"Whoever Uses Machines Does His Work Like a Machine"

The Woodland Park Cooperative Preschool has a workbench on the playground. This is the place where "real" tools are used, which is to say hammers, saws, screwdrivers, wrenches, pliers, glue guns, sanders, and other classic hand tools. 

The rest of the playground is a loose parts paradise in which the children are free to manipulate, transport, combine, and dismantle whatever they find, according to their curiosity, with the caveat that an adult will step in if that threatens to harm themselves or someone else. (Our landlord also expects us to be protective of the building.) But the workbench is something else. If you step into the workbench area, the adult will often expect you to wear protective eyewear. You can use the tools to make whatever you want, often involving objects you find on the wider playground, but you are expected to use the tools for their intended purpose.

Hammers are for driving and prying out nails . . . If you want to smash something, you use a mallet.

Screwdrivers are for tightening and turning screws . . . If you want to stab something, you use a knife or a pick or an awl.

Saws are for cutting wood . . . If you want to have a sword fight, you'll have to find some sticks.

Tools are not uniquely human, but our capacity for creating and using tools is unsurpassed in the animal kingdom. Indeed, nearly everything we do in our lives involves using a tool. We drink coffee from a tool called a mug. We take notes with a tool called a pencil. We cook dinner with tools called pots and pans. Our world is full of machines, fancier tools, from automobiles to televisions to computers, all of which are designed for a purpose or purposes. We create tools to extend ourselves into the world in increasingly powerful ways. From the earliest cutting and grinding tools of our most ancient ancestors to the machine intelligences and screen-based technologies that we carry in our pockets, the story of tools is the story of humankind.

One of the stories we tell ourselves about our tools and machines is that they represent progress. We say that we're grateful that we don't have to, say, carry our laundry down to the river the way they did in the olden days. We don't think we'd like to live without running water and HVAC systems and coffee makers. We could do it, of course, but why?

Then we wonder why we're soft in the middle, why we're anxious, and why, with all this progress, we still have to find ways to motivate ourselves to get out of bed in the morning. We join a gym because we don't get enough exercise out of our natural lives. We waste chunks of our lives seeking for something like human connection as we doom scroll or binge watch. The machines and tools are supposed to free us up for more important things . . . But we struggle to figure out what's more important.

There is an ancient Chinese Taoist parable about an old gardener who is painstakingly watering his fields by hand. A passerby suggests using a simple mechanical device called a levered well sweep that would make the work go faster and easier.

"Then anger rose up in the old man’s face, and he said, “I have heard my teacher say that whoever uses machines does all his work like a machine. He who does his work like a machine grows a heart like a machine, and he who carries the heart of a machine in his breast loses his simplicity. He who has lost his simplicity becomes unsure in the strivings of his soul. Uncertainty in the strivings of the soul is something which does not agree with honest sense. It is not that I do not know of such things (machines); I am ashamed to use them." (From The Gutenberg Galaxy, Marshall McLuhan)

Tools and machines may increase our efficiency, but they also, inevitably, reshape the human spirit, turning life into a kind of mechanical routine, which, I assert, is part of the reason so many of us find ourselves vaguely, or even pointedly, dissatisfied in the modern world.

I am not anti-technology any more than I am anti-hammer, but every tool changes us for better or worse, and it's therefore important to use our tools consciously: to use them for the proper purpose. Most of the time, our new tools are about making tasks faster or easier, but efficiency cannot always be our North Star. Education, in particular, is not improved through efficiency. That is a matter for commerce and manufacturing. But learning is about thinking and our current computer/screen based technologies tend to thwart actual thinking by robbing us of wonder. When I hear ed-tech evangelists touting their latest "innovation," I'm reminded of Abraham Maslow's famous quote, "If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail."

I like keeping an eye on the birds that hang out near my home. Several years ago, I noticed that the local ravens habitually fly in a flock (an unkindness to use the so-called proper term) westward about 15 minutes before sunrise. At first I thought that maybe a local business, like a bakery, tossed it's day-old food into an open dumpster every morning, but had to dismiss the theory when daylight savings time rolled around that the ravens continued their behavior. If humans were involved it would be according to clock time rather than orbital time. Every morning as the ravens passed by, I wondered about them. They didn't seem to have any particular urgency about their mini-migration. It didn't include all the ravens, because I spied others hanging out in trees. There weren't ravens flying in from every direction as if they were descending on a specific destination. It was just a general westward movement by a subset of ravens. Why were there sometimes more and fewer in the flock? Why was it connected to sunrise? Every day, I looked for clues, hints, and ideas, spending a few minutes each morning wondering about it. It was a purely intellectual activity.

