What I Told Parents to Expect of Our Play-Based Preschool

At the beginning of each new school year we held mandatory parent orientation meetings where I told the assembled parents that I would not be teaching their children literacy, although they would be laying the foundations for literacy through their play, their dramatic play in particular; every time we read to them or tell them stories, or when they tell stories to us; each time they get excited and say, "Hey that's my letter!" or "That's your letter!" I won't be teaching them, but they'll be doing exactly what they need to do to read when their brains are ready.

I told them that I would not be teaching their children math, although they would be practicing their math skills every time they counted something out, put things in order, arranged things in groups, worked a puzzle, made or identified a pattern.

I told them I was particularly uninterested in teaching STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) skills so they would be ready for those "jobs of tomorrow," although again, through their play they will be engaged in teaching these things to themselves. When one studies children at play, it's impossible to not see them as scientists or engineers, asking and answering their own questions, engaging in experiments, figuring out fundamental truths about our world and the other people. 

I told the parents that I'm singularly uninterested in vocational training. The proper career aspiration for a preschooler is princess or superhero. The jobs for which their children will be applying two decades from now do not yet exist and anyone who tells you they can predict the employment landscape that far into the future is blowing smoke. The jobs our adult daughter found herself considering did not exist when she was in preschool. The careers my high school counselors suggested that I pursue would have left me unemployable. But more importantly, we don't educate our children so that they can take their role in the economy, but rather so that they can perform their role as citizens and community members.

We always talk a lot about "community" at our parent meetings. In fact, nearly everyone who spoke would find that word in their mouth, not because it was a coordinated effort, but because it is the real foundation of what we do at our school. We're a cooperative which means that we are owned and operated by the parents who enroll their children and these parents will attend school with their children, serving as assistant teachers. We are not just a community of children, but in a real sense, on a day-to-day basis, a community of families, assembled together around the common goal of supporting our children as they learn the foundational skills of citizenship.

At it's most basic, this means that we strive to form a community in which our children can practice living in a world with other people, learning how to get their own needs met while also leaving space for others to meet theirs. Nothing is more important, not just for individuals, but for our larger society. A good citizen is someone who thinks critically, who thinks for themself; a good citizen is someone who asks a lot of questions and who questions authority; a good citizen knows that it is not just their right, but their responsibility, to speak their mind, even when others disagree; a good citizen likewise knows that they must listen, especially when they disagree; a good citizen knows that they contribute to society in ways far more vital and varied than as a worker bee. It's from citizens with these traits that strong communities, strong democracies, are made.

I told our assembled parent community that their children will be learning these things as they play together, creating their own community, and that it wouldn't always be pretty. Their children will come home covered in water, mud, paint, snot, and even upon occasion, blood. Their children will find themselves embroiled in conflict. They will be learning through joy, yes, but also tears. They will, as they must, mix it up with the other children, sort things out, make agreements, and help one another. They will teach themselves to be self-motivated, to work well with others, and begin to understand the importance of being personable, all of which are, not accidentally, the most important "vocational" skills of all.

I told the assembled adults that our job is not to teach them anything, but rather to love and support them as they perform their inquiries, test their theories, and figure out what works for them and what doesn't. We're not there to push or command or mold, but rather to create a safe space in which the children can play, together, in the context of their community.

******

Books have a way of transforming us unlike any other media out there. Be it fiction or non-fiction, a books has the power to fully immerse us into a world in ways that makes us come out the other side a changed -- and better -- person. I've put together this list of 16 books that have done that for me. They are intentionally not early childhood books, although each one has, in one way or another, profoundly transformed my work with young children. Maybe you'll find a few new ones here that will do the same for you. To download the list, click here.

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!

I'm a "Bad Teacher"

Yesterday, I wrote about a dialog with a boy who gave me insight into myself as a teacher. That reminded me of similar story:

A five-year-old boy once accused me of being a "bad teacher." He wasn't mad at me. It wasn't intended as an insult. He was grinning as he said it, but he offered it more as a statement of fact than a joke.

I've had children tell me that I'm "supposed to be a boy," "you smell stinky," and "you're a big, fat guy." Learning the unvarnished, unblinking "truth" about yourself, at least from one person's perspective, is one of the "perks" of being a preschool teacher, but I'd never been told I was a bad teacher. 

