The Power of Many Hands

Many hands make light work. ~John Heywood

This how the Woodland Park Cooperative School does Halloween, the highest of our high holidays, the others, in calendrical order being MLK Day, Chinese New Year, and Valentine's Day.

Our morning school becomes a night (okay, early evening) school. We spend the two weeks leading up to the big night discussing our costumes and making decorations. We then all dress up in those costumes, gather at the school in the evening with tons of food, including too many sweets, and when I say "we all," I mean our entire community that grows to 100 or more children when one includes older siblings and alumni, and at least as many adults. It's an event that grew bigger each year. The center of the festivities took place in what we call the Cloud Room, the Fremont Baptist Church's social hall, a room with a stage and one whole wall lined with mirrors. I set up the classroom simply, with crayons, play dough, what we call "the crazy floor" (large foam blocks interspersed randomly under gym mats), and corn starch packing pellets in the sensory table. The outdoor classroom is open as well.

The parents are a big part of making this evening work, pitching in with their creativity and zeal. One year, for instance, Elijah's mom Unique put together a Halloween themed photo "booth," with small straw bales and a spooky back drop. Devrim's mom Funda set up a jack-o-lantern vomiting guacamole. Elizabeth's mom Susan organized a silent auction that evolved over the years into an important fundraiser for our school: local businesses, sports teams, and other organizations donated nice items, but the highlights were always the handmade, personal items and one-of-a-kind experiences that can only come from our community. Henry's family, for instance, would always offer an airport shuttle service complete with coffee. Every family contributes something.

Grandmas, grandpas and close family friends join us. More rarely seen spouses turn up, most in costume. And I must say that this is one of the coolest aspects of our annual party: there is a lot of friendly peer pressure to get the adults to at least make a gesture toward a costume. The kids definitely appreciate this. It raises the importance of this night for them when even the adults who never dress up are in costume. 

What do we do? We arrive, talk about our costumes, eat food, trash the classroom, take a lot of pictures, get a little overwhelmed, calm down outside, plunge back in, sneak an extra cupcake, and generally get carried away by the night. And we go home exhausted. You know, like what always happens at a good party. In the following days, children tell me, conspiratorially, "I had four sweets," or earnestly, "It was too loud," or eagerly, "Let's do it again." We spend the week after rehashing the event, talking about the moments when we were excited or frightened or sad or angry. We discuss what the "big kids" did or what the "little kids" did and, inspired, begin to plan our costumes for next year.

The highlight for me, the moment I live for, my absolutely most shining moment, is leading circle time for our entire community. I typically wore my pink bunny costume, a beautifully sewn thing, with gray "fir" around the cuffs and the paisley ears. I'm very fond of that costume, but it's hot in the best of times, a feature that is compounded by being in a tightly packed room. I sit on the stage and call the children together. I can't describe how magnificent it is to look into the faces of these children I know and, raising my gaze to look just beyond them, the faces of the families who make up the totality of who we are.

We sing "Roll That Pumpkin Down to Town," and "Itsy Bitsy Spider." We do a few of our anthemic felt board songs and chants, altered to honor the holiday. We sing "If You're Happy and You Know It" using the jack-o-lanterns we carved during the week to represent "happy," "sad," "angry," "surprised," "silly," and "pirate" (a recognized emotion in our school) as props. I love nothing more than catching the eyes of alumni students who are now first or second graders, singing lustily along.

I am, by the end, in a full-on sweat, red-faced and wishing I were wearing something more lightweight.

After the "show," the place is, as previously mentioned, trashed. My first thought is always that this was going to take hours to set back in order.

I want the families to feel free to pack their tired kids off to bed, so think of tidying up as my job, but the rest of the community doesn't see it that way. As the party winds down, I start by picking up one thing and putting it back where it belongs. Then another. Soon, without anything being said, a parent will join me, scooping corn starch pellets from the floor back into the sensory table, for instance. In another corner of the room another parent will put away the play dough. Another tidies up the art table. Grandparents and friends pitch in. Before five minutes has passed, a dozen adults and at least as many kids are, again without comment or instruction, putting things away, sweeping, organizing. Those hours of work are compressed into 10 minutes through the power of many hands.

