Fight As If You're Right and Listen As If You're Wrong

Socrates is arguably the most famous teacher of all time, at least in Western culture. His Socratic Method is a type of argumentative dialog between individuals, usually a student and teacher, that involves asking and answering ever more probing and confrontational questions. Ideally, the goal of these "arguments" is not to persuade or to "win" but rather to move the conversation ever closer to truth or wisdom or knowledge.

Perhaps the most inspiring thing about Socrates as a philosopher and teacher was his consistent assertion that despite his reputation as "the wisest man in Athens" he himself knew nothing. His wisdom did not consist of certainty, but rather in questioning, which is to say to look at all things, even the most sacred, from all sides, and to know that there was always another perspective he had not considered. 

Modern schooling tends to take the opposite approach, at least when it comes to the early years in which knowledge is viewed as a collection of correct answers that the children must be able to repeat on command. Children who challenge the "authorized gods" (as Socrates put it), who question, who argue, are viewed as problems. They might be humored for a bit, but ultimately, if they don't conform, they are punished with poor grades, low test scores, and sometimes, if they persist in arguing, worse.

Intellectually, most of us agree with Socrates: "(T)he life that is unexamined is not worth living." But among the very first and most important lessons we teach our children in standard schools -- if they are to be "successful" -- is to not question the correct answers. And by no means are you to argue. 

The result of decades of this kind of schooling is that few of us know how to argue productively. Almost everyone I know confesses to being "conflict averse." Arguments make them uncomfortable. It's no wonder because arguing these days, especially over politics, but really anything of importance, tends to be fraught, so much so that many of us have given it up altogether. After all, we all know, going in, that we’re very unlikely to change anyone’s mind, so why risk the vitriol, anger, and even the threats of violence that seem to lie just under the surface.

The thing is, study after study shows that if the goal is to learn something new, to make better decisions, or to be innovative, then the best way to make that happen is for people to fight over ideas. As Stanford business school professor Robert Sutton says, if learning or creativity is the goal, then “People would fight as if they are right, and listen as if they are wrong.” In other words, winning or persuading has nothing to do with this kind of argument. And while the latest science demonstrates the power of intellectual conflict, Socrates and his famous method has been with us for centuries.

As a preschool teacher, I want the children I teach to know that it's not just their right, but their responsibility to question the authorized gods. I want them to know that the most important thing they can do is to ask questions, especially inconvenient ones. I want them to know that their questions deserve thoughtful, honest answers, even if that answer is "I don't know." And the only way this happens is for me to give up on the idea of correct answers.

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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 way 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!

"Comparison is the Thief of Joy"

I recently met a parent "in the wild," who, when she learned what I do for a living, began telling me why her son is perfectly normal. In other words, she, like many parents, had some doubts about it.

"Normal" is not a useful concept when it comes to human beings, and most especially young children. In recent decades, we've attempted replace it with the word "typical" -- as in neurotypical -- but in the minds of nervous parents I'm not sure there's much difference between the two.

Theodore Roosevelt once said, "Comparison is the thief of joy." Normal and typical are terms of comparison that run so deep in modern education that it can be hard to conceive of institutionalized learning without them. We grade and rank children, we expect them to meet or exceed arbitrary "standards" and "developmental milestones," we fret about reading above or below "grade level." Not so long ago, our youngest citizens weren't victims of these ham-fisted comparisons until well into elementary school, but today they are being analyzed and assessed from the moment they're born, always having hoops placed before them to prove they are "normal."

No wonder our children are so depressed, stressed, fragile, and joyless. The process of normalization in normal schools is crushing. It plays out as a relentless focus on each child's deficits, which means a search for ways in which they do not fully measure up. Oh sure, we celebrate those who exceed the standards, but when children are extraordinary in any way that the system does not measure, their unique traits are deemed to be challenging behaviors. Their extraordinariness is evidence of an inability to focus. Or a waste of time. They are then tutored, punished, pathologized, and even drugged in order to bring them in line with normal.

I've never met a normal or typical child. They are all extraordinary. This is not an empty platitude. I've spent my professional career refusing to engage in the violence of comparison. This is often frustrating to parents who have been brainwashed into worrying about how their kid measure up to normal, but when I'm asked to assess any child, I only talk about their superpowers. I talk about what spurs their curiosity and what sparks their joy. I delight in their quirks, eccentricities, and passions. This is my job: to figure out what gives them joy, then to do whatever I can to make it possible for them to be joyful. 

