need no education

We don't need no thought control

No dark sarcasm in the classroom

Teacher! leave them kids alone

Hey, teacher! Leave them kids alone.

At one point, a chorus of children take over singing it. Yesterday, as those young voices shouted, "Hey, teacher! Leave us kids alone," I choked up.

I've been involved with education for a long time now. I've always strived to do it the right way by placing children at the center, by not commanding or controlling or shaming them. I've tried, to the best of my ability at any given moment, to allow children to be free to do and be what they want to do and be. I've made plenty of mistakes. I've even made some children cry. But, all in all, I've tried my best not to be a brick in anyone's wall.

That said, there are still too many children for whom school does not work, who do not have the advantages that I had. Over the years, I've come to understand that for many kids, school is and was a kind of hell. We don't do anyone a favor when we ignore this fact. And we are especially irresponsible when we try to blame the kids themselves, or their parents, who are, in most cases, products of this very same school system that manufactures at least as much alienation as it does education.

Part of what made me cry yesterday was when those children shouted, "Teachers!" I imagined them pointing their little fingers, their faces stony with anger. I'm aware that there are some awful human beings in our profession, as in any profession, but all in all most of the teachers I've known are likewise not to blame for the alienation. Indeed, teachers are the heroes of our schools because we are the ones who inject humanity into what would otherwise be a hollow behavioristic system of carrots and sticks. From where I sit, any successes our school system can point to are the direct results of teachers who find it in their hearts to mitigate the harm.

Teacher-activist and author Jesse Hagopian once told me that school taught him that he wasn't smart. He had been labeled by standardized tests as being "below" some arbitrary standard and it wasn't until "years later" that he came to understand his own intelligence. Likewise, Kisha Reid, one of the world's leading experts on play-based learning (and emerging painter), told me, "Play taught me I was smart . . . It wasn't until I went to school that I started to doubt myself."

We tell ourselves that education is our society's great equalizer, that education will allow us to rise above and grow beyond, but for far too many of us, that is a myth. The world is full of people like Jesse and Kisha who have risen above the harmful tendencies of our system of mandatory schooling, with its relentless focus on deficits, but for every Jesse or Kisha, there are countless others who experience "education" as a wall to overcome or escape or, tragically, behind which to remain forever entrapped.

I cried yesterday, because I've been trying for decades, like Jesse and Kisha, to do my part to be the change I want to see in the world, but the central facts behind those lyrics remain. It wasn't that long ago that my friend and colleague John Yiannoudis blared that song into the streets of Athens, Greece to attract a crowd of hundreds to listen to me and others as we discussed our dreams for what education could be. More than 45 years later, those lyrics, those angry children, remain relevant.

But I remain unalienated, as does Jesse, as does Kisha, both of whom have countered alienation with connection. Jesse has built an inspiring career from "struggle" against the injustices of school and society, sprinkling his stories with the words "joyous" and "beautiful." Kisha has created a "circle of love" in which robust, authentic play teaches generations of children and their parents that not only are they smart, but that they can do and achieve anything their hearts desire. "Play," she says, "can save humanity."

The last thing our world needs is more schooling, more curriculum, more testing, and more homework. What we need are more educators like Jesse and Kisha, who stand up boldly and who, as Kisha puts it, "Step into our positions as professionals." It means educators who know what is right for children, who love children, and who are committed to tearing down the walls.

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Even the most thriving play-based environments can grow stale at times. I've created this collection of my favorite free (or nearly free) resources for educators, parents, and others who work with young children. It's my gift to you! Click here to download your own copy and never run out of ideas again!

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!

She Was Meant for Life

Many young children arrive on our doorsteps ready to attend to us, to what we point out to them, to sing our songs, to play our games, and to follow our lead. In standard preschool classrooms, these are our teacher's pets.

But then there are those other kids. These are the ones with their own agendas.

Miranda had no interest in toys. Dolls, blocks, and puzzles were in her way. Other children were interesting unless they wanted to "pretend." She had little patience for pretending. She preferred real things. 

As a two-year-old, she hunted out light switches, then pulled furniture over so she could climb up to reach them, flashing the lights off and on until someone helped her find something else to do.

Our vacuum cleaner was aces. 

She was so fascinated with our pencil sharpener that I wound up purchasing a whole collection of different types of sharpeners for her to explore. 

She liked tools of all sorts and would make a beeline for the workbench whenever we were outdoors -- she was particularly fond of screwdrivers and pliers. 

Indoors, she would sometimes engage with art-making tools like brushes, brayers, and scissors, but she was most often found in the kitchen where she insisted on helping with snack prep.