I finally began to settle on an explanation that delighted me. I imagined a local ur raven from centuries ago that developed an irrational fear of the sun as it rose over the horizon in the east. Too bright! Too hot! What the hell is that thing? So it would, each morning, attempt to run away to the west. Before long, other ravens joined it, not out of fear, but because this one raven, maybe in other contexts a respected leader, seemed to "know" something. Now, centuries later, they are still doing it as a kind of cultural tradition.

This is something I've been contemplating almost every morning for several years. I recently, however, made the mistake of asking an AI about it. I still see those ravens most mornings, but their behavior no longer fills me with curiosity and wonder because I have "the answer." Like that ancient gardener, I'm ashamed that I used a machine. Now when I see that flock overhead, I'm struck by a sense of loss.

Our phones, tablets, and computers are great tools for efficiently determining the right answers (or at least the general consensus answers: I still prefer my own theory about the ravens). They are tools for testing. But they are emphatically not tools for thinking, which requires curiosity and wonder, which is to say not knowing. The main contribution these tools make to early learning is to help adults get through their top-down curricula more efficiently, but if thinking is our goal, they are emphatically the wrong tools, like using sandpaper to hammer a nail.

Perhaps worse, these correct answer providing machines create the illusion of ultimate answers. They cause us to stop wondering. When we use these wrong tools for the wrong reasons we, in the words of physicist Carlo Rovelli, risk losing "the scientific spirit of distrust in whoever claims to be the one having ultimate answers or privileged access to Truth." Doubt, distrust, and not knowing are essential for thinking to take place.

Someday, these young children will grow into adults need those correct answers and they'll turn to the proper tool. Someday, they'll need efficiency. But right now in these early years, the tools they need are ones that open vistas, that create space for curiosity and wonder, that help them think like a human, not a machine. And that tool isn't a tool at all: it's life itself.

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

I put a lot of time and effort into this blog. If you'd like to support me please consider a small contribution to the cause. Thank you!

It's Respect that Matters

As a new parent, I was convinced that our daughter would grow up to be a sports playing, hammer wielding tomboy. After all, I was playing the role of stay-at-home-parent in our family, and I just assumed that my male influence would make it so. We didn't exactly try to raise her in a non-gender specific way, but her mom was the one heading off to the office, while her dad handled childcare, cooking, and cleaning. Not only that, but we both preferred her in short hair and overalls, and for the first couple years of her life, whenever she was out with me, everyone just assumed she was a little boy, a mistake I didn't always correct. If anyone was raising a child outside the cultural expectations for little girls, it was us.

When she was around two-years-old she came across a bejeweled crown in a toy store, put in on her head, looked me in the eye and said, "You don't know what girls do." She then proceeded to wear a crown, princess dresses, tutus, and sparkles every day for the next three years.

I wasn't disappointed, but I was surprised. After all, the mainstream debates over gender back then tended to be of the nature v. nurture variety and I was convinced that our nurturing would, of course, result in a girl who was not so, well, girly. I began to wonder if maybe nature had, indeed, won out. It was around this time that the two-year-old daughter of one of our friends began to dress herself in her brother's "boy clothes" and insist that the rest of us call her Joe. It wasn't a "phase" and today, nearly 30 years later, we all know him as a young man. Was this even more evidence for nature? Or was it nurture?

Who cares? I mean, I'm sure there are scientists out there trying to figure it all out, and I'm convinced that they will continue to find that it's some combination of both, but as a parent or educator in the real world, my responsibility is to stay out of it. If the child says they're a girl, they're a girl, even if it's only for a day or a week, and even if they aren't choosing frilly dresses. If they say they're a boy, they're a boy, even it it's only for a day or a week and even if they aren't choosing overalls. And if they don't want to be forced to pick a gender, it's not my job to push them one way or another. 

I know that for many, our attempts to raise children in a gender neutral way seems like a radical concept, simultaneously dangerous and silly. "Dangerous" because they fear our nurturing will result in forcing something on their children and "silly" because they expect that in-born gender wiring will win out. But "gender-neutral" only means that we seek to be neutral, which is to say we strive to take their word for it.