"What do you mean? I'm not a bad teacher."

"You are a bad teacher."

"Why am I a bad teacher?"

"You never teach us anything."

"That means I'm a good teacher. I get this place ready and then you all come here and teach yourself things."

He was in the midst of a project he had been working on for a week. To an outsider, it probably just looked like he was gathering junk from the playground and putting it in a big heap, but we all knew by now that he was building a machine. He hadn't yet decided what this machine did.

"But you are supposed to teach us."

I thought about this for a moment, watching him fit the guts of a defunct clothes dryer into his machine. "Maybe you're right. What should I teach you?"

"I don't know." 

"Do I get to pick what I teach you?"

"Yes, you pick."

I said, "Did you know that my fingernails are dirty? See?" I held my hand out to him. "Now you know that. I taught you."

"You didn't teach me. You have to teach us about something like . . ." He paused to think. "You have to teach us about science."

"Okay, Did you know that everything is made out of atoms."

"I already know that."

"Gravity is the force that keeps us from floating away."

"I already know that."

"Dinosaurs are extinct."

"I already know that."

"What can I teach you about? You already know everything."

"I do. I know everything."

"Well, that's good because I don't know everything. Maybe you should be the teacher."

He quietly worked on his machine for several minutes before saying, "I don't know everything."

I nodded, "But you know a lot. How did you get to know so much?"

This was a question that required his full attention. He stood on his pile, his eyes rolled upward, his forehead furrowed. Finally, he said, "I taught myself."

"Wait a minute, you taught yourself?"

"Yes, I taught myself."

"Then I guess I'm a better teacher than you thought."

He laughed. "You're a bad teacher."

"Well, at least you're a good learner."

"I am a good learner," he confirmed while shifting a wheel-less wagon bed into place.

I said, "Maybe you're building a learning machine so you can teach me."

"It is a learning machine, but I can't tell you how it works. You can use it when I'm done." He then peered at me earnestly and added, "And then you will learn."

******

Books have a way of transforming us unlike any other media out there. Be it fiction or non-fiction, a books has the power to fully immerse us into a world in ways that makes us come out the other side a changed -- and better -- person. I've put together this list of 16 books that have done that for me. They are intentionally not early childhood books, although each one has, in one way or another, profoundly transformed my work with young children. Maybe you'll find a few new ones here that will do the same for you. To download the list, click here.

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!

"You're More of a Joke-y Teacher"

I've sent hundreds of kids off into the world from the Woodland Park Cooperative School. For most of them, I was their first and only teacher, which meant that, for better or worse, I'd had both the responsibility and opportunity to shape children's expectations for what's to come. Some of that was conscious, like our curriculum of questioning authority, but most was just an unconscious manifestation of my personality and the pedagogy I've been developing over decades.

I often say that after my wife and daughter, all of my best friends are five-years-old. After all, these are the people with whom I've been hanging out, daily, for the better part of three years. We'd been together through highs and lows, made life stories together, shared inside jokes, and trusted one another: the stuff from which best friends are made. That said, I know the friendship will fade, at least from their side, once they've moved on, but I hope the feeling of that relationship stays with them as they encounter their future teachers. 

Few things gratify me more than when alumni return to visit and enthuse about the wonders of their new teacher, and most of them do, even sometimes telling me that they like their new teacher "better." It doesn't hurt because I know that this new relationship is built upon the one we had. Naturally, I want them to like their current teacher. By the same token, there are few things that hurt more than when one of these children tell me they don't like their new teacher or, worse, that they wish they could return to preschool.

The whole subject is bitter sweet, of course, and my feelings would be just the opposite were I being told these things by their parent, but it's a central part of every teacher's job (or should be) to provide an experience for children that is right for them right now. I try to do that when the children are preschoolers and that's all I can do. When I speak with children who have moved on, that moment has passed for us. It's now someone else's job to provide that "just right" experience and if they're doing it right, they've earned the title "favorite."

One summer a former "best friend" enrolled in our summer session. As we were re-discovering our friendship after a year apart, he told me that he had liked kindergarten. I asked, "Was your teacher nice?"

