The Boy Told Me, "There's Going to Be a Lot of Fighting This Year"

On the first day of school he told me, "There's going to be a lot of fighting this year." It was an interesting comment, funny even, coming from this particular boy. I'd known him since he was a two-year-old and he had never shown any inclination toward violence, real or imaginary. On the contrary, tough guy bluster, even of the comical variety, had in the past often seemed to intimidate and confuse him. He was regularly reduced to tears by dramatic play that struck him as threatening, often retreating under our classroom loft for "safety."

Jousting with swings standing in for steeds

His mother explained that he had over the summer become fascinated with knights, including their armor, shields, and other weaponry, items he had taught himself to create using paper, scissors, tape, and staples. And that is how his "fighting" first showed up in the classroom, with him not only arming himself, but also others. He had mastered the fierce pose and when he found another kid inclined toward "fighting," he might threaten something like, "You better watch out, I'm going to fight you." The fighting itself was quite tame by the standards of Woodland Park play fighting, most often involving "swords," but sometimes featuring "jousting." He was clearly thrilled when someone engaged with him, although the moment actual contact was made, even when of the light and incidental variety, he usually called it off, often crying loudly. But once the tears were over, he was back at it, once more trying to lure others into his game of fighting knights.

This knight has been unseated

I hope this description doesn't make him seem like a problem child in any way, because he was not. No one who knew him was worried that he would grow up to be actually violent. This was clearly an intellectual pursuit, one full of questions to which he was seeking answers. Even months into the school year there was still obvious uncertainty as he approached others with his knight game, as he tested the others to see how they would respond. He was delighted by his successes: his face flushed with excitement when it was going as he expected, combatants committed to both ferocity and a kind of chivalry that included not really hurting one another. He was overwhelmed when others surpassed him in intensity or more extreme physicality. He was often disappointed by those who were neither impressed, nor attracted by this knight who was threaten-asking them to fight with him. He had made his knight studies at home as a self-selected "academic" pursuit and was now attempting to apply what he had learned in real life.

One of his classmates did a similar thing with his own animal studies. Earlier in the year, he could be found prowling the playground as a dinosaur, usually as a T-rex, his favorite, roaring and stalking about with his arms draw up to mimic the short forearms associated with the species. Then his interests turned to invertebrates, like his pet snails, but also slugs, worms, and insects. One day, he put shoes on his hands so that he could practice moving like an insect, developing a fuller understanding of how they crawl by studying it with his whole body, in the same way that my knight-loving friend sought to embody a knight in order to more fully understand.

Neither of these boys would be described as particularly physical, at least not in comparison to many of their classmates who spend their days racing around the place. In fact, when they moved on to public kindergartens the following year, they both adapted to desk work better than most. They will never show up as a "problem child" because they possess the sort of self-control and temperaments that will allow them to adapt more easily than will those "active" kids whose teachers will chase them around the classroom, scolding, punishing, and otherwise correcting them for moving their bodies at the wrong time and in the wrong way, perhaps even going so far as to recommend drugs.

It's a pity because it's clear that all children, even not obviously active ones, learn most naturally when allowed to engage their full selves, including their bodies, not in adult-proscribed ways and at adult-proscribed times, but as their own questioning and exploration dictates. Standard schools are notoriously bad at allowing this because so much of what happens in them is about crowd control rather than learning. We can't have knights and insects anywhere but in the form of words, read or listened to, then regurgitated in their approved form, with bodies in their proper places, doing their proper things. It's a pity because all children learn best when allowed to explore with their full-selves, teaching themselves. And they must use their full bodies to do it.

******

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!

If You Really Want to Understand Something

Two preschoolers were in an intellectual debate over the size of elephants.

"They're huge!" one insisted. "As big as those trees."

"No they aren't," the other responded, "Dinosaurs are the biggest animals."

"Some dinosaurs are tiny!" He held his fingers together to indicate the size of an ant.

"T-Rexes are giant." He threw his arms into the air to indicate infinite size.

"Elephants are giant." He threw his arms into the air, while lifting up on his toes to indicate a size beyond infinity.