We do it because we respect children and there is nothing dangerous or silly about that.

In an interview with Australian early childhood expert Maggie Dent that I conducted for a few years back, she told me that she continues to have to "heal the wounds" she suffers due to gender expectations and stereotypes. Even though her gender identity matches her biology, she was, as she tells it, a loud, physical "tomboy" who was forever being told to quiet down, know her place, not get to big for her boots, and, above all, to be compliant, because girls are expected to be "people pleasers." She tells of an old family photo in which she is wearing an expression of "rage and disgust" over being forced to wear a fancy dress.

She's not the only woman to object to being shoved into the "woman box" even as she identifies as a woman. I can tell you that as a man, I resent being shoved into the "man box." We are all more and bigger than the stereotypes. Maggie talks of Australian fathers who are upset when their boys come home from school wearing nail polish fearing that it will somehow turn them gay or female, which is as silly as thinking that a stay-at-home father will turn daughters into macho men. As for the argument that children will be somehow confused if we don't stick with their "biological" gender, I ask you to consider how confusing it must have been for little Joe who knew, even at a very young age, that he was a boy even as the rest of the world was telling him he was wrong. 

Everything is confusing until it is not. That's what learning is all about. Humans can deal with confusing. It's lack of respect that wounds us.

We are born with the bodies we're born with, but the rest is a social construct enforced by expectations and stereotypes that serve no one but those who would shove others into boxes. I might continue to struggle with things like gender neutral pronouns. I have 64 years of social conditioning to overcome. But I'm working on it, not because it's politically correct, but because I want to show my fellow humans, even if they are young children, the same sort of respect that I want for myself.

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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!

Children Must Bicker as They Play

One of the things Seattle's teachers won in their 2015 strike was a commitment from the school district that elementary school students would receive a minimum of 30 minutes of recess per day. In fairness, some schools were already providing more than that, but there were several, apparently, that were limiting their youngest students to a meager 15 minutes. It's actually disheartening to this play-based educator to learn that a half hour is considered a victory.

The ostensible reason for such pathetically restricted recess is that longer recesses cut into that all-important "classroom time," but I also heard that some administrators favor limited or non-existant recesses because when children freely play they are more likely to wind up in conflicts.

Let me be the first to say, "Duh."

As a teacher in a school that engages in no direct instruction, but rather bases its curriculum on the evidence of how children learn best, which is through their own self-selected play, I'm here to tell you that conflict stands at the center of how learning happens. Our entire school day is, for all intents and purposes, recess, and yes, much of what the children are doing while playing both indoors and out is bicker.

For adults interested in eliminating bickering, I would say that 15 minutes is about right: it usually takes the children at least that long just to figure out what they're going to do, which, in a robust classroom like ours, with lots of kids with lots of agendas engaging with shared and limited resources, is typically followed by a period of often intense negotiation, which often shows up as conflict.

For instance, a group of four and five-year-olds, mostly boys, found themselves playing together with a collection of cardboard tubes and tennis balls. For the first 15 minutes or so, they engaged like independent agents, each arranging tubes, and collecting balls for their own personal use. That time passed relatively quietly, with each of them exploring and experimenting. 

The next 15 minutes was characterized by physical and emotional chaos, as they began to bump up against limitations of space and resources, but the real impetus for the conflicts were their divergent ideas for how they were going to play. Most of the kids were setting their tubes up at angles down which they were rolling balls, but at least one guy was more interested in using the tubes as a way to practice balance, rolling them the way a lumberjack might. The resulting spills and his lurching body, of course, tended to upend his classmates' carefully constructed efforts and there were a lot of things said about it, like, "Hey! You're knocking over my tube!" which was followed by a round or two of argument, sometimes even accompanied by shoving and other physical attempts to solve their impasse. 

Others began to collect balls, "all the balls," which lead to complaints like, "Hey! You have all the balls!"

Some objected when friends would block up the end of the tube so their balls couldn't pass through, robbing them of the satisfaction of witnessing the end result of their experiment.

By the end of this 15 minutes, there was one boy crying, several flush with frustration, and a couple who found themselves wound up into a slightly hysterical state by the hubbub. This is where I did my work for the day. I stepped in several times to help cool tempers and encourage conversation, which I did by reminding the children of the rules they had made together the previous week, the agreements we had made about how we wanted to treat one another. Among those rules were such classics as "No taking things from other people," "No hitting," "No pushing," and "No knocking down other people's buildings," along with an agreement that if someone tells you to "Stop!" you must stop and listen to what the other person has to say.