The flaw in a school system (or child rearing) based on normal is that the focus on deficits presumes there is some process or method by which we can somehow get all the kids to measure up, to toe the line, to be like everybody else. It defines "extraordinary" in a very narrow and, frankly, arbitrary range, which, of course, leaves most kids out.

Play-based preschool is the only educational method I know that fully embraces the extraordinary in every child. It should never be about comparison, but rather the joy of learning what it means for each child to come fully alive. 

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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 way 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!

16 Books That Transformed My Work With Young Children

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The man who never reads lives only one.  ~George R.R. Martin. 

What will you do with your summer? It's what our teachers always asked us as the school year wound down. As professional educators, many of us get to ask ourselves the same question.

My answer then, as it is now, is read.

Indeed, if I have one piece of advice for early childhood educators it's to read more books. Whole books. Education and development books, of course, but more importantly, books on any topic or by any person that sparks your interest.

Unfortunately, our time is limited. Much of the reading we do as educators tends toward "professional reading" -- curriculum materials, lesson plans, assessment tools, policy documents. Sometimes we might take a look at the latest book on play-based learning. Most of us have a stack of books that we "need to" get to. But the bottomline is that this is all just functional reading, reading to solve problems and produce results, like how to manage behavior, how to meet standards, and how to deliver content. 

When this forms the bulk of our reading, it tends to narrow our vision . . . not to mention exhaust us because we are reading for a purpose, as opposed to reading for pleasure. It keeps us circling around the same assumptions, the same language, the same ways of seeing children. We can too easily get trapped in a bubble of ECE orthodoxy. As John Dewey reminds us, education is not preparation for anything; education is life itself. And books give us life . . . a thousand lives. 

If our role is to create environments in which children are free to follow their own curiosity and teach themselves, then our most important tool isn’t a strategy or a script. It’s our capacity to see. The wider and more deeply we see the world, the more perspectives we possess, the more possibilities we’re able to offer. That kind of vision won’t come from staying inside the field of education. It comes from reading broadly—books that stretch our sense of perception, that challenge what we think we know about human nature, that invite us into relationships with the more-than-human world, and that immerse us in imagination, ambiguity, and even humor. 

When we read this way, we can’t help but become more reflective and less certain, more curious and less controlling. We’re better able to recognize the invitations children are constantly offering us, and less likely to fall into the trap of unsolicited instruction. In short, we become better at creating environments where real learning can happen. 

I have put together a list of books that have done that for me.

None of the books on my list are “how-to” guides for teaching, but they all made me a better play-based preschool teacher. This is not a list of my favorite books. It is, rather, a list of books that I return to again and again in my work as an educator. Seven of the books are fiction, including a pair of picture books. The other nine are non-fiction, books about history and science mostly, although there are two essay collections on the list. I don’t think of myself as a particularly avid science fiction reader, but there are three books on this list that fit (loosely) the category. Maybe that’s because these authors show us a vision of the future, and at the end of the day, that's what we do: build the future through our work with our youngest citizens.

These are all books that have expanded how I understand people, knowledge, and the world itself. And that, in turn, has transformed how I show up with children.

If you're interested in checking out my list of 16 Books that Transformed My Work With Young Children, along with the reasons I included them, download by clicking here. 

I'm not saying you should or will feel the same way. In fact, I found putting together this list such an enlightening exercise that I can heartily recommend that you make your own list of books that transformed your work with young children. I found it an interesting filter through which to consider the thousand lives I've lived. Many of the books I consider to be among the greatest ever written are not included. Most of my favorites didn't make the cut. But every book on this list -- these 16 lives -- made a direct and last impact on my work as an early childhood educator.

What will you do with your summer? How about living a few more lives?

******

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 way 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 Agreements We Make With One Another

There was no reason for me to be close, so I kept my distance. There was no reason for me to be a part of their game, so I remained invisible.

It probably began days, if not weeks, before I understood it was a game, but it came to my attention in the form of a girl filling a plastic witch's cauldron with things she had scavenged from around the playground.

A friend said some words to her. Maybe he asked, "Can I play with you?" but it was more likely something along the lines of "What are you doing?" which is typically a better playground question if the goal is to be invited in. They began filling the cauldron together, discussing each item, coming to agreements over what went into the mix and what was cast aside according to some system known only to them.

A decision was made to add water to the cauldron. By now it was heavy with the debris they had meticulously collected. But not too heavy because it only took one of them to carry it over to the cast iron hand pump. While the girl held the cauldron, her friend began filling a smaller bucket, which he then poured over their collection. As they worked together, another child joined them. After a discussion that may or may not have included the phrase, "I've got an idea," they agreed to forego the unnecessary step of the bucket and slide the cauldron itself under the flow of water.