As the adult, I had information that would have helped settled the argument, if only by virtue of the natural authority an adult has in the presence of children. I knew that if they were going to sort things out, they would have to discuss concepts like relative sizes and living v. extinct. They would need to agree upon what was meant by "huge" and "giant." And then, finally, they would need some sort of agreed upon authority or reference to confirm their assertions. As a "teacher" in a standard school, I imagine I might have felt an obligation to make this moment "educational" by walking them through a process with the goal of finding the "right answer."

But being a teacher in a play based preschool, right answers aren't necessarily to goal: thinking is. I'd moved nearby because I knew both of these boys quite well. I knew were both passionate about the natural world. Their parents had read many of the same books to them and they both watched some of the same shows. This abiding interest was what attracted them to one another as playmates. I also knew that both boys sometimes let their passion could get the best of them and it wouldn't be the first time their disagreements resulted in a physical altercation. I was close so that I was in position to step in should violence emerge, but as far as the content of their debate, I remained neutral even if what I heard wasn't entirely accurate.

"(I)f you really want to understand something," wrote Douglas Adams, "the best way is to try to explain it to someone else. That forces you to sort it out in your mind."

"Dinosaurs have cold blood!"

"Elephants are mammals!"

The Ancient Greeks understood this phenomenon very well. Most of what we know about Socrates was through his "dialogs." Indeed, the Socratic Method isn't one of direct instruction, but rather of asking probing, open-ended questions intended to help students sort it out in their minds. I considered interjecting myself in this way, but at the same time, I wasn't entirely sure where this dialog was headed. When I'd arrived on the scene it had been about relative size, but now it felt like they were feeling their way toward something else. Their apparent non-sequiturs were perhaps not non-sequiturs at all, but rather steps along a path to understanding . . . something.

"Dinosaurs are reptiles!"

"Yeah, dinosaurs are reptiles."

The heat suddenly went out of their dialog.

"Some dinosaurs are huge."

"Like T-Rexes."

"And some dinosaurs are small."

"Yeah, and elephants are huge . . . But not the babies. They're small."

"Babies are small. Grown-ups are big." He then turned to me, "Teacher Tom, did you know you're big?"

I nodded, "I'm pretty big."

"Yeah, but not as big as an elephant . . . Not even a baby!

The boys laughed at the absurdity of me, a grown up, being smaller than a baby. The dialog was fare from over as the boys continued to share their knowledge with one another, but I have no idea where their collaborative thinking, their cobbling together of understanding, ultimately took them because with the heat dissipated, I was no longer necessary.

******

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

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

The Hive Mind Switch

Several years ago, while walking in downtown Seattle, I turned a corner to find a group of people looking up. I looked up too. We seemed to be looking at the rows of balconies of the Warwick Hotel. I couldn't figure out why we were looking up, so I looked again at the people with me on the sidewalk. That's when I noticed that they weren't just looking up. They were looking up, then back to the street, where an ambulance with flashing lights blocked the roadway as paramedics were preparing to lift a stretcher with a covered body into its open doors. 

We were all alternating between looking up, then at the body, but we also just as frequently looked at one another. If we didn't make eye-contact, we followed the gaze of our fellow onlooker. If we did make eye contact, we widened our eyes at one another. We pointed. We shared observations, thoughts, feelings. Together, we were assembling the story of someone who and fallen or jumped and, at the same time, we were creating a kind of impromptu community of compassion around a stranger's calamity. In that moment, none of our differences mattered as much as this exclusive club of which we had all just become members. 

Normally, we can only guess what the strangers around us are thinking or feeling, but in that moment we were thinking and feeling as one. There were no barriers between us. I suppose you could argue that this was just me, but I was there. I know that this random collection of strangers -- business executives, street people, and preschool teachers -- were there together, thinking and feeling as one.

I've had similar experiences in my life. I've been on sports teams that were capable of acting as one. I've been at concerts or political rallies in which the crowd was thinking and feeling as one.

Most often, this phenomenon comes to our attention when a "mob" goes on a rampage. We tsk and tut over human nature in these cases. We accuse "them" of being sheep, of turning off their brains, of giving in to their worst instincts, and we aren't entirely wrong. 

But just because the uplifting version of this phenomenon doesn't typically make the news, that doesn't mean it isn't real and isn't important. It happens in churches, in workplaces, in stadiums, and on street corners, every day, all the time.

