In A Matter Of Seconds

The boy was sitting atop one of our Tonka trucks, poised at the top of the short, but steep concrete slope that bifurcates the playground. It wasn't clear whether he was summoning up courage to take the plunge, carefully assessing the risk, or simply taking in the view, but having been around young children for a long time and knowing this boy in particular, I figured that the odds were on the side of him taking the plunge one way or another.

Normally, this would not have been a particularly fraught moment for me. After all, the slope was short, the ground was soft, the boy competent, and I'd previously witnessed hundreds of other similarly inclined children emerge largely unscathed. The monkey wrench in my calculations was the recent addition of a planting box not far from the bottom on the slope. That was an immovable object. 

If I'd come across an adult in a similar circumstance, I'd likely pause to watch without comment. I would assume they knew what they were doing. That said, I was explicitly responsible for this boy's safety whereas an adult's safety, while still perhaps on a moral or ethical level at least partially on me, wouldn't really be my concern. 

This is one of the filters I regularly use when considering my actions in relation to those of the children in my care: would I treat an adult the same way? And if not, why not? It's a calculation I make several times a day, often on the fly like in the case of the boy on the Tonka truck. I'm generally disinclined to impose myself on anyone, especially when it comes to telling them what to do. Still, I had concerns about his prospective plummet ending too suddenly and even violently.

I didn't want to rob the boy of the answer to the question he was asking about himself and the physics of the world around him. It was information that would likely come in useful for calculating future risks however this particular plunge turned out. Having survived this short precipitous slope on a Tonka truck, and the odds were nearly 100 percent that he would survive, it would become data for future risk taking. So allowing him to proceed was on the side of learning and longterm safety. 

That planter box complicated things. I personally didn't yet have any data on it. As far as I knew, this boy was the first to attempt anything like this since it had been built. This is the fulcrum upon which our days teeter as important adults in the lives of young children. In similar circumstances, many adults would simply call out, "Be careful!" a phrase I've stricken from my person lexicon being that it is both a command and so vague as to be useless. He was clearly already being careful. His long, thoughtful pause at the top of the slope told me that, but maybe I, in my larger store of experience, had information he could use, so I said, "I'm going to watch you so I'll be here to take care of you if you get hurt."

I said it because it was the first actual truth that came to me about the situation. He replied calmly, "I'm not going to get hurt."

I answered, "Good. I'm just worried about the planter box. It's pretty close to the bottom and you're going to be going fast. If you run into it, you might go flying through the air." Maybe I was exaggerating, so I added, "It might be cool, but you also might land on something hard."

"That's not going to happen," he replied, eyes fixed on the planter box below. I realized that I'd now done what I needed to do. 

Then after another moment of consideration, he let himself go, stopping his momentum with his heels several inches short of the planter box. He looked at me in triumph, "See?"

It all happened in a matter of seconds, this exchange about risk and safety, this calculation of odds by two people at different stages in life.

******

 

If you liked reading this post, you might also enjoy one of my books. To find out more, Click here! 

"Ready for a book that makes you want to underline and highlight? One that makes you draw arrows and write 'THIS!!!!!' in the margin? Then you are in for a treat." ~Lisa Murphy, M.Ed., author and Early Childhood Specialist, Ooey Gooey, Inc.

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!

A Place Of Wildness And Wonder

By now, most of us know that one of the most powerful stress and anxiety reducers is to spend time outside in nature. This is part of the reason that forest schools and other kinds of outdoor education are increasing in popularity, especially as we are experiencing a crisis in terms of the mental health of our youth.

My friend Erin Kenny, forest school pioneer, author, and creator of The Cedarsong Way, would say, "The kids can't bounce off the wall if you take away the walls," a mantra that I expect holds true for all of us. As a teacher in an urban school wanting to expose the children in my care to the benefits of nature, I once asked her if being outside was enough. She answered that it depended on what kind of outside I was talking about. She conceded that being outdoors was probably better than indoors, but that most urban areas were too "constructed" and "controlled" for children to receive the full benefits. "There is a wildness to nature," she said, "that is hard to find in a city."

There are gardens and parks, of course, but those kinds of places, while beautiful and made from natural things, are also managed spaces. Humans restrict, prune, clear, and plant. We decide what will thrive and what will not. We make rules and draw boundaries. In other words, we make these places less than wild.

