The Only Way We Learn About the Real World is to Live in It

One child is playing with a toy and another child also wants to play with it. It's a common scenario in preschool. For most of us, the ideal way for this to play out would be for the child who wants the toy to say something like, "I want to play with that toy." Then the child who is playing with the toy replies, "Let's share it." I've seen it happen more or less that way more often than the cynics of human nature would predict. In fact, some version of sharing might be the most common way for these types of circumstances to resolve themselves in classrooms in which children are creating their own culture through their play with one another.

Of course, as educators it might not feel that way because it's the conflicts that most reliably draw our attention, but in groups of children who are accustomed to interacting with one another without the constant intervention of adults it tends to be the day-to-day norm. Indeed, that happy hubbub that characterizes groups of young children at play is exactly that, children in the process of coming to agreements about the use of space and resources as they go about their projects, "sharing" in the broadest sense of that word.

The mistake too many adults make, however, is to cling to the utopian scenario I sketched out above. In our idealized world, we not only imagine spontaneous cooperation, but we imagine it being accompanied by unicorns and rainbows. The real process of cooperative play is often far from peaceful: there are disagreements, shouts, objections, and a general lack of common courtesy. This is where adults too often step in, shushing and scolding, taking charge, evoking rules, and generally scuttling their process in favor of our fantasy of how it should work. When we do this, we rob the children of the opportunity to come to their own agreements by imposing our artificial one from on high. The more this happens, the more a community of children will come to rely upon the adult stepping in and the less they get to practice the essential skill of negotiating their own peace. 

Naturally, there are times when we do need to step in, such as when violence erupts or when a pattern of bullying begins to emerge, but most of the time, I've found, if I stay out of it, even when things get intense, the children can find their own way through to agreement, which is, after all, the foundation of self-governance. Reality is rarely as pretty as the ideal, but children are not just driven to play with one another, they are driven to keep their play going, and that means finding ways to agree. There will be much bickering along the way, and many failures, but that's the real world and the only way we learn about the real world is to live in it.

*******

I'm excited to announce that Teacher Tom's Second Book is now available in the UK, Iceland, and Europe thanks to my friends at Fafunia! It's also available in the US and Canada. If you want to go directly to the Fafunia page click here.  And if you missed it, Teacher Tom's First Book is back in print as well.

And finally, this is uncomfortable for me, but I earn most of my income by speaking at education conferences and running in-person workshops. I've had 95 percent of my income wiped out for the foreseeable future due to everything being cancelled. I'm hustling to become a new and improved Teacher Tom. I know I'm not the only one living with economic insecurity, but if you like what you read here, please consider hitting the yellow donate button below. 

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!

Teaching Themselves to Stay Safe While Testing Their Limits

A dance instructor who had been teaching Woodland Park children for several years, once said to me, "I teach kids all over the city. The kids from here are the most physically coordinated children I've ever taught."

It wasn't exactly intended as a compliment, but I treated it like one, "Really? Thank you." Then, "I wonder why."

We were outdoors in the junkyard playground, children swarming around us. She kicked at the wood chips under her feet, "I think it's this playground. Look at it. There's not a flat surface out here."

The playground is built on a sloping, undulating surface. I'd considered that lack of a flat place as something of a detriment given that some activities are better suited for the flatlands, but I've also always valued the uneven surface. Indeed, I often remarked on the fact that for some of our two-year-olds, the youngest children we enroll, just walking from place to place was often a challenge. 

"And all these logs and tree stumps are out here," she continued. When we first built the place over a decade ago, a tree service had dropped off a tall cedar's worth of rounds instead of taking it to the chipper. We used them to create the borders of a large two-level pit that we filled with a dump truck's worth of sand. Sometime later, a parent had dropped off a stack of uncut firewood that the children sometimes used as building material or furniture or props in a game of pretend, but which more often than not just lived in the space, scattered about in a way that made at least one adult fret about "tripping hazards." The logs and tree stumps were a particular challenge for the youngest children, some of whom had to work mightily just to clamber into the sand pit, but the oldest kids spent their days leaping from stump to stump, jumping over logs, balancing their way from place to place, barely pausing to consider what they were doing.

"And that concrete slope." She was referring to what we call "the concrete slide," a slab poured generations ago to prevent erosions. It was such a steep, hard surface that when we first moved into the place we adults restricted access for fear of injuries. And, honestly, at first it was a bit of a hazard with scrapes and bruises occurring several times a day, but as the children practiced, they got better at it. Again, the youngest children continued to struggle, but as the years passed, it became a sort of rite of passage to be able to climb to the top to stand amongst the lilacs like the big kids. As the dance instructor and I stood there, children were using ropes which they had tied to the lilacs to haul themselves up, then once at the top, dropping to their seats to slide back to the bottom. Some were foregoing the ropes altogether having learned to get a running start, while others were using the "secret ways" to ascend which involves using the exposed lilac roots as a kind of impromptu ladder.