The greatness of our species, the reason we have survived, even thrived, is that we have evolved to think, feel, and act collectively.

As Annie Murphy Paul writes in her book The Extended Mind, "By one year of age, a baby will reliably look in the direction of an adult’s gaze, even absent the turning of the adult’s head. Such gaze-following is made easier by the fact that people have visible whites of the eye. Humans are the only primates so outfitted, an exceptional status that has led scientists to propose the “cooperative eye hypothesis” — the theory that our eyes evolved to support cooperative social interactions . . . “Our eyes see, but they are also meant to be seen,” notes science writer Ker Than . . . We feel compelled to continuously monitor what our peers are paying attention to, and to direct our own attention to those same objects. (When the face of everyone on the street is turned skyward, we look up too.) In this way, our mental models of the world remain in sync with those of the people around us."

Paul goes on to point out,  "Membership in a group can be a potent source of motivation — if we feel a genuine sense of belonging to a group, and if our personal identity feels firmly tied to the group and its success. When these conditions are met, group membership acts as a form of intrinsic motivation: that is, our behavior becomes driven by factors internal to the task, such as the satisfaction we get from contributing to a collective effort, rather than by external rewards such as money or public recognition. And as psychologists have amply documented, intrinsic motivation is more powerful, more enduring, and more easily maintained than the extrinsic sort; it leads us to experience the work as more enjoyable, and to perform it more capably."

The place where I'm most aware of this phenomenon is during preschool "circle time." The rest of our days are about children freely choosing what they will do and with whom, but once a day, we gather together around whatever the children want to talk about. Some days, of course, it's just every child for themself, but on others the children come together on a topic or idea or challenge. 

I had one group, for instance, that got into giving one another "compliments." We had, collectively, defined compliments as anything you can say to another person to "make them feel good." At least once a week, someone would say, "Let's do compliments!" and then the group would spend twenty minutes or so taking turns giving and receiving good feelings. In practice, what this meant was children saying "I love you" to one another, then hugging. At some point we began keeping track of how many "compliments" we had given. We did this by using a set of plastic chain-links, adding a link for each compliment. This was called "the compliment chain," which we hung from the ceiling, adding to it over the course of weeks and months.

One day, the kids decided to no longer take turns, but rather leapt to their feet as one in a frenzy of hugging amidst a flurry of "I love you." Every child participated, not just for this day, but every day for weeks on end. 

"A host of laboratory experiments," writes Paul, "as well as countless instances of real-world rituals, show that it's possible to activate the group mind -- to flip the hive switch, as it were -- by "hacking" behavioral synchrony and physiological arousal. The key lies in creating a certain kind of group experience: real-time encounters in which people act and feel together in close physical proximity. Yet our schools and companies are increasingly doing just the opposite. Aided by technology, we are creating individual, asynchronous, atomized experiences for students and employees -- from personalized "playlists" of academic lessons to go-at-your-own-pace online training models. Then we wonder why our groups don't cohere, why group work is frustrating and disappointing, and why thinking with groups doesn't extend our intelligence."

It begins with "shared attention," which is what happens when we focus on the same objects or information at the same time as others, in the way that my "club" of onlookers did outside the Warwick Hotel. And that's what happens at our circle time as well. I don't come in with a plan, but rather open the floor with "What should we talk about?" A child might tell us, for instance, that their grandma is visiting, and we're off as we bond over grandparents or relatives in general or sleepovers or wherever it leads. A child might say that someone hit them earlier in the day, that they didn't like it, and we bond over that. A child might want to teach us a song or ask a question or do a silly dance. Sometimes, as I said, it leads nowhere, this is not an exact science, but often, and increasingly as a group gets to know each other, as the habit of flicking the hive mind switch develops, it happens more and more.

Of course, the "shared attention" occurs at other times as well. There was the time we all, and I mean all, watched for 15 minutes as a raccoon cautiously climbed out on a skinny branch in quest of a bird's nest, which, we all guessed, had eggs, or even baby birds in it. We all stopped to reflect together on a photograph of civil rights protesters being dispersed with fire hoses. We all race to the parking lot when the local fire station brings their engine by for us to inspect. The French philosopher, Michel Foucault saw this phenomenon in terms of power, a form he called "normalization," in which, he asserted, our souls are imprisoned by the expectations and standards of the group, but looked at from the perspective of an "extended mind" as Paul does, we can see it clearly as a form of intrinsic motivation: when we think together, we become larger and smarter than ourselves.