Agreement, however it is arrived at, stands at the center of our preschool, as it does in life itself. Conflict, all conflict, emerges from the inability to agree. These children were not playing a game; they were living.

The children took turns pumping until the cauldron was full, or at least as full as they collectively agreed it needed to be. Now it was too heavy for a single carrier, so they circled around the cauldron and lifted it together. Walking with it was a complicated matter: they had to agree about where they were going, at what speed, and who would have to walk backwards or sideways. Maybe it was still too heavy. They staggered a bit under its weight before another friend joined them, dashing in to slide his arms under cauldron. When another playmate tried to squeeze her body in amongst them, it became clear that they could lift it, but not effectively carry the heavy thing, even when they all worked together.

They agreed they would need to put it down, which they did, carefully, not spilling more than a drop or two.

As they discussed their next steps, someone said, clearly enough for me to hear it, "I've got an idea! Let's use the wagon!" This was met with approval, with the exception of one girl, the girl who had tried to squeeze in. She objected. "I'm using it." I'd previously noted her idly pulling the wagon, alone, watching the cauldron situation from afar. She had abandoned it briefly to help.

"Please!" the other children begged. "We just need it for a second." The girl stood with her back to the group, apparently considering what to do. It wasn't long before she relented, "Okay, but I want it back when you're done." Another agreement.

Now the challenge was how to get the wagon to the cauldron. It was on the other side of the row of tree rounds that line the upper level of the sand pit. One child attempted to lift it, but when the others didn't join his effort, he gave it up in favor of what the group decided was a "better idea," which was to pull it around to the side. It appeared to be the work of a single child, so the others stood around watching as he wheeled the wagon the long way around. He struggled, however, when it came to the steep part of the slope, so other children, spontaneously, pushed from behind.

Then, the wagon in place, a small miracle happened. The girl who had started it all, easily lifted the heavy cauldron all on her own, placing into the bed of the wagon. As it turns out, it could have been carried by a single child, but they had collectively agreed that together was better, even if that made things more complicated, perhaps even more difficult. The agreement, not the project, was clearly the important thing.

The project, this project of life itself, continued to play out for some time as the wagon, propelled over difficult terrain made its way in stops and starts around the space, eventually winding up back where the whole thing had started. The cauldron hadn't, after all, mattered. The debris and water it held didn't matter. Whether it was a witch's brew or a soup didn't matter. Indeed, even where they were going with it didn't matter. All that mattered, all that ever matters really, in the end, are the agreements we make with one another.

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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!

Who Wouldn't Want to Be Part of That?

Growing up, all things being equal, when given the choice, we would opt for being outside over inside. For many years as an educator I informally polled the children in my care, asking where they would prefer to be. Very rarely did anyone choose to be inside when outside was an option. I would likewise ask if they would rather play video games or play with their friends. Most chose friends, although one boy, after giving it some thought, replied, "I'd rather play video games outside with my friends." He rejected the binary choice, yet still, even with video games involved, he wanted to be closer to nature.

We tend to forget that nature is not a finished product, but rather a process that is ongoing. As mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead put it, "Nature is never complete. It is always passing beyond itself. This is the creative advance of nature." 

Studies consistently show that most humans, most of the time, are more cognitively alive while free from the confines of ceilings and walls. We think more clearly, more creatively, and it's probably not an accident that we also tend to feel less anxious when our horizons are expansive. Perhaps that's because we too are a part of the creative advance of nature. 

Our scientific tradition often place humans, and particularly our conscious minds, outside of nature. They tell us that things we can't see, like atoms and electromagnetic fields, are real, whereas things we actually experience, like colors and the passage of time, are just fabrications of our minds. Whitehead and others refer to this as the bifurcation of nature. But as any child knows, we are not separate from nature; rather we are fully intertwined with it. We are nature as much as any leaf or bird or geological process. 

In her book Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer writes, "(S)cience is rigorous in separating the observer from the observed, and the observed from the observer." But "We make a grave error, if we try to separate individual well-being from the health of the whole." 

When I'm amidst young children at play, especially outdoors, it's impossible to not see that they are doing nothing less than fully engaging with Mother Nature's process, filling their role, not as individual agents, but rather as integrated aspects of the full expression of nature's creative process. It's not a great leap to see this creative process as all of nature engaged in play. And who wouldn't want to be part of that?