Most of the conflicts I let run their course as the kids were talking, sometimes loudly, sometimes heatedly. As long as they were heading toward resolution I stayed on the sidelines, but when things became physical or the emotions turned intense, I dropped to my knees in the midst of it and said things like, "I saw you take that tube from him. We all agreed, 'No taking things from other people,'" and "He's crying because he worked really hard building that and you knocked it down." But mostly what I did was encourage the children to listen to one another by simply saying things like, "I want you to listen to what he has to say."

This is the period of recess play that those administrators want to avoid. I know that many schools consider recess to be a time for the classroom teachers to catch a little break, leaving the school yard in the hands of a few "monitors." One kindergarten teacher told me that they often have 40 or more children per adult on their playground. I know I wouldn't want to face that second 15 minutes without all hands on deck.

So why do we put up with that second 15 minutes? To get to the third 15 minutes and beyond. That's when all that bickering begins to pay off. That's when all the conflict and talking and listening start to bring those ideas and agendas together. 

For the next hour I more or less sat on a bench and watched the children play, together, saying sentences to one another that began with the invitation word, "Let's . . ." 

"Let's connect all the big tubes!"

"Let's put all the balls in this bucket!"

"Let's move it over here!"

There was still a bit of bickering, but it was of the productive variety, with children actually listening to their friends' thoughts and ideas, sometimes disagreeing, but mostly finding ways to incorporate it within their own agenda. This is the gold standard of a play-based curriculum: creative, cooperative play, and sometimes the only way to get there is through that second 15 minutes.

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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!

Striving to Be the Adult Children Need

I occasionally feel the urge to tackle. It's a thought that's there and gone with no threat of turning into action. I played football as a boy, on neighborhood lawns with other kids, then later in full pads through middle school. I recall a couple instances from that time that involved me slamming my body into that of another person, but the collisions of my impulsive thoughts are different that the actual moments, if only because the reality of tackling is usually accompanied by a bit of pain. Whereas the tackling of my imagination is more like a sudden merging of energy, a dissolving my self into the self of another. 

I feel a little vulnerable sharing this urge with the world at large because I don't want to be judged as a violent person. But honestly, there is a kind of violence in the impulse, although I genuinely have no desire to cause harm. Indeed, in my internal world of urges, it would only be satisfying if the other person slammed into me with an equal intent and force.

It's about a certain kind of impact, I guess, something I'm not sure I've ever actually experienced, nor do I ever expect to. Yet the thought pops up unpredictably, although usually it coincides with times when my mind wanders, sometimes as I'm dozing off.

I imagine this is part of why I empathize when young children give in to their urges. I have my own urge to act in "forbidden" ways. We say that their prefrontal cortex is still forming, that they lack the executive function necessary to control themselves, that they need us to support them until that part of their brain is fully formed. According to National Institute for Health that's not until around 25-years-old. Some researchers say it's closer to 30.

I've never heard of any other adult who has this urge to tackle, although I know that at least some young children share it with me because, you know, some of them act on it, slamming their body into someone else without any apparent anger or ulterior purpose. If anything, their facial expressions show joy. If I make the mistake of asking them why they did it, they say, "I don't know," and I believe them, because I have my own inexplicable urges.

I suppose I could put my urge into the category of "intrusive thoughts," although in the psychological literature, those are most often defined as "unwanted" and "distressing," often resulting in fear, guilt, or anxiety. They are often associated with stress, trauma, or fatigue. None of that fits my experience. On the other hand, the literature also mentions that intrusive thoughts are "frequently violent" and "do not reflect a person's desires," which does match my experience. This leads me to consider that I have a "mild" version of the condition, if that's possible, one that allows me to better empathize with impulsive behaviors in others.

I identify when I see young children struggle with their impulses. As the adult, my first job is to keep all the children safe. So obviously I have to put a stop to behaviors that are unwanted by others or that may cause bodily harm, but it's also my responsibility to strive to understand. And doing that very often means looking inward in search of common psychological or emotional ground. I can't always find it, but usually there is something we share that allows me to find the compassion I need to be the adult they need to support them.

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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!

"A Culturally Induced and Perpetuated Lie"

"Look what I made, Teacher Tom."