She would not sit for circle time. She played with the other children when they played with real things, but otherwise she was content to play on her own.

Our junkyard playground was her favorite place because, well, that's where we kept most of our junk.

The naturalist and author Joseph Wood Krutch was writing about the Sonoran Desert, but I believe his words apply likewise to every "natural" place, including those places like our preschool where humans provide the habitat:

"Perhaps the mind is not merely a blank slate upon which anything may be written. Perhaps it reaches out spontaneously toward what can nourish either intelligence or imagination. Perhaps it is part of nature and, without being taught, shares nature’s intentions."

Miranda could be a handful, but she was not necessarily meant for standard school. She was meant for life.

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Even the most thriving play-based environments can grow stale at times. I've created this collection of my favorite free (or nearly free) resources for educators, parents, and others who work with young children. It's my gift to you! Click here to download your own copy and never run out of ideas again!

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!

The Poopie Head Faction

I've always trusted preschoolers to make their own rules, or rather agreements, for the classroom. If you're interested in how this happens, here's a link.

I like this ongoing process of making agreements through consensus for many reasons, but not because it necessarily 'works' better than the typical method of adults imposing and enforcing rules. Just as our adult rules and laws are no guarantee that everyone obeys them all the time, our agreements are likewise no guarantee that everyone will abide by them all the time. 

These agreements are, as I see it, a kind of statement of intent: this is how we want to live together.

Agreements as we do it don't include the cudgel of punishment. The consequence of not abiding by an agreement is that someone -- usually an adult, but often another child -- will remind you. "I want to remind you, we all agreed, 'No hitting.'" Or maybe, "I want to remind you that you agreed, 'No hitting.'" Sometimes a child will need to be reminded more than once, and sometimes, maybe once or twice a year, I will say to a child, "You keep forgetting your agreement. I'm going to ask you to play somewhere else until you're ready to come back."

Most children step outside the play for a few minutes, then decide to return. Every now and then, however, a child will walk away and not return to the game that caused them to forget their agreement. These children are, in many ways, my heroes. These are the children who recognize that there is something about the circumstances that cause them to "break the rules" and choose to walk away rather than stay and continue to cause problems.

And sometimes, they are more creative.

Almost every year, at some point, the children agree to some version of the agreement, "No name calling," which we generally understand to mean that we don't want to be insulted. One time, several months into the school year, a boy I'll call Mike decided he didn't like that agreement. Specifically, he wanted to call other children Poopie Head. I told him, "If you want to change the agreement, we can talk about it at circle time. If everyone agrees, then we can change it."

I was still a fairly new teacher, but I knew that it was very unlikely that any, let alone all, of the children would agree to this. I like to let children learn things for themselves. And sure enough, the next time we gathered, he raised his hand and proposed, "I want to change the rule, 'No name calling'. I think we should be able to call people Poopie Head because some people are Poopie Heads, and I think it would be funny to call them Poopie Head. But I can't call them Poopie Head because we have a rule that I can't call people Poopie Head."

You get the idea. He was using this moment to say the words as often as possible and he was getting laughs, but when I asked the group, "Does anyone want to be called Poopie Head?" the response was a unanimous "no." Mike tried again the next day and the next with the same results.

Then one day, he spent the morning lobbying his buddies and by the time we sat down for circle time, he had formed a pro-Poopie Head faction. This time he got a handful of "ayes," but still far from consensus. After that he let it die down.

A couple months passed. 

One day, he handed me a piece of construction paper on which he had made marks that looked like letters. He was almost five-years-old, an age when some children begin to explore letter writing, so I said, "Wow, Mike! You wrote letters!"

He replied, "Read it."

I was expecting nonsense, but approached it phonetically, sounding out, "Erin . . . picks . . . her . . . boogers."

Mike roared.

I said, "Mike, you broke the rule," to which he replied, "I didn't break the rule. I wrote it . . . You said it!"

I had to hand it to him. He had found a way to insult his classmates while abiding by his agreement, but also, importantly, without hurting anyone's feelings. So we agreed that he could write whatever he wanted, but he was only going to show it to me.

At the end of the day, his mother arrived to pick him up, and, of course, I told her what her brilliant son had done. 

She shook her head, "That damn kid. He's been going into his room after dinner every night to teach himself how to read and write. Now I know why!"

Neither the children nor I see our list of agreements as final. Indeed, additions and improvements are made throughout the year. We often discuss challenges without coming to consensus. These are often our most important conversations because, after all, if we all agree, perhaps we don't need a rule at all. When we can't agree, we learn about the world from the perspective of others, allowing us to at least consider their point of view in everything we do.

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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!