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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!

Consciously Constructing Memories to Be Empowering Rather Than Traumatizing

Yesterday afternoon was gorgeous -- sunny, warm, with a gusty breeze. My wife Jennifer and I had just voted so I decided to cycle to city hall where they have a ballot drop box in the lobby. 

On my way home, I took a familiar route, riding a well-paved bike track that runs between a public golf course on one side and a large, well-used city park on the other. I was the only cyclist along this segment. I was accelerating. I was taking in the scenery, breathing deeply, letting my mind wander a bit. I thought I heard someone say, "Watch out!" I turned my eyes toward the voice and saw a man wearing a yellow shirt and sun hat standing some distance off in the sports field to my left. Visions of a soccer ball, or perhaps golf ball, flashed briefly through my head. But seeing nothing to warrant alarm, I refocused forward just in time to see a thin string across my path at handle bar level.

The next thing I knew that thin string was cutting into my forearms and biceps. 

The next few seconds passed like minutes. In that condensed moment, I recognized that a kite had come to earth, its string caught in the top of the fence on one side, while the wind filled the downed kite making the line taut right across my path. I watched the string dig into my skin. I knew I needed to stop, but with my arms pinned by the string I struggled to get my hands to my brake levers. Meanwhile, the pain of this extreme rope burn was cutting right through any endorphins I might have been producing. I imagined I saw friction smoke coming from the wounds. I wondered if it would cut to the bone. I contemplated throwing myself off onto the pavement. I considered what I would do if the string somehow slid up my arms to my neck.

From the perspective of someone watching, this all probably happened within three or four seconds, but this morning I'm recalling it as something that happened in an immeasurable space of time. I fought through the string to get to my brakes, let the bike fall to the ground, and pulled the string out of the gashes on both arms. 

In the meantime, I'd figured out that that the man in yellow was the kite flyer. There was a fence and a good 100 feet separating us. I yelled at him. This was his fault. I was in pain and I wanted him to know he was to blame. I wanted him to pay for it. I'm pretty sure I didn't swear, but I might have. He said he was sorry. It bothered me that he remained where he was, though in hindsight I realize that he was winding up his string as fast as he could. What else could he do?

He offered to call an ambulance. He offered to call the police so I could file a report. My wounds were deep, narrow gashes in my skin. The one on my right forearm was bleeding slightly. They looked ghastly, they hurt like the dickens, but for all that had happened they appeared, thankfully, superficial. By now, my yelling had lost its energy. I said that it seemed like an overreaction to call 911, plus I didn't want to spend the rest of my day talking to authorities. But what if it was worse than it appeared? He gave me his name (Tony) and phone number. He could have been lying, but I didn't think so. He seemed genuinely upset. Indeed, at one point he pulled his sunglasses from his eyes and said, "I want you to see my eyes so you know I'm sincere. I deeply apologize." I regret that I didn't immediately accept his apology.

I few minutes into all this, a young man showed up in a golf cart. I think he might have been an employee of the golf course. He said he'd seen it happen, that my wounds looked terrible, and that I should file a police report. After he drove away, I returned to Tony to say that maybe I would file a police report. Tony agreed and even offered to call. But when I considered what I was going to say to the officer, I waved him off.

I mean, what would I say? Here was a guy flying a kite in a field. It had fallen to the ground in just a manner and at just a time that it coincided with me, another guy engaged in an innocent hobby. What else could he have done? What else could I have done? This was an accident in the purest sense of the word.

I rode the rest of the way home, washed the wounds, and slathered them in Neosporin. I told Jennifer the story. We went around a couple of times about calling my doctor or going to urgent care, but the pain had receded, and I had other things to do. I noticed one of my neighbors outside tossing a tennis ball for her dog. I know her to be both compassionate and wise, so I went out to tell my story to her. She imagined that I might be feeling traumatized and offered to fetch me some big bandages. We wondered together about calling the police, but what was there to report? As we spoke a couple of other neighbors came by. I again told my story and we stood around joking about the stories I might fabricate about the scars I was sure to have.

I went back inside and texted Tony. I wrote:

Hey Tony. This is Tom, the cyclist who got caught in your kite string. I've washed up and applied Neosporin. I'm sorry I yelled at you. I think it's going to be okay, but I'll let you know if it's anything more than superficial. Flying kites is probably the most wholesome hobby anyone can have. Don't let this stop you!