One of the reasons that taking children outdoors, even if it isn't into a natural space, is so beneficial is that we adults tend to care less about outdoor spaces. Inside we fuss over the little virtues of cleanliness, tidiness, the proper uses of things ("Chairs are not for standing!"). Outdoors we back off a bit and that alone might explain why most children are more relaxed, open-minded, and creative outside. Even so, most playgrounds are managed spaces as well and to the degree they are is the degree to which we reduce the potential benefits to children and to ourselves.

But urban settings aren't without their wildness and thus their ability to be natural spaces. They exist all around us, but they tend to be places we overlook or even actively avoid. I'm thinking of vacant lots, the scruffy no-man's land between buildings, abandoned buildings, alleyways, and other "wastelands." They are not places of picturesque beauty, nor are they likely to inspire awe or a sense of oneness with the universe, but children who grew up in less suspicious times knew these as desirable places to play largely due to the fact that there were no adults around to manage the wildness out of them. Plants emerged from cracks, critters scurried about, and if you broke something, who cared?

Yes, I'm aware that hazards abound in such places, but isn't that in the nature of wildness? Isn't that, in part, exactly why being in nature is so profoundly beneficial? It isn't only about breathing meditatively or hiking serenely in a beautiful places. As Erin suggested, we also need the infinite possibilities of wildness in our lives and part of what makes a place wild is giving up on our urge to manage, control, and maintain, leaving to it just be as a place of wildness and wonder.

******

 

If you liked reading this post, you might also enjoy one of my books. To find out more, Click here! 

"Ready for a book that makes you want to underline and highlight? One that makes you draw arrows and write 'THIS!!!!!' in the margin? Then you are in for a treat." ~Lisa Murphy, M.Ed., author and Early Childhood Specialist, Ooey Gooey, Inc.

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!

Is It Ethical To Prepare Children For The Future?

More than twenty years ago, while touring kindergartens for our preschool-aged daughter, the head of one private school told the assembled parents, "Our community doesn't reflect how the world is, but rather how it ought to be." Specifically, he was referring to the racial and socio-economic make-up of their enrollment and teaching staff, but he could have been talking about their emergent, project-based curriculum as well.

I wasn't yet a teacher, although I believe I'd begun toying with the idea. I liked what I saw of the place, but this idea of creating a school around how we want the world to be rather than how it is intrigued me. After all, the calling card of most schools is that they prepare children for the real world or, sometimes, the future. At the same time, having spent most of my educational life in American public schools, I was aware that a great deal of what I was taught, perhaps most of it, turned out to have nothing to do with the real world I'd been living in since graduation.

Fran Leibowitz once quipped, "I assure you, in real life there is no such thing as algebra," something that has been true in my life. The only algebraic equations I've ever solved were in math classes, whereas cooking, a skill I use every day in real life, was only offered to me as a high school elective for a single quarter. If my school had been interested in preparing me for the real world, cooking would have been on the front burner. Was 15 years of math really necessary to prepare me to for the things I use math for today like managing my money, which really is just basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division? 

Or were they preparing me for how "they" want the world to be? I doubt it. Has anyone has ever sat down and envisioned a world in which we spent our days solving for x? The best rationale I've ever heard for requiring all that mathematics education is that it teaches "hard logic," something that can be useful, of course, but if that's the goal, I can think of far more efficient and direct ways to expose children to it. Indeed, as I watch preschoolers at play, I see them practicing the habits of logical thought as they go about their block building and risk assessments.

I've singled out mathematics here, but when passed through the filter of preparing children for the real world, be it for the concrete now or some idealized future, much of what gets explicitly taught in school fails to do either. I've written before about how a truly useful curriculum, one that gives children the opportunity to learn things they will definitely use in their lives would be one centered around cooking, personal finance, basic household maintenance and repairs, auto maintenance, personal relationships, health (including mental health), grooming, social skills, psychology, and philosophy. I'm sure there are other things that could be added to the list, but these are the things I've found to be necessary in the real world and in each of them I am largely self-taught. Certainly, there were adults who pointed me in certain directions, but the learning, the acquiring of the skills was all mine.

What if we, as a society, decided to prepare children for the world as we want it to be? In the case of that one, individual private school, I imagine the head of school, in consultation with his staff, determined what that would mean. But since this approach is one designed to engineer a new and better future through what and how we teach children, the stumbling block will always be the exact definition of "new and better." In a democratic society, this is meant to be the responsibility of all of us, not just the curriculum makers. Would public schools have leave our curricula up to a popular vote of the local community? What about educators who have different ideas about the way the world ought to be? And, at bottom, this approach is about "shaping" children into a particular form, one required for a future determined not by the children themselves, who will live in that future, but rather by adults, who won't. 