This human superpower emerges when we share attention, when we are all securely part of the club, when we all turn our heads to look up together. And yes, it's often abused. Charlatans and other evildoers, dictators and cult leaders, have managed to flip the hive switch toward nefarious ends. But the media only reports on the riots. The historians falsely conclude that our ancestors were savages because only their forts and weapons have survived. Our educational system fears children in groups making their own decisions because we forget that The Lord of the Flies is a work of fiction. But research demonstrates that most of the time our behavioral synchrony primes the pump for cognitive synchrony in which a group, thinking together, does so at a higher level than any one human can ever hope to achieve on their own.

Together we're a genius. Our eyes see, but they are also meant to be seen. 

I often find myself wondering how so many people, so often, can be misled by charismatic leaders. Maybe it's because we've not had the chance to practice, in school or at work, the habit of flipping the hive switch. We've been taught that competition is a virtue and that we must rely on our own minds, and only our own minds ("No looking at your neighbor's paper!"), rather than tapping into the network of minds that is the real power of human thought. We worry that the charlatans will usurp our common sense, but that can only happen to people who have not enjoyed a lifetime of coming alive together.

In many ways, this is all we do in our play-based preschools. When we set the children free we find them turning their heads together, attending together, thinking together. It doesn't always go well, of course, sometimes the hive mind buzzes into a mess, but I'm beginning to think that this might be the only way to inoculate ourselves against would be dictators. 

******

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!

Indoctrinating Our Children

I recently heard an elected representative complaining that our schools need to "get back" to teaching "math, English, science, and history," and "stop indoctrinating our children."

Novelist Doris Lessing believed that every school child should be told this:

"You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry, but it is the best we can do. What you are being taught here is an amalgam of current prejudice and the choices of this particular culture. The slightest look at history will show how impermanent these must be. Those of you who are more robust and individual than others will be encouraged to leave and find ways of educating yourself -- educating your own judgements. Those that stay must remember, always, and all the time, that they are being molded and patterned to fit into the narrow and particular needs of this particular society."

I understand when a parent or politician is upset about "indoctrination." The word has come to be an epithet for whatever it is we don't want our children to know or think. But Lessing is right: it's all indoctrination.

Math might be an outlier, but English, science, and history -- especially history -- are all amalgams "of current prejudice and the choices of this particular culture." The choices made about what we will teach children are inherently selective, political, and beholden to the status quo. What we are going to teach children about, say, the Civil War, and (more importantly) what we are to leave out, means eliminating an infinite number of perspectives. The result of an institution (or any power for that matter) choosing what to "teach" is always an attempt at "indoctrination" if only because there isn't time in the day to offer every perspective on every subject. Even deciding what is foundational and what isn't is an act of indoctrination.

Humans have always been indoctrinated, even if doing it through mandatory schooling is relatively new. Every child has always been indoctrinated into the ways of their family, their village, and even their wider culture, although for most of our existence this happened via the process of life itself. Much of what was learned by children was through example. There was little need for direct instruction because they grew up in a world in which their culture was something they could see, touch, and take part in. It emerged before their eyes as their elders foraged, hunted, cooked, procreated, and played. Of course, all bets were off if they found themselves in the next culture over . . . where things were done differently . . . For better or worse.

Lessing advocates for self-education as a counter to, or bulwark against, indoctrination. I talk about play based preschool as self-directed learning. In public discussions about indoctrination, you can be sure that someone will, often in frustration, say something like, "Educate yourself. Don't just swallow what the media feeds you." Good advice, although, sadly most of what passes for educating oneself involves scrolling social media feeds until something tells you what you already believe. I'm not saying that the internet can't be a good way to educate yourself, only that social media isn't the proper medium: it's algorithms essentially silo users by selectively feeding them a perspective that more or less jibes with what they already think they know, sprinkled with "outrageous" examples of the opposite. I'm not cynical enough to think that there is some cultural mastermind intentionally trying to indoctrinate me, but it is in the nature of algorithms, created by humans, to coalesce around one status quo or another. If I'm to use the internet for self-education, I must go out of my way to find a variety of trustworthy sources, which is hard to do, but not impossible. 