"Yes, really nice."

"That's good," I joked, "because you had a really mean preschool teacher."

It took him a beat to realize I was talking about myself, but when it clicked, he laughed. "You're not mean!"

"Thanks for saying that. I try to be nice."

He thought for a second, "You're not that nice!" It was his turn to tell a joke.

"Hey!"

We laughed. He was then quiet for a moment, a smile still playing on his lips, eyes rolled up as if looking into his brain, then, "You're not mean or nice, you're more of a joke-y teacher. That's why I like coming here!" Best friends tell you the truth, especially when they know it will make you glow. His future teachers are the luckiest people on earth.

******

Books have a way of transforming us unlike any other media out there. Be it fiction or non-fiction, a books has the power to fully immerse us into a world in ways that makes us come out the other side a changed -- and better -- person. I've put together this list of 16 books that have done that for me. They are intentionally not early childhood books, although each one has, in one way or another, profoundly transformed my work with young children. Maybe you'll find a few new ones here that will do the same for you. To download the list, click here.

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!

That Feeling of Understanding

Years ago, a friend involved in the business of "up cycling" wound up with a collection of junk with which even he couldn't figure out what to do, so he passed it all along to the preschool, where, I assured him, the experts would make something of his nothing.

Among the detritus he delivered to our playground was part of the tub assembly of a dismantled washing machine. I only knew what it was because he told me. It was a kind of circular-ish cauldron with a large opening on one side and a smaller one on the other, to which was attached a rubbery skirt. It was large enough to fit two, maybe three, small children depending upon which end you turned up.

As one does, I imaged how the children would react to it. Perhaps they would ask "What is this thing?" For them, I was prepared to answer, "It's a thing you can play with." But since most of the kids were already accustomed to odd things showing up around the place, things with no names and no pre-determined purpose (i.e., loose parts), I knew that most wouldn't bother with adult mediation and simple declare it's name and purpose.

And I was right.

"It looks like a space ship."

"It's a bathtub."

"It's the wheel from a giant machine."

One girl inverted it on the ground and sat inside it with the rubbery bit around her waist like a kind of bodice to declare it her "ball gown."

And it went from there. Over the course of the next few weeks, I spied it being used as a window in a fort, a small boat at sea, a volcano, a bird's nest, and a drum. One group attempted to hang it up as a swing. Another filled it with sand. Yet another arranged sticks in it like flowers in a vase. As I told my friend, "Young children are the ultimate up cyclers."

As humans confronted with a new thing, our first instinct is to try to find an apt metaphor for that thing. It is, in many ways, the story of human development. Our ancient ancestors explained earthquakes, for instance, with the metaphor of giants or gods stomping on the earth. As I've written before, even our most basic English verb "to be" is ultimately derived from the ancient Sanskrit words for "to grow" and "to breathe," which is to say metaphors for this amazing thing we are still trying to understand -- existence. And this is exactly what children do when confronted with new things, like this tub. They try, individually and collectively, to arrive at a metaphor for the new thing by substituting something more familiar until they find that feeling of familiarity.

That feeling of familiarity is indistinguishable from the feeling of understanding.

Even such seemingly only-the-facts things like science and math are conducted and understood through metaphor. A thunderstorm understood as friction and sparks and vacuums, of air smashing together to create noise, isn't actually those things, but rather something like those things. Indeed, the entire scientific process is one of finding better and better metaphors that approach, but never quite reach, full understanding. Likewise, those numerals we use for ciphering are metaphors of familiarity that allow us to better understand.

If the goal of education is understanding (rather than merely correct answers), then play with loose parts in their broadest sense, without adults constantly trying to inject their own metaphors into it, is the gold standard. It is that feeling of understanding we are after and that only comes through thinking about new experiences through the filter of metaphor until we find one that feels right, or at least partly right, at least for now. And then, as we play, we discover new and better metaphors, additional and supplanting metaphors, that lead us farther and father along our lifelong journey of understanding. 

******

Books have a way of transforming us unlike any other media out there. Be it fiction or non-fiction, a books has the power to fully immerse us into a world in ways that makes us come out the other side a changed -- and better -- person. I've put together this list of 16 books that have done that for me. They are intentionally not early childhood books, although each one has, in one way or another, profoundly transformed my work with young children. Maybe you'll find a few new ones here that will do the same for you. To download the list, click here.