"I mean, it's the whole place," she said. "The swings, the playhouse, the shipping pallets . . . And all the freedom to just go for it." I thought about all those two-year-olds who've come to us unsteady and uncertain, wobbling around the playground, spending almost as much time on their bottoms as on their feet. Those kids who then played here day after day for two, three, four years, adapting to the unevenness, the obstacles, and the quirks that make you pay attention to what you're doing. I thought of all the extra scrapes and bruises that pop up whenever there were children playing with us who hadn't "grown up" there. 

Public playgrounds have to be designed with those kids in mind, the inexperienced ones, but a place like this (or a backyard playground) has a different purpose. Those other places are essentially for occasional use, physical entertainments intended for an hour or two, but playgrounds like Woodland Park's are a place to grow up, a place to test yourself day after day, a place for learning about your body moving in space over the span of years. Those public playgrounds must be made "safer," and therefore more mundane, because the children who play there generally don't have the sweep of time necessary to teach themselves, step-by-step, how to keep themselves safe while simultaneously testing their limits.

******

I'm excited to announce that Teacher Tom's Second Book is now available in the UK, Iceland, and Europe thanks to my friends at Fafunia! It's also available in the US and Canada. If you want to go directly to the Fafunia page click here.  And if you missed it, Teacher Tom's First Book is back in print as well.

And finally, this is uncomfortable for me, but I earn most of my income by speaking at education conferences and running in-person workshops. I've had 95 percent of my income wiped out for the foreseeable future due to everything being cancelled. I'm hustling to become a new and improved Teacher Tom. I know I'm not the only one living with economic insecurity, but if you like what you read here, please consider hitting the yellow donate button below. 

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!

Observing and Thinking Deeply: Where to Start When Talking With Young Children About Difficult Things

With everything going on in the world right now, we adults have a lot of explaining to do.

"Why is everybody wearing a mask?"

"Why can't I go to Marcus' house?"

"Why are those people shouting and blocking the street?"

"Why are people mad at the police?"

"Are you mad?"

"Are you afraid?"

"When do I get to go back to school?"

Children are driven to ask questions about the world around them. For some adults, the instinct is to shelter children under the notion that they are too young and innocent. The risk, of course, is a future child who, once the truth is known, will feel betrayed. Others reveal the whole unvarnished truth with the idea that it's the child's world too and they have the right to know. The risk here is a child who becomes overwhelmed with anxiety and fear. And then there's all that middle ground where most of us are trying to navigate, that gray area in which we conjure the ideas of developmentally or age "appropriate," where we strive to strike just the right balance between too much and not enough. We struggle with our own discomfort, our own mixed feelings, our own questions. We're torn between waiting for them to ask us and anticipating them. We worry about what we're going to say, then beat ourselves up about it having got it all wrong.

This is the work of being important adults in the lives of young children. When they experience things in the world that they can't figure out for themselves or that concern them, they turn to us, in trust, to ask their questions. It's a sacred trust, one we do well to take quite seriously, which is why there is so much discussion right now about how to talk to children about racism or pandemic or climate change. 

Talking to young children about ugly or frightening things is in the job description and it's not easy. 

The first thing is to know the child. This is why being a researcher is so much more important than being a "teacher." If you've been observing and thinking deeply about the children in your life, be it from the perspective of parent or educator, you should have a pretty good idea about a child's temperament and cognition, no matter what their age, and this will help shape your words for this particular child or group of children. If you've been observing and thinking about the world around you, you should have a pretty good idea about yourself, what you know and what you still don't know. From that you've formed opinions and beliefs that you may or may not want to share with children. Being clear with yourself, however, is essential, because otherwise your words will not ring true, they will not inform, and they will not comfort. Saying "I don't know," may seem like weak sauce, but it has the virtue of being true.

But more important than talking is listening, not just with our ears, but with our whole selves. Again, it's about the research, the observing and thinking deeply. Children tell us what they are thinking about, not just with words, but through their play. Play is how children process their world, how they strive to make sense of it, how they make peace, and how they pursue knowledge. To paraphrase an idiom that is often wrongly attributed to Plato, you can learn more about a child in an hour of play than a year of conversation. Listening in this way, with our whole selves to their whole selves, is how we come to a fuller understanding of the children in our lives and more than anything else it is this that should guide us.