Within seconds my phone rang. It was Tony. By now a couple hours had passed. He told me that he was sick to his stomach, that he had been running over and over in his head what he could have done differently. He thought that maybe he should have shouted, "Stop!" instead of just "Watch out!" He told me he was going to buy a pocket knife so that he could cut the string if something like that ever happened again. He apologized once more and this time I accepted it.

I'm writing about this here for a couple reasons. The first is that I'm currently reading a book called Why We Remember by memory researcher Charan Ranganath, in which he explains what we know about how memories are constructed. Things like this can be stored as trauma, but it's not necessary. I am consciously attempting to process this experience as life-affirming and humanity-affirming. Yes, I was hurt, but I'm emerging stronger, and I will have scars to prove it. When we suffer things like this, our minds tend to flash back on specific moments. In this case, I keep seeing the string burning into my skin. Each time I see it in my mind's eye, I turn my actual eyes to the long, thin scabs that are forming on my arms, then think about the unique story I will have to tell each time someone asks about my scars. This is also the story I'm telling myself, consciously constructing the memory in a way that will be empowering rather than traumatizing: a story about "survival" (in the broadest sense of the word), but also compassion and forgiveness. I mean, in the long run, poor Tony is the one who is likely to be the most traumatized. I meant it when I said I wanted him to keep flying his kite.

The second reason I'm writing about this is here is to point out that as important adults in the lives of young children, we can play a significant role in how they construct and store the memories they are making every day. When we support them in telling their own stories about their challenging experiences, we are giving them the opportunity to create memories that tell an autobiography of resilience and survival. People are always saying stupid things like "There are no accidents," but they're flat out wrong. There are accidents. The emergent now is always an accident. Bad things happen in our lives no matter how wholesomely we live them. At the end of the day, it's the stories we construct about them that determine how they ultimately impact our lives.

Meanwhile, I've awoken the find that my wounds are slightly better this morning, itchy and sore, but well on their way to being part of the legend of me. Later today, I'll reach out to Tony to let him know how I'm doing.

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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!

"We Need Help!"

I help children when they need my help, but most of the time when they ask, it isn't my help they need, but rather help in general, help that could be just as easily provided by other children.

When a kid asks me, for instance, to push them on the swing, I call out, factually, "Audrey wants someone to push her on the swing!" and wait. Sometimes I have to announce it a second time, but invariably, before I've said it a third time, someone has come to the conclusion that they will be the ones to help Audrey.

If a child asks me to, say, lift a heavy car tire on top of a tree stump, I might respond, again factually, "There are a lot of strong kids around who could probably help you." And on most days it only takes one or two requests to find someone willing and able to help.

Asking for help is a vital life skill. When my wife was starting out in business she often worried that asking for help would cause her male co-workers to think her incompetent, so she would try to do everything on her own. One day, however, in a pinch, she broke down and asked her boss for help. It was an epiphany. Not only did he lean in, providing the help she needed, but as she later said, "He thought I was brilliant because I'd asked him for help." To this day, one of her mantras is, "Most people want to help you, but you have to ask them."

She's right. I've had to train myself to not instantly come to the aid of a child who asks because my natural inclination is to just leap to it. But I've come to see that too often what that means is that I wind up doing it for the children when one of the main goals of any education is for children to learn to do things for themselves. And that includes asking peers, rather than adults, for help. Again, I have to use my judgement, sometimes they need adult help, but most of the time, the kids can do it for themselves, including helping one another.

A couple of girls wanted to stack our large wooden boxes to create "bunk beds." They're heavy things, awkward for small bodies to hoist. Most children need help to lift them. They managed stacking the first box on their own, but then realized that was their limit without help. I was sitting right there, but being children experienced in how our school works, they began calling out, "We need help! Everybody, we need help!"

And sure enough help arrived to assist them in wrangling a third box on top. 

When they began working on a fourth box, however, I expected they would turn to me. Honestly, I was nervous about the idea of stacking them four high. I knew that their plan was to climb to the top to "sleep" and an unsecured tower like that could easily fall with children clambering all over it. I was prepared to issue my adult cautions, but they took on the challenge of a fourth box without even turning toward me. I stepped a little closer to be prepared for a rescue if necessary. It wasn't easy to get that fourth box up there. Indeed, thought it impossible, but four of them working together did it. (I then unobtrusively nudged the boxes into alignment to satisfy my concerns about stability as they curled their bodies into those empty bunks.)

"Look what we did, Teacher Tom! We made bunk beds!"

I answered, "You asked for help and your friends helped you."

She replied, "They did." Then she corrected herself, "We did!"

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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!