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!

Nasty, Uncontrollable, Hopelessly Feral

"I really can't stand children." 

It's a sentiment I occasionally encounter upon informing a stranger of the work I do. It always rocks me back on my heels a bit, given that I'm most often surrounded by adults who find the company of young children to be preferable to that of their peers.

All adults have theories about children, even those who spend little time with them. After all, we were all once children, so, at a minimum we have those years of experience from which to cobble together our theories about what a child is, does, wants, and needs. And some consider children to be nasty, uncontrollable, hopelessly feral things that will one day, fingers crossed, outgrow it. It's as if they conceive childhood as some sort of larval stage during which these pre-humans feed themselves voraciously of the precious leaves of life before they pupate (perhaps within the chrysalis of university) emerging finally as adults.

As long as they are not cruel to children, I tend to respect these people even as I disagree with them. Their theories cause them to largely avoid children, especially young children, standing aloof in their presence, ignoring them if at all possible. They tend to choose professions and habitations far removed from where children play and when they're compelled to interact with them they do so as if they are little adults, not speaking down to them, employing their full vocabulary, not caring really if these ignorant children comprehend, not even expecting them to respond, at least not in a "rational" manner. Children confound them and, because of their theories, they lack the prying curiosity that attends so many of the interactions children have with other adults.

In most circumstances, children ignore and avoid these adults in return, not out of any sort of animosity, but simply because the indifference is mutual. Sometimes, however, young children love, from afar, these adults, not only because they don't pepper them with the usual questions about what they want to be when they grow up and their favorite subject in school. They appreciate that they aren't talked down to or coddled. Their cheeks are not pinched and their heads are not patted. In other words, they perceive they are not being treated as children, but rather as people. And so long as this adult with the mis-guided theory about children isn't outright mean to them, they often find this treatment refreshing. 

It should also be mentioned that adults who harbor this brand of theory about children, should they be offended or harmed by a child, are unlikely to punish, correct, or scold them, but rather respond by giving them, at most, a few pointed words of disapproval, before turning their backs, the way they would with a wayward adult over whom they have no authority other than their dignity. 

These adults don't "understand" children and so their interactions with them tend to be free of the urge that so many of us have to help or teach or otherwise better them. This is why I respect their opinions.

You see, most children, most of the time, spend their days among adults whose theories about children are constructed on cuteness, naiveté, and ignorance. These adults, with the best of intentions, tend to talk down to children in high-pitched sing-song voices reserved only for children and pets. These adults loooooove children, petting and pampering them, which is all well and good, but it too often comes with these notions of helping, teaching, correcting, and generally behaving as if this theoretical child cannot function without constant intervention from loving adults.

John Holt wrote: "It is condescending when we respond to qualities that enable us to feel superior to the child. It is sentimental when we respond to qualities that do not exist in the child but only in some vision or theory that we have about children." 

In his book Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior, anthropologist Christopher Boehm, based on 339 fieldwork studies, concluded that our hunter-gatherer ancestors "are universally -- and all but obsessively -- concerned with being free from the authority of others." Indeed, we have evolved as a species to resist the imposition of hierarchy, even when it comes to interactions between adults and children. Too often, those of us who claim to love children do so, at least in part, because we like the feeling of being superior. We help, teach, and correct these theoretical children "for their own good," not because they have asked us to help, teach or correct them, but because we feel it is our right (which is often mis-framed as a responsibility).

The truth is that children are nasty, uncontrollable, and feral. They are also cute, naive, and ignorant. All of us are. None of these traits proposed by our theories are the exclusive domain of childhood or adulthood. In the end, there is no such thing as a theoretical child and none of our theories are correct. Or rather, none of them are entirely correct which is why I often prefer the approach taken by the "I really can't stand children" crowd. There may be something horribly broken within these adults, but to the degree it allows them to leave the kids alone, to not not impose their unsolicited help, teaching, or correction upon them, and to not assume the posture of superiority, is the degree to which their seemingly stance really is for the children's own good. 