I know there is a lot of gray area here, but I can't help but be repelled by either approach. It seems to me that preparing children for the future, which is at bottom what we are attempting to do whatever our approach, is fundamentally unethical, perhaps even immoral. From where I sit, the only ethical approach to education is to support children as they prepare them for their future, and what that means can only be determined by the children themselves.

What if we adults spent less effort trying to manufacture the citizens of tomorrow based upon either the imperfect present or how we would fix it, and more on helping children in front of us learn and achieve what they themselves want to learn and achieve right now? After all, they are the ones responsible for creating the future. They are the ones who will be living in it. Who are we to tell them what will be useful? Who are we to tell them what is a waste of time? This is why I am on the side of self-directed learning, or what we in preschool call play-based learning. 

I assure you, in real life there is no such thing as the future. There is only a single, constantly emerging now, one that we are all creating together. If we are to be ethical educators, the only approach, to my mind, is one in which we stand beside our children as they are right now, leaving the future out of it and supporting our future elders as they make the most of right now.

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If you liked reading this post, you might also enjoy one of my books. To find out more, Click here! 

"Ready for a book that makes you want to underline and highlight? One that makes you draw arrows and write 'THIS!!!!!' in the margin? Then you are in for a treat." ~Lisa Murphy, M.Ed., author and Early Childhood Specialist, Ooey Gooey, Inc.

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!

"After That They Get To Do Whatever They Want"

A reader recently wrote to me in response to a post: "The way I look at it is that kids owe us their obedience until they're 18, after that they get to do whatever they want."

I wonder how many other people feel this way. I hope not a lot. In fact, I hope this guy was joking or trying to provoke me, but I know better. I don't have to look particularly far or wide to discover people, even people in education, who behave as if they believe this about the relationship between children and adults. After all, it's written into our laws. The so-called "age of majority" is 18 in 48 of the 50 US states. It's 19 in Alabama. It's 21 in Mississippi. Sure, there are caveats and exceptions, but for the most part parents must be quite neglectful or abusive for the courts to grant "emancipation" to a minor.

Likewise, when we look at laws around compulsory schooling, children are required to attend until they are at least 16 right across the US, although most states mandate school (or an alternative, like home schooling) between 5 and 18. And our public schools, where most of our kids wind up, we have enshrined obedience as one of the foundational principles of how they operate.

But even setting the black and white of laws aside, it's rare to find an important adult in a child's life who does not, at least from time to time, put their foot down. We don't even shout, "My way or the highway!" the way we might with another adult because there is no highway for children, only the prospect, even with the most lenient of parents or understanding of educators, of being allowed to "do whatever they want."

And there are a lot of things that children might want to do or be that we forbid. We don't allow children to own property, to choose where they will live, to vote, or to hold a job. The list of forbidden things is long. So, as shocking as this reader's point of view is at first, it's one that is embodied in law and society.

Most of us allow children some freedom. Many even allow them a lot of freedom, especially as they get older and have "earned" it. We tell ourselves we do it for their own good, for their safety. And no doubt, for many of us, we genuinely believe this is what we are doing, but there is no getting around the fact that we are, therefore, teaching our children the dubious habit of obeying those who are in a position of authority. There are many who see no problem with even that. After all, in the real world, it can be dangerous to defy authority.

So what about those other traits we value, like independence and critical thought? These can also be dangerous in the real world, as are creativity, standing up for one's beliefs, curiosity, and, indeed, finding one's own unique way in the world. Much safer is to do as you're told, to be thrifty, to keep your head down, and to avoid questioning too deeply or seeking after any truth that challenges the status quo. 

These are not things that are learned through obedience. Do we really expect that after nearly two decades of contrary training that these traits will emerge spontaneously at some magical moment like their 18th birthday? 

Most of us, as parents at least, strive to execute a slow-motion letting go by trying to walk a balance of allowing a bit more freedom to the children, ideally, with each passing day, until, by the time they are 18, they are ready to be totally free. Teachers, however, cannot afford too much freedom amongst their charges because, at the end of the day, they know that their number one priority, the thing that will most certainly get them reprimanded or fired, is if the children in their care are not safe, be it from physical, emotional, social, or even intellectual harm.