******

I'm excited to announce that Teacher Tom's Second Book is now available in the UK, Iceland, and Europe thanks to my friends at Fafunia! It's also available in the US and Canada. If you want to go directly to the Fafunia page click here.  And if you missed it, Teacher Tom's First Book is back in print as well.

And finally, this is uncomfortable for me, but I earn most of my income by speaking at education conferences and running in-person workshops. I've had 95 percent of my income wiped out for the foreseeable future due to everything being cancelled. I'm hustling to become a new and improved Teacher Tom. I know I'm not the only one living with economic insecurity, but if you like what you read here, please consider hitting the yellow donate button below. 

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'll Sit Here With You While You're Sad About Mommy Leaving"

The two-year-old was standing at the gate, his fingers through the slats, crying after his mommy who had left. The grandmother of another child was sitting with him. I wanted to go take her place, not because she was doing anything wrong, but because it was the first day of a summer session. I imagined the grandma was there to enjoy it with her own grandchild, and I saw it as a big part of my job to be with the kids when they struggled with the transition into their time with us. That said, there were some 30 other kids to be welcomed, along with their parents, and I had several other things to do to get things launched, so I left them there, knowing that at least the poor boy wasn't abandoned, even if he was feeling that way.

It took about 10 minutes in order to carve out the time to get to them. He was still crying. This was the first time we had spoken, other than my "I'm happy to see you" greeting when he first arrived in his mother's arms. I sat beside him on the steps, used his name, and asked by way of confirmation, "Are you sad because your mommy left?"

He nodded.

Several of my old friends had followed me, excited to see me after a break, wanting to be in my sphere for a bit to start their days. "Why is he crying?" "What's wrong?" "Teacher Tom, I want to show you that I learned to pump myself on the swings." I told them that I was going to talk to this boy for awhile, using his name again, letting them know that I would be with them shortly, saying, "We'll come find you when he's finished with his cry."

As I'd managed our space in this way, he had turned away from the gate, still whimpering, but obviously listening. When they had gone he turned his face back to the gate and resumed his cry.

I said, "You're sad your mommy left. It's okay to be sad about that. I'm going to be with you while you're sad, but I want you to know that mommies always come back. Your mommy will come back." I then verbally walked him through our daily schedule, ending with, "Then I'll read a story and mommy will come back." I had a passing thought about what I would do if this didn't "work," before remembering that the goal is not to end his crying, but rather to create a space in which he could finish his cry. Of course, it would "work," it always "works" when one person sits with another like this, calmly making statements of fact.

I asked if he wanted me to hold him. He nodded yes, but when I touched him, the recoil of his body said no. I asked if he wanted to sit beside me. He wanted to keep standing. I said, "Okay, then I'll sit here with you while you're sad about mommy leaving." After a couple minutes, one of my old friends raced up, demanding excitedly, "Teacher Tom, you have to come see our major overflow." "Major overflow" is the term the kids have coined for when they fill a 20 gallon tub with water using the the cast iron hand pump, then dump it down the hill, creating a river with a waterfall as it plunges from the upper level of the sandpit to the lower. I answered that I couldn't come right away because I was sitting with this boy who was missing his mommy. The older girl widened her eyes, looked at him, then said insistently, "He can come watch it too!"

I asked him if he wanted to see the major overflow. Still weeping, he nodded. I stood and said, "I will go with you. I can hold your hand." He took my proffered hand, and slowly we walked to the sandpit where we witnessed the promised event, which was accompanied by big kids cheering with the kind of joy that can only come from a collective accomplishment. "Did you see it, Teacher Tom?"

I answered that we had seen it, referring of course to the two-year-old who had, it seemed finished his cry. Soon, he was engaged with the water, probably still missing mommy, but no longer incapacitated by the feelings it evoked.

This is the job. We're not here to make things better, to end the crying, or to distract them from missing their mommies. We're not even there to soothe them any more than we're there to "good job" them: that is not the job. Becoming soothed is their job. Cheering for their own accomplishments is their job. Our job is to be with them when they're crying and when they're cheering, speaking truth, and creating space for them to feel exactly how they feel for as long as they need to feel it. It "works" every time.

******

I'm excited to announce that Teacher Tom's Second Book is now available in the UK, Iceland, and Europe thanks to my friends at Fafunia! It's also available in the US and Canada. If you want to go directly to the Fafunia page click here.  And if you missed it, Teacher Tom's First Book is back in print as well.

And finally, this is uncomfortable for me, but I earn most of my income by speaking at education conferences and running in-person workshops. I've had 95 percent of my income wiped out for the foreseeable future due to everything being cancelled. I'm hustling to become a new and improved Teacher Tom. I know I'm not the only one living with economic insecurity, but if you like what you read here, please consider hitting the yellow donate button below. 