******

Books have a way of transforming us unlike any other media out there. Be it fiction or non-fiction, a books has the power to fully immerse us into a world in ways that makes us come out the other side a changed -- and better -- person. I've put together this list of 16 books that have done that for me. They are intentionally not early childhood books, although each one has, in one way or another, profoundly transformed my work with young children. Maybe you'll find a few new ones here that will do the same for you. To download the list, click here.

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 First Thing Preschoolers Ever Taught Me

I first started running regular preschooler circle times as a 14-year-old baseball coach. It was an experiment by the Corvallis, Oregon Parks & Rec Department. They called it Snoopy League and I, along with another young colleague, were to "coach" four- and five-year-old baseball players.

They gave us oversized plastic bats, tennis balls and a spare field in one of the parks. It was summer so they also gave us a plastic tarp and told us that we could use a garden hose to make a "slip-and-slide" on especially hot days. That was pretty much all the instruction.

I was hired, I think, because I had experience with baseball, but also because I had a fairly extensive babysitting resume due to a dearth of willing 12-16 year-old girls in our immediate neighborhood. That had paid $1 per hour while this baseball gig was going to fill my pockets at the rate of $3.15 per hour. Woo hoo!

I'd never coached before, but I had been coached since I was eight, so I had an idea of how it worked. Within the first five minutes, however, I learned a lesson that has stood me in good stead for over half a century, especially when it comes to young children: man plans and god laughs. 

When I commanded my 20 or so players to warm up by running around the bases, they pretty much scattered all over the field. It took quite a bit of time and effort to round them back up. They had interpreted my instruction as some version of "run around amidst the bases."

From this I learned that four- and five-year-olds, with a few exceptions, might not understand the finer points of baseball, but they very much enjoyed running around on a grassy field.

When I told them to play catch, few of them could throw with any kind of accuracy and even fewer were capable of catching. From this I learned that most 4-5 year-olds, with a few exceptions, were not developmentally ready for the kind of throwing and catching necessary to actually play the game.

When I called them in to gather around for a little instructional or inspirational coach talk, they talked back, asked questions, changed the subject, and, with a few exceptions, didn't seem to really care about baseball as much as they did just being outdoors with other kids, in a park, on a warm, sunny day.

My colleague was likewise a 14-year-old, but she had no experience in either coaching or babysitting, so, by default I was the unofficial leader of the Snoopy League.

In today's world, this program would never fly. Not only would the Parks & Rec Department be sued for the use of the "Snoopy" trademark, but we 14-year-olds would likely require adult supervision ourselves. 

There were no fences or walls to mark the boundaries around the field. Had a child wanted to, they could have easily dashed into the street or down the block, an eventuality that never occurred to anyone, even the children, as far as I could tell. A few parents lingered around in the nearby playground with their even younger children, but they didn't really interact with us except during drop-off and pick-up.

With my plans and dreams for this coaching job dashed, I decided that I would just get paid to have fun with the kids.

We would start our days by taking a run, which was basically the children chasing me around the field. Then I might show off how far I could throw a tennis ball, which would result in a race to fetch it, while others showed off how far they could throw balls. 

For the kids who wanted to try out batting, I'd lob balls. 

My colleague and I demonstrated how to play catch. Some of them tried it out. Others invented their own ball games.

We often invented baseball-esque games using the equipment.

We talked about the names of the bases and the various player positions, but we also, and equally, talked about grandmas, ice cream, spiders, cuts and bruises, TV programs, and whatever else was on their collective minds. 

And, of course, that impromptu slip-and-slide featured prominently, although on most days they were happy with me just spraying them with the hose.

There were, as you can imagine, tears. I don't really recall how I dealt with injuries or emotional situations. I'd been given a first aid kit, but no training. I know I used quite a few bandages. No one scolded or blamed me about these minor childhood injuries. I likewise had no training in psychology, so I have no idea what I did about hurt feelings or broken hearts other than to let them cry until they were done. 

Our supervisor stopped by occasionally to check on us, but they stayed out of the way.

In essence, Snoopy League evolved that summer into a baseball-themed play group, with 20 preschoolers and a couple of young teenagers in charge.