She had used a hot glue gun to piece together a sculptural object from junk.

I said, "I'm looking at what you made."

Sometimes they want to tell you what it is. Sometimes they just assume you know what it is. Sometimes it just is what it is. 

"Look what I made" is right up there with "I have an idea" and "Let's pretend . . ." when it comes to the phrases I most like to hear in life, and especially in preschool classrooms. Making things is a central part of what makes us human. There is real magic in collecting parts from the world around you and recombining them. When we do it purposefully it's an act of invention. Recombining them without purpose is an act of discovery. Recombining them over and over again is an act of exploration. 

In his 1971 manifesto published in Landscape Architecture magazine entitled "How Not to Cheat Children: The Theory of Loose Parts," Simon Nicholson wrote, "Creativity is for the gifted few: the rest of us are compelled to live in environments constructed by the gifted few, listen to the gifted few's music, use the gifted few's inventions and art, and read the poems, fantasies and plays by the gifted few."

He then goes on to declare this to be a "culturally induced and perpetuated lie." It's a lie that has only become more pronounced in the intervening half century. 

There was a time, not so long ago, when if you wanted a house, you built it yourself. You didn't hire architects and contractors, the "gifted few," but rather picked up your tools and got to work, relying as much as possible on the materials at hand, including your neighbors.

The composer, John Phillip Sousa worried about the advent of recorded music: “There are more pianos, violins, guitars, mandolins, and banjos among the working classes of America than in all the rest of the world . . . But once machine music arrived, children, understandably, turned on the machine and sat home to “listen to the machine’s performance” rather than engaging in study to learn how to play the piano, violin, or harp themselves . . ." These machine performances are the product of the gifted few.

The walls of my grandparents home were decorated with artwork created by the people who lived in the house, folk art, something that is now left to gifted few.

I love to cook, especially when I get to use products that I've brought home from the local farmer's market -- or better yet, food that I've foraged or grown myself -- but increasingly, cooking is being left up to the gifted few in the form of frozen, canned, and otherwise pre-packaged meals, or perhaps delivered, completely assembled, to your doorstep.

The other day, the host of a sports radio program to which I listened as I drove my car simply for the purpose of re-charging the battery, was complaining that "they" had not yet created a robot would do her laundry and clean her house. Of course, we don't need robots for that. There are already laundry and house keeping services that will provide the "gifted few" to do those chores for you.

This boy used a glue gun to make a handle from wine corks, then fixed old CDs to it. It was a sunny day. He discovered that he had invented a "flashlight" that if angled in just the right way, could be directed wherever he wanted. The concept went viral as other children made their own flashlights. It didn't occur to anyone to ask this "gifted" boy to make one for them. They did it themselves, innovating their own versions, creating a community of the "gifted many."

Perhaps I'm stretching the meaning of the descriptor "gifted few," but the point is that all these things we turn over to others means giving up opportunities to invent, discover, and explore for ourselves. Certainly, the hope is that technology will "free" us to be creative, but as anyone who has ever lived in the modern world already knows, it remains damned neigh impossible to free ourselves up. Whatever happened to the promise of a paperless office? And when we do find ourselves "free," so many of us turn to entertainment, watching the shows and movies created by the gifted few, scrolling our feeds comprised of the work of the gifted few, and playing the games created by the gifted few. Perhaps we read the books written by the gifted few or peruse the arts and crafts made by the gifted few, but when do we invent, discover, and explore?

"No thank you, I don't dance." "I can't draw a stick figure" "You don't want to hear me sing" "I leave the repairs to the professionals" This is the result of that culturally induced and perpetuated lie. 

We've evolved as a species to create our environments using the materials at hand, which is what a loose parts environment is all about in preschool. It's an active process by which we engage our full bodies, discovering metaphor and connection, making and finding new things as we try this and try that in a process of trial and error science. We see it as human nature in our young children who have not yet learned the lie of the "gifted few." When children find themselves in places that give them permission to be who they need to be, to move as they wish, to handle and manipulate what they wish, to mold and shape what they find into something new, we see an essential aspect of humanity that the modern world actively suppresses with its lies about the "gifted few."

"Look what I made." "I have an idea." "Let's pretend . . ." These are the things that make us come alive as humans.

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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!