When I return to the Cloud Room, a similar thing has happened in there: the decorations are down, the tables and chairs are stashed away, the floor is swept, and the garbage bags are carried to the dumpster. Same with the kitchen where we held the silent auction and the kindergarten room. Even the outdoor classroom is re-set and ready for the following day.

I'm always the last to leave. As I stand in our empty space, lights off, it's hard to believe that the evening has happened, that only moments before we were laughing, feasting, posing, sweating, singing, and dancing together, all of us, celebrating the magic of many hands. And, as I stand there, dressed in street clothes for my bus ride home, I realize that this is what we celebrate every day at our little cooperative preschool.

This is the power of true partnership with parents.

******

If you're interested in learning more about creating a learning village that parents will wholeheartedly support, I've developed this 6-part course called The Empowered Educator: Partnering With Parents. As preschool educators, we don't just educate children, but their families as well. For the past 20 years, I've been working in a place that puts the tri-cornered relationship of child-parent-educator at the center, and over that time I've learned a great deal about how to work with families to create the kind of village every child needs and deserves. How would it be to have parents show up as allies? (Click this link to register and to learn more.) Discounts are available for groups.

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!

Partnering With Parents

Based on my informal and unscientific surveys of early childhood educators, one of the biggest hurdles to fully realizing play-based education is "the parents." Not all the parents, of course, but there are apparently a lot who might like the idea of their children playing, but who have bought into the "fall behind" snake oil. This leads them to apply pressure to us to become "more academic" in defiance of the science behind how young children learn.

I've found that one of the best things one can do for your play-based program is to consciously manage those expectations, right from the start. For us, the process of getting parents on our bandwagon starts with our spring orientation.

I use this opportunity to tell the assembled parents that I will not be teaching their children literacy, although they will be laying the foundations for literacy through their play, their dramatic play in particular; every time we read to them or tell them stories, or when they tell stories to us; each time they get excited and say, "Hey that's my letter!" or "That's your letter!" I won't be teaching them, but they'll be doing exactly what they need to do to read when their brains are ready.

I tell them that I will not be teaching their children math, although they will be practicing their math skills every time they count something out, put things in order, arrange things in groups, worked a puzzle, make or identify a pattern.

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

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

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

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

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

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

If this sounds like the kind of community you want to create for the families that bring their children to you, please check out my 6-part course called The Empowered Educator: Partnering With Parents. It takes a village to raise a child and this is where it starts.

******

If you're interested in learning more about creating a learning village that parents will wholeheartedly support, I've developed this 6-part course called The Empowered Educator: Partnering With Parents. As preschool educators, we don't just educate children, but their families as well. For the past 20 years, I've been working in a place that puts the tri-cornered relationship of child-parent-educator at the center, and over that time I've learned a great deal about how to work with families to create the kind of village every child needs and deserves. How would it be to have parents show up as allies? (Click this link to register and to learn more.) Discounts are available for groups.

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

"We Need to Talk"

"We need to talk."

It's a message from the parent of one of your students -- an email, text, voice mail, or quick word at pickup time. Your heart rises into your throat.

"We need to talk" almost always means that something has gone wrong, and it's going to get worse before it gets better. This parent is angry, sad, or confused. They object to your curriculum. They are worried their child is "falling behind." They want to demand that you do something about this, that, or the other.

We've all been there. Parents and educators are natural allies, but all too often we find ourselves at odds, even though we all want the same thing: happy, well-adjusted children.

Over the years, I've found that the struggle to get on the same page with parents might not be the top-of-mind concern for educators, but when we get down to the bottom line, that's often the real challenge, whether it's over things like learning through play, discipline, risky play, or messy play.

 

“The parents would never let us do that!”

 

“The parents want more academics.”