Of course, what I didn't know at the time, was that since long before William Shakespeare invented the "teenager" (the concept, not the word) in Hamlet, this was one of the key roles of teens: to play with, and care for, the younger children. This is part of what is meant by the expression, It takes a village to raise a child. Young adults (and 12-13 is considered the beginning of adulthood in many traditions) along with grandparents, served as extra arms, legs, and hearts to provide relief and support for parents. Looking back, I realize that this daily two-hour session provided exactly that for 20 young mothers in Corvallis.

Not only that, it gave young adults a crash course in what young children are really all about. It gave them the opportunity to develop the skills and knowledge that they would need to be parents themselves. It gave them experience with genuine responsibility. And I know, for me, it felt good to be trusted by not only my bosses, but also the parents who entrusted me for two hours a day with their precious children.

And Snoopy League succeeded precisely when we stopped trying to make the children ready for baseball and started making baseball ready for the children.

******

Books have a way of transforming us unlike any other media out there. Be it fiction or non-fiction, a books has the power to fully immerse us into a world in ways that makes us come out the other side a changed -- and better -- person. I've put together this list of 16 books that have done that for me. They are intentionally not early childhood books, although each one has, in one way or another, profoundly transformed my work with young children. Maybe you'll find a few new ones here that will do the same for you. To download the list, click here.

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!

Children are Not Nouns. They are Verbs.

"To garden," writes Ferris Jabr in his book Becoming Earth, "is to engage in a form of coevolution -- not just with plants and pollinators but also with roots and fungi, microbes and microfauna, sun and soil."

Our garden in the center of our preschool playground is a place to play. The plants are there to explore with our fingers, our eyes, our noses, and our tongues. We discovered one year that we enjoyed eating radish seed pods more than the radishes themselves, which we had neglected to harvest, making it possible to experience those pods. 

We tend to think of farmers as people who "work" the soil, who tend and harvest radishes and other plants as food, ripping them by the roots, leaving only a few to serve as seed stock for the next crop. But "to garden," I think, is a wholly different thing: it is a process of existing with these plants, pollinators, fungi, microbes, microfauna, sun and soil. That is to say, to play with them, or put another way, to co-evolve.

When children play together we see them adapt to one another through an ever-moving process of agreement, negotiation, and bickering. Sometimes it all erupts in a kind of supernova of impossibility, everyone scattered, everyone briefly on their own as they seek others with which to play. Other times it dwindles to an end. But if the game is to continue, everyone must find a way to get their own needs and desires met while creating the space for others to get their needs and desires met. This means it must change, must evolve, or die, like everything.

We tend to talk about evolution as something that happened over millennia, or as a competition, or as a climb toward some higher state. When children play, however, they are simply doing it.

They are not nouns, but rather verbs. They are both shaping the process and being shaped by it. They are in the midst of the process that connects us with one another, and with everything. It's a process without beginning or end or purpose other than to sustain itself by becoming something else.

A game of chase becomes a game of fighting becomes a game of "let's pretend" becomes . . . And so on. Play, like learning, like gardening, like living, is a process that interacts with other processes. Children too are processes, not products. 

So much of conventional education treats childhood as a manufacturing operation whose product is a particular kind of adult. School readiness. Kindergarten readiness. College readiness. Career readiness. We're forever evaluating children according to what they're going to become rather than attending to what's happening right now. It's like we see ourselves as farmers producing a crop rather than gardeners tending a garden.

When we're gardeners -- to garden -- we don't have to teach children to understand the assignment. We don't have to get them ready. When they are playing, making art, wondering, talking, building, destroying, rebuilding, running, pretending, they aren't producing things, they are making connections. They are engaged in co-evolution.

Maybe our greatest mistake isn't that we've failed to teach children how the universe works, but rather that we persist in interrupting them while they're already doing it.

******

Books have a way of transforming us unlike any other media out there. Be it fiction or non-fiction, a books has the power to fully immerse us into a world in ways that makes us come out the other side a changed -- and better -- person. I've put together this list of 16 books that have done that for me. They are intentionally not early childhood books, although each one has, in one way or another, profoundly transformed my work with young children. Maybe you'll find a few new ones here that will do the same for you. To download the list, click here.

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!