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 New Better Normal

Whenever I hear someone talk about the "new normal," I find myself listening with a sense of foreboding, as if it's a phrase from Orwell's Newspeak lexicon. It's as if people are trying to put a positive spin on a world without live theater or lively bars; where human contact is largely limited to waves and winks; where everyone is working from basement offices with screens as their primary window on the world.

I instinctively push back. I don't want a new normal. People speak hopefully about human resilience, about how love and art and humanity will "find a way," but there is no guarantee that the new way will be an improvement, or even an adequate replacement, for the old. In fact, looking back on many of the new normals that have emerged in my lifetime, I have legitimate reason to worry. The fact that today's children have far less freedom than I did as a child is an appalling new normal, one woven from a "crisis" invented by the irrational fears of minds no less fevered than those of today. The new normal of high stakes standardized testing and curricular standardization and trying to force three-year-olds to read that emerged from the manufactured crisis of "falling behind" has lead to a new normal in which our youngest citizens are suffering from mental illnesses at rates unheard of in the older normal. And I'm far from convinced that our new normal of anonymous suburbs and cities is an improvement on the old normal of towns and villages where neighbors knew one another.

I understand the instinct to think positive, to anticipate rather than fret. I get it from a psychological perspective as well as a pragmatic one. After all, sometimes in the grand scheme of things a new normal is actually a new and better normal. So we can hope for that, but as important as hope is as a tool for thriving in the present, hope alone is no more a guarantee than a wish upon a star.

My point is that a new better normal won't happen on its own. A new normal is inevitable, it always is, especially on the other side of crisis, but a new better normal rarely emerges accidentally. If we want it to happen, we're going to have to work for it, even fight for it.

This pandemic caught everyone off guard. The only ones feeling smug right now are those prophets of doom who tried to warn us. Most of us are looking around and wondering how to plan anything at all. I'm thinking right now, for instance, of this class of high school graduates who have been eagerly anticipating the approach of their new independent lives and who are now faced, suddenly, with the prospect of taking their entire college experience online, or "gap years" with severely limited travel or job options. They aren't alone. Right now, few of us can really plan beyond the horizon of today, but that doesn't mean that no one is planning. Already those who seek to benefit from a specific kind of new normal are scheming and lobbying and promoting their visions for a new more profitable normal, one of their own creation. And we know from experience that profit is an unreliable incentive for creating a new better normal for most of us.

No, if we are to have a new better normal for our children and ourselves, we must start working and fighting to create it right now. This is one of the primary motivations behind The Play First Summit (July 20-24) which I am co-hosting with my partners at Fairy Dust Teaching. We have pulled together 20 early childhood thought-leaders from around the world, not to tell us what to do, but in the hopes of starting a global conversation about the new better normal we want for children and their families. Many have taken a look at our all-star line-up and asked, "But what are they going to talk about?" Frankly, we don't know and I imagine that most of them don't know either. My partner Sally Haughey of Fairy Dust is in the midst of interviewing them right now, and as I've been viewing the raw footage I'm struck by how these experts, people I admire and respect, are just beginning to articulate their own experiences, their concerns, their hopes, and their insights. And we're kind of all over the place in some ways, although every single one of us is focused like a laser on a new better normal for children. Our hope and plan is that this summit represents a beginning, a moment when we stop awaiting a new normal and start creating a new better normal. To do that we need you. Already our community Facebook group is bubbling with energy and passion. 

The world changes, but the real needs of children do not. One thing we all agree upon is that a new better normal means one in which no child is robbed of their childhood. How we fulfill that promise is up to all of us. Everyone talks about the "new normal." I'm only interested in a new better normal and that will take all of us talking and working together. Please join us.

******

I'm excited to announce that Teacher Tom's Second Book is now available in the UK, Iceland, and Europe thanks to my friends at Fafunia! It's also available in the US and Canada. We're working to find our distributor for Australia and New Zealand. If you want to go directly to the Fafunia page click here.  And if you missed it, Teacher Tom's First Book is back in print as well.

And finally, this is uncomfortable for me, but I earn most of my income by speaking at education conferences and running in-person workshops. I've had 95 percent of my income wiped out for the next 9 months due to everything being cancelled. I'm hustling to become a new and improved Teacher Tom. I know I'm not the only one living with economic insecurity, but if you like what you read here, please consider hitting the yellow donate button below. 