So, as we adults seek to protect children from fortune's blows, we also teach them that danger itself is to be avoided and it is assumed that doing as one is told (or expected or trained) is on the side of safety. Better to stick to the well-trod path, under the street lights, amidst the predictable, placid crowd, taking our pleasures in the form of rewards while avoiding the punishments.

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." ~Howard Thurman

As someone who has been struggling to come alive in the real world for six decades now, I'm finally starting to understand that a life with minimal danger is a life that is, all the way around, minimal. And I think that this is a great sin we commit against our fellow humans, our children: we teach them to avoid risk, yet in the real world, risk stands at the center of everything worth doing, be it climbing a mountain, telling a cherished person, "I love you," or defying authority. It is difficult enough, I've found, to "come alive" even with my adult freedom to do whatever I want.

It's no wonder that so many of the 18 year olds I know have decided to pursue computer programming, business, or accounting upon their emancipation. That's what they've been trained for, the safe course, even when their hearts tell them to be dancers or entrepreneurs or professional skateboarders or any other of the countless ways to come alive in the world. When I was 18, I really wanted to be an artist, a painter, but I chose to study advertising (advertising!) because I perceived it was a career in which I could "safely" (that is, earn a decent income and a certain social status) express myself creatively. 

If we want children to come alive, it seems to me that we're doing it all wrong. After 18 years of doing what they are told, how can we expect them to do anything other than play it safe, that this is the reasonable thing to do, let alone know what it is they want to do with the freedom we grant them upon turning 18?

What would happen if we could come to understand that it is not just morally wrong, but irrational in the largest sense, to assume command of children? What if we saw our adult role as being responsible for them, rather than in charge of them? What if we understood that our role is not to instruct or shape or train children, but rather to support them in discovering what it is that makes them come alive? Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

******

 

If you liked reading this post, you might also enjoy one of my books. To find out more, Click here! 

"Ready for a book that makes you want to underline and highlight? One that makes you draw arrows and write 'THIS!!!!!' in the margin? Then you are in for a treat." ~Lisa Murphy, M.Ed., author and Early Childhood Specialist, Ooey Gooey, Inc.

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 Not Enough To Love; You Have To Say It"

Implied in the word "teacher," for most people, is the idea of talking. When teachers are portrayed in popular media, we are generally shown in front of a room of dutiful students taking notes as we lecture. Even when early childhood educators are portrayed, more often than not, we're shown as bent over our charges, lips flapping.

The longer I've done this job, however, the more I'm coming to understand that listening is really what we're here to do.

Now, I'm the first to admit that I can be a chatterer, a habit I developed as a baseball player and coach, although to be honest I don't really expect anyone to be listening to my classroom banter because the purpose on the diamond, as it now in the classroom, is to create a sort of unifying rhythm for the "team," rather than to convey any specific information: I could be chanting nonsense syllables and likely get more or less the same effect. That said, every teacher needs to work on something and I suppose that the central one for me is to shut up and hear more.

"Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person they are indistinguishable." ~David Augsburger

You see, more than anything else, that's what we gain when we stop talking and start hearing: our silence becomes a nest of pure love for the child (indeed, any person) with whom we are. When we set aside our agenda, when we step outside those notions of the teacher who "lectures," when our focus is on hearing rather than talking, we are giving that person our greatest gift.

And there is a distinction, I think, between hearing and mere listening. It is more than just creating a silent space in which a child can express himself. And, indeed, it is even more than truly comprehending or sympathizing or empathizing.

It is not enough to love; you have to say it. ~French proverb

It's only when the child knows they are being heard that the act of listening holds the power of love. And the way we let a person know they've been heard is, in their pauses, to repeat back to them their own words, verbatim; not our interpretation or extrapolation of those words, but rather the exact words they use to express themselves. When a child says, "I am sad," for instance, we let them know they are heard, that they are loved, by echoing back to them, "You are sad." And in that echo, we have said both, "I've heard you," and "I love you."

******

 

If you liked reading this post, you might also enjoy one of my books. To find out more, Click here! 

"Ready for a book that makes you want to underline and highlight? One that makes you draw arrows and write 'THIS!!!!!' in the margin? Then you are in for a treat." ~Lisa Murphy, M.Ed., author and Early Childhood Specialist, Ooey Gooey, Inc.