Playing Our Way to Culture

"Octograbbers" was a Woodland Park fad for a time. To become an Octograbber, you had to have two of our playground shovels, one in each hand, which, of course, limited your ability to use your hands. If you wanted to pick something up, and that was a big part of the fad, you had to use your shovels like a pair of tongs in order to "grab" things. I have no idea where the "octo-" part came from, except to guess that it had something to do with octopuses. 

It started with a couple boys, spread to a wider group, and grew to include an ever-evolving collection of children to the point that there was daily bickering over shovels. It then ebbed and flowed, only dying out completely when the school year ended and the children scattered to their separate lives. 

Play theorists tell us that human culture is, at least in part, a product of play -- music, dance, art, fashion, and fads, but also social norms, customs, beliefs, values, and symbolic systems like language and communication. These are not instincts we are born with, but rather behaviors that we learn, which is why culture traditionally varies so much from place to place. We're likely the only preschool on earth to have played our way to a the specific cultural phenomenon of Octograbbers, but I reckon that every preschool has experienced its own unique cultural trends, for a week, a month, or a year . . . Or longer, as returning children revive certain games or themes year after year.

Culture emerges wherever humans come together, but it's not just humans.

I've written before about the resident orca pods in the Pacific Northwest that have been observed swimming with dead salmon on their heads. They were first noticed in the 1980's. The behavior seemed to then disappear for time before reemerging again recently, like a retro fad. The leading theory is that it's a form of social fad, one that is not shared by other orca pods around the world.

Bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Australia carry sea sponges on their snouts as protective tools for foraging on the seafloor in order to prevent injuries from the sharp rocks and corals. This behavior is mostly found in females and is passed on by dolphin mothers to their daughters, in what researchers point to as evidence of a cultural tradition being passed along through the generations. Again, other populations of bottlenose dolphins don't engage in this specific behavior, although they likely have their own, unique cultural practices.

Cultural behaviors begin in play. Humans and marine mammals aren't the only ones. Ravens, chimpanzees, and other species have played been observed playing their way to unique manifestations of culture. We spend a lot of energy in the play based world trying to "defend" play by pointing out the "academic" learning that happens, but most of what is learned through play is cultural.

I'm currently re-reading George Eliot's Middlemarch. In some ways it's a typical Victorian novel, set in an inward-looking rural county. There are occasional references to the king and parliament and London and the wider world in general, but mostly what occupies the people is what's happening amongst themselves, their unique Middlemarch culture. This is how humans have lived for most of our existence. This is what we're evolved to attend to: our immediate world of fellow humans. The modern world, however, is increasing destroying these unique, local cultures, homogenizing it, and putting it online. Of course, there are unique, online communities, but they lack the physical proximity that characterizes the cultures of play based preschools and orca pods. This is not to dismiss the experiences of those who thought they were all alone, only to find their community online, but at the end of the day, if that doesn't ultimately lead to physical proximity, the opportunity to actually "play" together in a daily, consistent, give-and-take way, the culture that emerges, I fear, will be impoverished.

Maybe this is just an old man's perspective, but I grew during the emergence of TV and mass media in general. I still remember local newspapers and radio programs that were all about my own unique pod or county or preschool, where everyone knew one another, or at least knew someone who knew someone, but today culture is increasingly global. I think half our stress comes from the fact that we haven't evolved to attend to the whole world: we've evolved to attend to what we can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch, and that includes actual, embodied human beings with who we can create meaningful culture on a local level.

The mother of one of the core Octograbbers told me that her son was at first upset to find that his new kindergarten didn't have full sized shovels, just little spades. She told me that she knew he was going to be okay, however, when he came home a few days later talking about playing "Baby Snow Leopards." At the end of the day, creating culture together is a central aspect of how humans have evolved to connect. It gives us the sense that we belong. And it begins with play.

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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!

I Always Believe the Children

Yesterday, I responded to a jury summons, showing up at the courthouse along with 160 other potential jurors to sit and wait. I've done this before, so I knew to bring reading material.

Most people I know do whatever they can to get out of jury service. I won't say they lie, because that would be a crime, but I know they often stretch the truth in order to avoid spending a day -- or potentially many days -- performing this civic responsibility. Thomas Jefferson felt that showing up for jury duty was more important than voting. I know this because that's what the judge who welcomed us told us just before sending us to another set of chairs where we again waited.