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 Highest Use of This Moment

Our dog Stella has been having her best possible life during these days of quarantine. What more could she want? Our small pack is together all day long. We have little else to do other than take multiple walks a day, including regular visits to the neighborhood off-leash area. In fact, for these many months, the off-leash area has comprised the entirety of our family's social life. I can't remember the last time she was left home alone. Any nervous ticks or anxiousness she might have once had have disappeared as this already well-loved dog has found herself in a canine paradise, perpetually surrounded by loved ones, the smells of home cooking, and miles and miles of exercise in the springtime sun.

Friends with dogs are reporting the same thing. Our dogs can't understand why or how, but right now, all of the sudden, their dreams have come true. Those are happy, happy pets that we're playing with at the dog park. And I would assert that the people with whom we shout-speak across physically distanced space are the happiest of people. Our pets, in their happiness, are not just making this time tolerable, they are making it a time in which contentment is lying so close that we can feel its breath on our skin. It is a precious gift.

I can't imagine this time without Stella and the easy, sunny joy of her contentment. Back in March as we confronted the reality of no income for the foreseeable future, she was there to wedge her nose under my clenched hand, gently licking between my fingers the way she does, forcing me to relax, reminding me that we had lost nothing as long as we had this love. When I found myself grinding teeth over this restriction or that policy, she brought her toys to me one at a time, bouncing them off my shins, as if to remind me to count my blessings. Amidst the long, gray, sighing stretches of prone-on-the-sofa boredom she kiss-attacked my beard and nose until I giggled my dullness into submission. And on those sleepless nights of worry about our daughter living on the other side of the country or loved ones getting sick or whatever else haunted those wee hours, she was there, curled against my legs, snoring her soft message that these were the best of times.

Distraction has been hard to find. There are no sports, the movie theaters, restaurants, and music venues are closed. I've watched everything on Netflix. Outside is like life amongst bandits who have covered their faces to avoid being identified. Every conversation winds up on the same topic. And our screens bring nothing but reminders of a world turned upside down. Stella is the island, the one place the pandemic cannot go. It is in her that I find, each day, that the whole universe is this moment, the highest use of which is to turn toward whoever is at your side and to love them.

I planned to sit down this morning and write an ode to Stella, to fully express my gratitude, but looking back at these words here, I see that as flowery as they are, they come far short of what is in my heart. Right now, she's enjoying a final hour of sleep, having moved into my usual spot in the bed beside my wife Jennifer for a few extra cozy moments before she'll hop down, stretch her legs, then come out to sit sleepily beside me, offering her body to me for petting. She won't insist, she'll just sit there in case I need it. And I will need it. Then I'll scratch her jaw right where she likes it, feeling all the things for which my words are inadequate.

******

I'm excited to announce that Teacher Tom's Second Book is now available in the UK, Iceland, and Europe thanks to my friends at Fafunia! It's also available in the US and Canada. We're working to find our distributor for Australia and New Zealand. If you want to go directly to the Fafunia page click here.  And if you missed it, Teacher Tom's First Book is back in print as well.

And finally, this is uncomfortable for me, but I earn most of my income by speaking at education conferences and running in-person workshops. I've had 95 percent of my income wiped out for the next 9 months due to everything being cancelled. I'm hustling to become a new and improved Teacher Tom. I know I'm not the only one living with economic insecurity, but if you like what you read here, please consider hitting the yellow donate button below. 

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 Crying Chair

Wrestling was a regular feature of our curriculum at Woodland Park. Of course, it happened spontaneously, as it does in every preschool, but we would also sometimes throw down the gym mats and play in a pig pile. Before long, everyone who participated knew that crying was a part of wrestling, which is why we innovated the "crying chair." I would sometimes forget to set up the crying chair as we prepared to wrestle, but the children never did. The idea of the crying chair was that when someone got hurt, and someone always did, they could remove themselves from the action. The crying chair was the place to go until you were ready to return to the fray.

In some ways and for some children, the crying chair was the most important part of wrestling. Sometimes we had to set up a second or even third crying chair. Once we had an entire row of crying chairs while the gym mats were entirely vacated. This isn't to say there were a dozen kids crying. Some were, but others used the crying chair to stew in their anger. Others simply sat there looking sad. And there were always a few who used the crying chair to giggle and be silly. One girl who didn't like to wrestle would use the crying chair as a place to sit looking increasingly bored as she waited for her friends to be finished.

Over time, I began to see that the crying chair was being interpreted by the kids as a safe place to go and simply express emotions, whatever they were.

We all know that children tend to heal more quickly than adults. Their skin sometimes seems to mend as we watch. Even their bones heal far more rapidly. It's a blessing, of course, one for which we adults are required to compensate with experience, making us more capable and then, as we get older, more cautious when it comes to risk taking.