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 Myth of Selfishness

We can all, under the right circumstances, behave selfishly, but laboratory studies consistently show that when faced with things like resource distribution, say sharing a plate of cookies, we demonstrate what scientists call "inequality aversion." Even children as young as three will divide a cake out equally, and at six would rather throw a slice away rather than allow one person, including themselves, to have more.

Indeed, it appears that we Homo sapiens, whatever else we are, are serious about equality. 

Over my decades in the classroom I've witnessed it myself, even amongst children younger than those studied. Sure, sometimes a kid can behave selfishly, but most of the time I find myself inspired by children's instinctive fairness in social situations. I once, in a misguided attempt to "teach" about fairness, tried to give all of the girls a special jewel, while excluding the boys. The moment the girls realized what was happening, they spontaneously handed their jewels back to me, rejecting them, saying, "It's not fair." They would only accept their jewels if I included the boys. There was nothing for me to teach these children about fairness.

Were I to ask a strangers on the street, however, I'm certain that most would classify selfishness as one of the traits found under the heading of "childishness," along with a tendency toward tantrums and unreasonableness. We know what people mean when they say that someone is behaving "like a big baby." And those of us who work with children know that it's a slur against babies and young children in general.

The worst tantrums I've ever witnessed have been adults who have lost it. Unreasonable demands are far from the exclusive domain of children. And when it comes to selfishness, adults are far and away more likely to behave according to the own self interest even when it clearly harms or disadvantages someone else.

Selfishness is a learned behavior. We are born with a natural aversion to inequality. We are then socialized to want the biggest piece for ourselves, not through explicit teaching because most of us value fairness as a moral value, but because of the way the world is structured, with competition being one of the primary mechanism through which we distribute resources. A truly childish society would never allow billionaires to sit on their piles while millions of others are forced to live hand to mouth.

Many of us go out of our way as early childhood educators to teach equality, fairness, sharing, and turn taking, yet the research is quite clear: we are a species that already understands these things, at least in social situations. Perhaps the children should be our teachers. But we do it, I think, because we know the sad truth is that once the kids are in the world beyond our classroom walls, they will find themselves in an adult world in which selfishness often shows up as a virtue, even as few of us beyond the Ayn Rand inspired dead-enders believe it to be anything other than one of the roots of evil.

Research also tells us that most of us, most of the time, also exhibit "inequality aversion." That finding, which has been replicated countless times, flies in the face of what many of us think we know about humans. We tend to think we live in a competitive dog-eat-dog world, but when we look to our left and look to our right we see fellow humans who are, in their hearts, unselfish and averse to inequality. Anthropologists tell us that this has been the norm for as long as there have been humans, that our species has thrived largely because of our instincts in favor of equality. So how did we get where we are?

I have my theories, but the bottom line is that our hunter-gatherer ancestors didn't tolerate selfishness in others. They would start by teasing and mocking someone who hoarded resources, for example, and if that didn't bring them into line, they would turn to shame and even, in extreme cases, ostracize them. I'm not advocating for shaming others, but I can honestly say that I feel ashamed of myself when I've behaved selfishly. I think most of us do. I don't know if those girls who returned the jewels to me were experiencing shame, but I imagine they would have had they kept the jewels. 

No, it seems to me that the only way that anyone can accept inequality is if they have bought into a story that frames inequality as inevitable or even righteous. In the past, that story might have been about the "divine" nature of the hoarder, which would excuse things like royal rule. Today, the story is that those with the most "deserve" it because they are smarter or have worked harder. These are modern mythologies, of course. We know for a fact that no one has the divine right to more. We know that hard work doesn't necessarily lead to more; if it did, most early childhood educators would be living large. And we all know smart people who have never been able to cash in on their brains, no matter how big. 

Perhaps, if we really value equality and fairness, we ought to be thinking more about the stories we tell, both to children and one another. But one story we can stop telling right now, is the myth of "childishness" because it implies that selfishness is our natural state, which is perhaps the most pernicious myth of all.

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If you liked reading this post, you might also enjoy one of my books. To find out more, Click here! 

"Ready for a book that makes you want to underline and highlight? One that makes you draw arrows and write 'THIS!!!!!' in the margin? Then you are in for a treat." ~Lisa Murphy, M.Ed., author and Early Childhood Specialist, Ooey Gooey, Inc.

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!

Building Dens: Practicing For Life As Nomads

Foxes dig, steal, or inherit their dens. I've always thought of fox dens as cozy homes where fox families live, but in reality, very little "living" actually happens inside of them. They are primarily intended for the raising of pups and occasionally for storing food or dodging dangers. It's not uncommon for certain types of foxes of have several dens in their range, moving from one to another as circumstances dictate. They rarely sleep in their dens.