Perhaps the worst way to educate yourself on the internet is to rely on so-called artificial intelligence. AI is a fantastic tool for getting certain things done, but when it comes to education it cannot help but indoctrinate us, even as it creates the cheery illusion that its responses are comprehensive. It will invariably eliminate results that don't fit the status quo, it will always round the corners, and sand down the parts that stick out . . . Unless, you know enough to ask it to do otherwise. And even then, it remains a relentless servant of current prejudices and choices. People insist that there is a future in which this isn't true, but I don't have a lot of faith in that.

Lessing's suggestion is to read literature: "People who love literature have at least part of their minds immune from indoctrination. If you read, you can learn to think for yourself." She's not entirely wrong. I say that as a devoted reader of literature. Sadly, I'm likewise aware that the gatekeepers of literature -- publishers, critics, professors, and so on -- choose what is available to me. We only know about Doris Lessing because she was one of the lucky few who were deemed worthy to have her work on the shelves of libraries.

As an educator, I don't want to indoctrinate children. I am genuinely motivated to allow them to educate themselves, even as I know that at some level I am taking part in molding them to "fit into the narrow and particular needs of a particular society." We all are.

The important thing, as Lessing cautions, is to always remember that this is what we are doing. I want the children in my life to know that I'm sorry, but this is the best I can do. And I want them to always be aware of the prejudices and choices that have created the culture in which they live. I will never tell them "Because I said so!" Doubt is healthy. Pushing back is the right thing to do. I want them to know that they should not blindly trust the status quo, especially when it doesn't serve them or those they care about. And I hope that when they find themselves at odds with society, they are capable of educating themselves in ways that help them self-actualize. 

This is why I choose play over direct instruction. At least the kids get to choose what they will learn from the culture that surrounds them, and they will know that it's always on them to become educated, not the institution or the "teacher."

To indoctrinate is human. To know we are being indoctrinated is how we set ourselves free.

******

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 My Birthday . . . Again

I went back last night to take a look at what I wrote here on my birthday last year (which was based on a post from 14 years ago when I turned 50). I'm happy to report that I still stand by (almost) every word, so I'm sharing it again today with a few edits to account for the passage of time.

Now I'm 64. It's not exactly a milestone birthday, but I nevertheless think that permits me the indulgence to offer a little unsolicited advice.

"Ninety percent of life is just showing up." ~George P. Atkins

That's a long time to have shown up, don't you think? Sixty-four years? I've seen well over half a century. I've lived in historic times. I should by now know most of what I'm ever going to know about life. I've still got my health, despite a few well-earned aches and pains. I love my work. This should be my time, baby!

"Boldness has genius, power and magic in it." ~Goethe

Here's one thing I know: Goethe was right, there is magic in boldness. If 90 percent of life is just showing up, then I'd say another 9 percent is boldness.

"Experience is the name we give our mistakes." ~Oscar Wilde

Of course, boldness must be formed from something; otherwise it's just brashness. I've found one does need at least a little genuine, deep-down confidence to credibly pull off boldness, and that can only come from experience or out-of-this-world innate talent. Since I never discovered my world class innate talent, I'm left to rely on experience. I'd say that 90 percent of boldness comes from that confidence. And 90 percent of that confidence comes from experience. And experience is the name we give our mistakes.

So, you know, the secret to life is to boldly show up and make some mistakes. The days may be long and the decades short, but there's always time to show up.

******

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!

How About We Stop Asking Children Such Stupid Questions?

They say there are no stupid questions, but I beg to differ. We hear stupid questions almost every time adults and young children are together. 

For instance, a child is painting at an easel, exploring color, shape, and motion, experimenting with brushes, paper, and paint. There is an adult watching over her shoulder who points and asks, "What color is that?"

This is a stupid question. 

Here's another example: a child is playing with marbles, exploring gravity, motion and momentum. An adult picks up a handful of marbles and asks, "How many marbles do I have?"

The adult already knows the answer. The child probably does as well, in which case, the adult is distracting her from her deep and meaningful studies in order to reply to a banality. Or she doesn't know the answer, in which case the adult is distracting her from her deep and meaningful studies to play a guessing game.