Indeed, children are master healers and not just when it comes to physical injury. We rightfully worry about the traumatic effects of certain impactful events on a child's life, but most children, most of the time, begin healing almost immediately if we leave them to their process. With our without a crying chair, they cry, they shout, they fully express their heartbreak or fear without holding back or, as we too often learn to do, stuffing it. As my friend Janet Lansbury (and presenter at our upcoming Play First Summit) points out, "Children are constantly healing themselves," which is how I came to view our crying chair: a place for self healing.

Of course, there are many exceptions to Janet's assertion, both in terms of physical as well as emotional injuries, but by and large, when given the time and space to express their feelings, and the loving support of adults who are there to listen, children are capable of healing themselves, often without scarring, and most assuredly with the result of having acquired wisdom. The sad truth is that as we age, our skin and bones change in ways that make healing a longer, more involved process. The same happens with our ability to heal emotionally, although I expect that this is more a matter of social conditioning than biology.

As a man, I know about stuffing my emotions. From a very young age, I began to learn the lesson that "big boys don't cry" even though I don't recall anyone saying those specific words to me. I doubt that many of the parents of the children I've taught at Woodland Park have said those words to their kids, but I see the beginnings of it as children approach four and five years old, when they begin to mask their emotions. For instance, there is no noticeable gender difference in infants when it comes to smiling, but by the time they are five, girls smile significantly more often than boys, an observation that is often used as an indicator of how young boys learn to suppress their negative emotions. But it's not just boys who learn to mask their feelings. Research indicates that preschool aged girls might smile more than their male peers, but often those smiles belie a "less acceptable" negative emotion underneath. In other words, we at least in part teach children of all genders, in both overt and subtle ways, to stop healing themselves emotionally.

Learning to express emotion is an important aspect of healthy social-emotional development. It is part of how we communicate, but also part of how we minimize the "scarring" that might result from social-emotional wounds. Few of us, however, are fully adept at emotional expression and this is probably why we struggle with it in our children, often shushing or bribing or shaming or otherwise discouraging "negative" emotions, because that is what we were taught -- even as we know intellectually they must express those feelings if they are to be emotionally healthy.

That said, even though we ourselves are not experts, it doesn't mean that we can't support our children. The best crying chair in the world is a loved one's lap and most of the time that is all they need to heal themselves.

******

I'm excited to announce that Teacher Tom's Second Book is now available in the UK, Iceland, and Europe thanks to my friends at Fafunia! It's also available in the US and Canada. We're working to find our distributor for Australia and New Zealand. If you want to go directly to the Fafunia page click here.  And if you missed it, Teacher Tom's First Book is back in print as well.

And finally, this is uncomfortable for me, but I earn most of my income by speaking at education conferences and running in-person workshops. I've had 95 percent of my income wiped out for the next 9 months due to everything being cancelled. I'm hustling to become a new and improved Teacher Tom. I know I'm not the only one living with economic insecurity, but if you like what you read here, please consider hitting the yellow donate button below. 

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

Building Our Wooden Boats

I have a friend who declared he wanted to build a wooden boat. He didn't want to row a boat, he didn't want to sail a boat, he didn't even want to own a boat because the plan was to give it away. He simply wanted to build a boat. It took him the better part of a year to build it. He enrolled in a class at the Center for Wooden Boats, he read books, he asked advice, and he researched on the internet. He then engaged in a lot of trial and error until, one day, he had built a boat.

He had learned to build a boat, yet he never set out to learn anything at all: he just wanted to build a boat and the learning was a side effect of his desire to create something new. I suppose there are times in life when our desire is to learn something specific with no other goal than the acquisition of knowledge, but the vast majority of what we learn throughout our lives is because we have a project before us that we either want or need to accomplish and learning is what we call the process by which we do that.

That's how learning looks in the real world. Indeed, the only place where learning routinely precedes the project is in schools, places we've artificially set aside and apart for the sole purpose of learning. Schools are not typically places where we can build the wooden boats of our dreams, but rather where we are coaxed, cajoled, and scolded through "material." Throughout most of our decades of school life, and especially when we are young, we have no say in what this material is going to be. We are told to learn this and that, some of which may be interesting, but most is just material to get through because to do otherwise is to confront some sort of misery like the shame of poor grades, the grind of repeating it all over again, or the threat of yet even more material designed to help you catch up with the others.

This is why so many of us think of learning as hard. It has been separated from our projects, which are, after all, why we get out of bed in the morning. This phenomenon is what philosopher and self-proclaimed "pamphleteer" Ivan Illich called the "transformation of learning into education."