Bird nest, likewise, are not like "homes" as we humans think of them either. And while some birds do return to their former nests to lay eggs and raise hatchlings, most build a new nest for each clutch.

This concept of a single, stable home as a place to eat, sleep, eliminate, recreate, and fornicate is, if not uniquely human, something that sets our species apart. Most other species are more nomadic, even if they spend their lives in a relatively small territory. Indeed, we Homo sapiens were also largely nomadic for the vast expanse of our existence, moving like other animals from den to den, usually within a certain range: the more sparse the resources, the wider the range. We innovated tents and other shelters that could be quickly built using the materials at hand, packing them up or abandoning them. 

I've been thinking about these things lately as my wife and I recently moved into a new home. This is our ninth home together, not counting the many temporary homes we shared in between more decisive moves. Prior to meeting my wife, I'd experienced a dozen previous homes. I'm "above" average in this regard, but the average American still moves to a new home 11.7 times in their lifetime, so given our species' relative longevity and the fact that our young take more than a single season in which to grow into independence, perhaps we aren't so unlike birds and foxes, just on a more extended timeline. Maybe we continue to be more nomadic than we might at first think.

In their book Edgelands, English poets Paul Farley and Michale Symmons Roberts, write, "A den is a secret place, built outside the confines of the adult world. It is a place of retreat, but also a place of togetherness, a social space, that reinforces allegiances and bonds between small groups or gangs." They argue that post-war England was a Golden Age of den building, a time when children were sent outdoors, instead of parked in front of screens, to get out from under their parents' feet. "Time at home indoors contracted to sleeping, and occasional visits for food. The edge lands provided a space of abandonment out of the watchful eye of the adult world, and also provided all of the terrain and materials a child's imagination needed to physically make its own world and reinforce a new sense of self."

I find this fascinating for two reasons. The first being that "home indoors" in this description is much more in keeping with the dens and nests found in the rest of nature -- a place to sleep and to find food in a pinch. The second is that while other species build new habitations to avoid predators and other dangers, human children build dens against the encroachment of adults. This is not, as far as I know, a schema found amongst birds or foxes or any other animal with which I'm familiar.

And it begs the question, Why do human children in the modern world respond to human adults in ways that mimic the ways other species respond to danger? I suppose most of it is classic game playing in the spirit of play fighting or play stalking. If the natural purpose of a den is to protect us, there must be something to be protected from. Adults are the convenient "predators" from which to hide lacking any "proper" predators in the form of older kids or kids from other neighborhoods. Keeping others out is one of the cornerstones of this sort of play.

This is something that makes den play problematic for adults: we tend to value inclusion whereas exclusion is, in part, the underlying purpose of these games. When I started teaching, I was too quick to jump on den play that became, in my view, too exclusionary. We all know that exclusion can become toxic. It wasn't an accident, however, that when I forced my "every one is included" meme on the play, it inevitably broke down. Indeed, much in the way that foxes sometimes dismantle their dens before abandoning them, the kids would often destroy their den before allowing outsiders, but even when they didn't, they almost always abandoned their stronghold with the incursion of others, often constructing another in a different corner of the playground.

Today, I'm more inclined to allow den play to take a more natural course. When children complain about being excluded, I might suggest they build their own den. I'm more inclined to create space for logical arguments like, "It's too small for more people" or "We want to play alone right now." Of course, I'm concerned when this type of play becomes hurtful to others, but I also understand that "we share everything" is unrealistic. My goal is dialog, not tidy resolution. Helping children balance this is an art, not a formula. 

Some years back, a family brought in a huge collection of boxes leftover from their household move. As one might expect, the children claimed individual boxes as their own, each making their own "room." Before long they were combining them into "houses." The houses then formed into a "neighborhood" and then a "city." We played with our city of boxes for weeks as the children moved from house to house, claiming each home for a minute or a day, then moving on to the next, starting again over and over, playing at the nomadic life that is likely in their future.

******

 

If you liked reading this post, you might also enjoy one of my books. To find out more, Click here! 

"Ready for a book that makes you want to underline and highlight? One that makes you draw arrows and write 'THIS!!!!!' in the margin? Then you are in for a treat." ~Lisa Murphy, M.Ed., author and Early Childhood Specialist, Ooey Gooey, Inc.

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!