In a moment, these stupid questions take a child who is engaged in testing her world, which is her proper role, and turns her into a test taker, forced to answer other people's questions rather than pursue the answers to her own.

If it's important that the child know these specific colors and numbers at this specific moment, and it probably isn't, then we should do the reasonable thing and simply tell her,"That's red," or "I have three marbles." If it's not new information, and it probably isn't, she's free to ignore you as she goes about her business of learning. If she didn't know, now she does, in context, as she goes about her business of learning.

This is one of the greatest offenses we commit against children in our current educational climate of testing, testing, and more testing. We yank children away from their proper role as self-motivated scientists, testing their world by asking and answering their own questions, and instead force them to become test takers, occupying their brains with our stupid questions.

******

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!

"Be Good, Be Careful, and Have Fun . . . In That Order"

Much of my work as an educator is informed by my memories of childhood. I grew up in neighborhoods in which I was free to roam, with or without other children, largely unsupervised by adults. That's how I remember it. My mother confirms the essence of my memories although not always the specifics. 

For instance, I have a clear memory of her regularly, in the tone of a joke, saying to me as I walked out the door, "Be good, be careful, and have fun . . . In that order." She insists she never said it, but it's such a strong memory for me that I adopted it as a sort of mantra for my own parenting. Who's right? Probably her. Does my memory count as a "false memory." Maybe.

"You have to begin to lose your memory," writes philosopher John Locke, "if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all . . . Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it we are nothing." But what is memory exactly? Today, we know a lot more about how memory works. We know, through experiment, that each time we recall a memory we alter it and that the things we recall most often are the memories that differ the most from actual events. We are, in fact, more creative storytellers than journalists when it comes to memory.

I've discussed this phenomenon with many people, all of whom agree that it must be true . . . For other people. They then tell me of a cherished memory that they know is entirely factual, but that a loved one denies ever happening, their point being that their loved one is misremembering. 

I've come to the opposite conclusion, however. I believe that my mother never said, "Be good, be careful, and have fun . . . In that order" even as I continue to remember her saying it. It makes sense from the perspective of the science. I've thought about those "moments" over and over. I've shared those "moments" with others. I've changed my opinion about what those moments meant to me. Those "moments" even shape my current life. And those moments likely never happened. I've thought about it a lot. It's me, not my mother, who has been actively recalling, and therefore, altering what really happened. For whatever reason, I've manufactured a memory.

I recently had a similar thing happen when I had lunch with an old girlfriend who I'd not seen in decades. Some of our memories matched, but the things I remember most clearly, the things I've thought about the most, never happened . . . At least as she remembers it. 

Yet even if our memories are unreliable and unstable, there is a basic truth in Locke's assertion. When we think of our lives, we are thinking of all those things that lead up to, and include, this day. 

"You can't change the past," we say, but obviously we can and do. The fact that we all do it, tells me it's an adaptive trait. As cognitive psychologist Donald Hoffman points out in his book The Case Against Reality, we've evolved not to commune with the "truth," but rather to perceive the world in ways that support our survival. In fact, Hoffman takes it a bit further, stating that it is a near mathematical certainty that the things we perceive do not exist as we perceive them, but rather we perceive things in way that support our survival. Nicolas Malebranche, a contemporary of Locke's, wrote, "The mind does not pay equal attention to everything it perceives. For it applies itself infinitely more to those things that affect it, that modify it, and that penetrate it, than to those that are present to it but do not affect it." This, of course, explains "selective memory," but it also, I think provides insight into why our memories are ultimately so unreliable. And why we must become creative storytellers in order to make sense of ourselves and our lives.

One of the reasons I like working with young children is that they do not possess decades of conscious memories. They are much more who they are, rather than who they were. And I, as an important adult in their lives will be part of the memories that will eventually become the raw material for the story they will weave about themselves. I take that responsibility very seriously, which is why I strive to first love them, then, secondly, get out of their way. Even if my mother never said those words, "Be good, be careful, and have fun . . . In that order," the story I've created about them embodies her love for me, the love that gave me confidence, that made me feel secure enough, to venture out into the world without her in order to, as she jokingly commanded me, have fun. 

I will never be able to replicate my own past, but I do what I can to create that feeling of love and independence for the children in my care.

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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!

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