The transformation of learning into education paralyzes man's poetic ability, his power to endow the world with this personal meaning. Man will wither away just as much if he is deprived of nature, of his own work, or of his deep need to learn what he wants and not what others have planned that he should learn. ~Ivan Illich

As a preschool teacher, I see my role as one of enabler rather than educator. I create environments, offer materials, keep them safe enough, and otherwise make myself of service to children as someone who has lived more years. Then I strive to stay out of their way as they build their wooden boats.

******

I'm excited to announce that Teacher Tom's Second Book is now available in the UK, Iceland, and Europe thanks to my friends at Fafunia! It's also available in the US and Canada. We're working to find our distributor for Australia and New Zealand. If you want to go directly to the Fafunia page click here.  And if you missed it, Teacher Tom's First Book is back in print as well.

And finally, this is uncomfortable for me, but I earn most of my income by speaking at education conferences and running in-person workshops. I've had 95 percent of my income wiped out for the next 9 months due to everything being cancelled. I'm hustling to become a new and improved Teacher Tom. I know I'm not the only one living with economic insecurity, but if you like what you read here, please consider hitting the yellow donate button below. 

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 World Has Changed: We Need Each Other

A number of studies and surveys have shown that American families are using the coronavirus shutdown as an opportunity to re-think the education of their children. A study in my state of Washington found that a full 20 percent of two-income families are considering homeschooling even after the schools reopen, meaning that one partner will not return to work. A national survey found that some 40 percent of parents are looking at alternatives to traditional schools. While these numbers are likely exaggerated by the ongoing fear of infection, there is little doubt that this moment in history has given families cause to re-think their relationship to their children, their work, and education.

Educators have also taken this opportunity to reflect on their pivotal role in society, on past practices and to begin to reconsider how things could and should look going forward. And policymakers have likewise found themselves confronted with the already precarious balance between the economy, schools, and public health, and particularly the essential, although often neglected, role our schools and child cares play in making it all work.

Like a slow-rolling earthquake, everything has been shaken up, causing illness, anxiety, and economic disruption, but also, like in the aftermath of all disasters, no matter how tragic, we have likewise been presented with a worldwide opportunity to create something new and better as we look to the future. There is a breathless push by many to return to "normal": to do whatever we can, as fast as we can, to get back to the way things were way back in January. That's not only unwise, but impossible. The world has changed.

A month or so ago, my friend Sally Haughey from Fairy Dust Teaching and I began discussing these dynamics and found ourselves alarmed at some of the guidance and plans being issued by various governments and supervisory bodies around the world. It was clear that educators, and early childhood educators in particular, were not only being left out of the process, but that little consideration was being given to the lessons we could be learning from this unique moment in time. As we talked to our colleagues around the world, we found that we weren't alone in our thinking that this is a moment in which transformation must happen. That is the genesis of what we are calling The Play First Summit.

Sally is a veteran of online ECE conferences, having been producing them through Fairy Dust for the past decade. I met her several years ago when she approached me about presenting at one of them. Within minutes, like love at first sight, I knew that I'd met a fellow traveler, not only professionally, but personally, and we've been working and playing together ever since.

I'm both humbled and proud that we've managed to pull together a line-up of presenters unlike any I've ever seen at any conference anywhere, online or otherwise, including such thought-leaders as Janet Lansbury, Peter Gray, Lisa Murphy, and Cheng Xuequin, the founder of Anji Play, as well as sixteen other luminaries from ten countries and six continents. I'm pinching myself that so many of the people I most respect in our business have agreed to participate. Indeed, it's a gathering that would likely have been impossible without a global pandemic. 

And did I mention that registration is free? Please click through for more details. 

I have to confess that this time of social distancing and staying at home has been hard on me. I'm not cut out to be cut off, which is how it has felt these past few months. I hate that I now have the makings of a full-on in-home Zoom meeting studio. Not a day goes by that I don't miss my old life out in the "real" world, engaging with my friends and colleagues, meeting new people, touching them, hugging them, sharing food, sharing space, sharing air. I still hope that I will one day get back to this aspect of my old "normal." I imagine most people feel that way. We've been forced into a process of transformation not of our own choosing, but which will, I'm certain, produce its own blessings. It's with this mentality that Sally and I are approaching The Play First Summit. It's a chance for all of us to get together with committed, dedicated, thoughtful people: to share our experiences, to express our hopes, and to inspire and support one another, parents, and young children through this time of dramatic change. I've never been more aware of the fact that in a very real sense, we're all building our airplanes even as we fly them. It's both exhilarating and terrifying.