The last time I was called I was excused because the assault and battery case was going to take place during a week I was scheduled to keynote a conference. This time I was genuinely hoping that it would work out for me. Everyone I know, including my wife, who has actually sat for a trial has told me they found it a rewarding experience, which was exactly what the presiding judge told this mass of potential jurors. (There was a lot of salesmanship in the process yesterday; a lot of praising us for showing up, and a lot of inspirational talk about how vital jury trials are to our democracy.)

I immediately knew, however, that I was going to request to be excused when we were told that this criminal trial was expected to take the entire month of March, requiring the jury's all day presence Monday-Thursdays. I just can't afford that kind of commitment. After a long, detailed description of how the county's court process works, including introducing us to the prosecuting and defense attorneys, we were told that the defendant was charged with six counts of molestation of a child under six years old.

My gut clenched.

Every eye the courtroom went to the young man in the defendant's chair. This was going to be a long, brutal month for everyone involved. 

You can't follow the news at all these days without being confronted by gut-wrenching stories about the abuse of girls and young women. It's horrifying, yet I hope it's ultimately a good thing that light is finally being shone on this hidden, rotten part of our culture. It's estimated that fewer than 10 percent of sexual abuse cases are ever even reported. I'm guessing that this percentage is much lower for abuse involving children, if only because, as a society, we tend to dismiss, ignore, excuse, and generally sideline children, especially those under six. Especially because pedophilloic abusers are so often trusted, even beloved, friends or family members. Especially because we still don't value or trust girls and women as we should.

The judge had previously cautioned us about the foundational legal principle of "innocent until proven guilty," but as I considered this defendant, his eyes fixed on the table in front of him, I felt a surge of anger and revulsion toward him. I recognized it as a cumulative feeling, one that has been building slowly for decades, then far more rapidly in recent months as many of the world's most powerful men are now credibly suspected of committing this, the most unforgivable of crimes.

I am a man who has spent much of his adult life in the company of young children. People in our profession often wonder why more young men don't choose it. We wonder if it's the low pay or low prestige, but as a man in the profession, I can tell you that this is something you have to think about every day. In my decades as an educator, I never allowed myself to be alone with a child. I know that we're all supposed to do that whatever our gender, but as a man, it's crucial. For some, the very fact that I chose this profession places me under suspicion. 

It's not pleasant, but at the same time, I understand it. The vast majority of abusers are male. I've always known that if I was going to work with young children I could never give anyone any reason for doubt. It's part of the reason I value the cooperative model: I spent my days with children and their parents, 5-12 of whom were in the room with me at any given time as a community. I never took children to the toilet or changed diapers. I kept myself on display at all times, which, of course, creates its own kind of stress. When educators complain about cameras being installed in their places of work, I understand their objections, but also, you know, welcome to my world. We fantasize about returning to the village. A key feature of a small, tightly knit community is that everyone is in your business all the time, which may feel intrusive, but it makes it much harder to get away with evil acts. That's something to consider.

Before accepting my teaching position at Woodland Park Cooperative Preschool, I sat down with my mentor, Tom Drummond, an instructor at North Seattle College. I asked him point blank, "What do I do if someone accuses me of molesting a child." His answer: "You'll have to move to Bimini." There is no coming back from an accusation, even a spurious one. So, I've lived with that on my shoulder for my entire career.

Please don't think I'm complaining. My own difficulties are nothing compared to the crimes committed by abusers. The extra scrutiny is necessary to keeping young children safe. I'm sharing this because this is what was going through my mind as I considered the criminal case before me.

I was excused from jury duty. I don't know if I would have been capable of being an impartial juror, although I suspect that my background would have made me attractive to the defense: a man who works with young children. Maybe I'd have even been acceptable to the prosecution. I mean, a preschool teacher is likely to be incredibly empathetic and compassionate toward the victim(s). Of course, my background may well have disqualified me for both sides.

There's a part of me that feels like I have betrayed the young victim(s) by not trying to be seated on that jury, despite the hardship it would have caused me. My instinct is to believe children and I had the opportunity to be their champion. But, of course, that's not the job of a juror. The job is to be impartial, to determine the facts, and to otherwise presume innocence. 

Being honest with myself this morning, I cannot presume that man's innocence, even as I know that there is a chance that he isn't guilty. I could never in good conscience be his juror because in my heart, I always believe the children.

Trust children. Nothing could be more simple, or more difficult. Difficult because to trust children we must first learn to trust ourselves, and most of us were taught as children that we could not be trusted.   ~John Holt

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