I hope you join us. We need each other. Let's begin working together to to find the best way forward for young children and the people who love them. See you at the summit!

******

I'm excited to announce that Teacher Tom's Second Book is now available in the UK, Iceland, and Europe thanks to my friends at Fafunia! It's also available in the US and Canada. We're working to find our distributor for Australia and New Zealand. If you want to go directly to the Fafunia page click here.  And if you missed it, Teacher Tom's First Book is back in print as well.

And finally, this is uncomfortable for me, but I earn most of my income by speaking at education conferences and running in-person workshops. I've had 95 percent of my income wiped out for the next 9 months due to everything being cancelled. I'm hustling to become a new and improved Teacher Tom. I know I'm not the only one living with economic insecurity, but if you like what you read here, please consider hitting the yellow donate button below.

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!

"Humans are So Resilient!"

"Humans are so resilient!" We've all heard it these past few months, an expression of astonishment that we are somehow managing to survive, even thrive, in the face of the challenges. And it's true that we, as a species, are adaptable. The flip side, of course, is that those who can't adjust to their changing environment will suffer and even perish.

When someone expresses amazement about resiliency I understand that more often than not, they are celebrating that someone has overcome something, be it the loss of income, a business, a house, or a spouse, emerging on the other side, perhaps not better off than before, but certainly different. I'm thinking right now of the generation that grew up with the deprivations of the Great Depression. The "resilient" ones are most often those who learned to economize and that adaptation is still evident today in many of our oldest citizens who have never fully unlearned the lessons of scrimping and saving. Many tout this adaptation as an admirable trait, one to be emulated, while others find those same behaviors depressingly Scrooge-like. 

Pandemics, economic depressions, wars, natural disasters, and revolutions are the kinds of obvious, massive events that test our resiliency, but we are also tested every day through our personal challenges as well: illness, job loss, conflict, and other strife. Whether we thrive or not, whether we survive or not, is unknown, but what is certain is that we won't emerge the same as when we went in. And there's no going back: that is in the nature of transformation for better or worse.

Children are no less resilient than adults. Indeed, I would argue that in most cases they are more adaptable, probably because they have less history with the way things always have been and are therefore less prone to clinging to the "good old days." In other words, they tend to be more open to transformation, not so much because they crave change, because many don't, but because they are accustomed to having little or no power to control anything but their own response to it.

It is those with the most to lose, the most powerful, who we see engaged in the Sisyphean project of fighting against change. We have an entire federal administration in the US that is simply declaring that the pandemic is over, not because it is, but because they must get back to the business of consolidating their power. We have American businesses pushing to "re-open" the economy ahead of the schedule recommended by pandemic experts in order to get back to the business of refilling their depleted coffers. They fear that if we don't get back to "normal" soon, they will find themselves deprived of their power and wealth. 

And then there are white people who are doing everything they can to resist the dismantling of the systems of white supremacy. They fear that the toppling of the hierarchy of race and the deconstruction of the myth of merit will rob them of the unearned power of their privilege. 

When we look over the short history of the United States, we see a nation of resilience, one that has adapted and evolved, but the single most resilient aspect of our culture is not freedom or justice or apple pie. It is white supremacy. It adapted to abolition. It adapted to civil war. It adapted to the end of Jim Crow. It adapted to voting rights, civil rights, desegregation, and every other effort at racial progress, time and again not going away, but simply adapting itself to the new landscape. Surface change, while it might make us feel good and may even be a true expression of our hopes and dreams, is not enough to kill a virus as adaptable and resilient as systemic racism. 

I'm not smart enough to know if the pandemic played a part in the Black Lives Matters earthquake that is shaking the world right now, but the foundations are nevertheless shaking, and it's making a lot of white people nervous. And I'm nervous too, in all honesty, because change can be frightening, but this hierarchy of race that has adapted itself to every aspect of our lives makes racists of even the "best" people. 

"Humans are so resilient!" This is true of our human systems as well, and not always for our betterment. 

******

I'm excited to announce that Teacher Tom's Second Book is now available in the UK, Iceland, and Europe thanks to my friends at Fafunia! It's also available in the US and Canada. We're working to find our distributor for Australia and New Zealand. If you want to go directly to the Fafunia page click here.  And if you missed it, Teacher Tom's First Book is back in print as well.

And finally, this is uncomfortable for me, but I earn most of my income by speaking at education conferences and running in-person workshops. I've had 95 percent of my income wiped out for the next 9 months due to everything being cancelled. I'm hustling to become a new and improved Teacher Tom. I know I'm not the only one living with economic insecurity, but if you like what you read here, please consider hitting the yellow donate button below.

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!