 

“The parents complain whenever their child gets messy.”

 

“The parents just don’t understand!”

 

My own experience of parents is as colleagues rather than people who demand a “quick meeting.” I’ve spent my entire teaching career in cooperative preschools, where the parents are right there with me in the classroom, serving as assistant teachers. This is the great strength of the cooperative model and through this experience of working shoulder-to-shoulder with parents, day-after-day, I discovered the incredible power of a true partnership with parents.

 

As parents and educators, we both are the children’s “first teachers” (to use the nomenclature of the Reggio-Emilia model), but in our modern world, too often we find ourselves on opposite sides of the table across the divide of “we need to talk.” 

 

How would it change your life as an educator to have a parent community that really understands what play is all about? Where parents fully support your curriculum? Where parents are on the same page about mess, risk, and self-directed learning? How would it change your attitude if the parents in your school always had your back? If you could say one thing to the parents of the children you teach, what would it be? What would you want them to know?

I recently asked my newsletter readers these questions.

Jenny S., the director of a large center, wishes that parents could walk in an educator's shoes for a day. "Have you tried caring for five children under two for even two hours?"

Ramona M wishes that parents understood "normal human development."

"I would really like to see parents understand how the power of connection and attachment that can shape their child's relationships, and how powerful play is their child's life," writes Mary J. "Slow down and be present and you start to see and understand who they are and what is really important to them."

Several educators expressed frustration that parent concerns stand in the way of introducing developmentally appropriate "risky play." As Leslie D. asked, "Is there something I could say to them that allows us to have more freedom with the children and have the parents on board?"

Almost everyone who responded expressed frustrations with unrealistic academic expectations, communication, wishes that parents understood more about early childhood development, and a hope for a better educator-parent-child partnership.

As Ramona M. put it, "It takes a village."

That is the idea behind my 6-week course The Empowered Educator -- Partnering With Parents. If any of this rings true for you, if you're interested in transforming your relationship with the parents of the children in your care, then you might want to check it out. To learn more and to register for the 2024 cohort, click here.

When we work to bring parents closer to the center of what we do, when we communicate clearly, honestly, and in a timely manner, we begin to form the kind of partnerships that help us begin to approach the promise of a village.

******

It takes a village to raise a child. As preschool educators, we don't just educate children, but their families as well. For the past 20+ years, I've been working in a place that puts the tri-cornered relationship of child-parent-educator at the center, and over that time I've learned a great deal about how to work with families to create the kind of village every child needs and deserves. I'm proud to announce that I've assembled what I've learned into a 6-part course called Partnering With Parents in which I share my best thinking on how educators can and should make allies of the parents of the children we teach. Click this link to register and to learn more. Discounts are available for groups. This is the one and only 2024 cohort. Please join us!

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!

"Desire is Everything"

My wife and I have recently remodeled and are in the process of redecorating our home. We impulsively bought a couple of very cool chairs from a consignment shop. We didn't know we wanted them until we saw them. In fact, even after they were in our living room, it took us both a couple days to love them. The rest of what we purchased, however, was ordered online, mostly from Amazon.

I've never been a "shopper." I don't take pleasure walking up and down aisles just to see what's on offer. My favorite store is our local Ace Hardware, where I'm met at the door by a friendly salesperson, who not only knows where everything is, but can actually help talk me through my project to make sure I'm getting exactly what I need. Whether it's a 17¢ eye screw or an expensive power tool, I'm in-and-out, and quite confident I won't be coming back until I need something else.

With online shopping, however, I've found myself browsing. Each time I click on something I need, the algorithms offer me suggestions for things I might want. One of those wants, for me, was a titanium cutting board. Unlike with the light switches, shelving, and other practical things I've recently ordered, I found myself dwelling on this sleek object during the space between when I clicked the "buy now" button and its arrival. I imagined myself slicing and dicing on it, holding it, and even cleaning it. In short, I spent 24 hours desiring this, literally, shiny new object that would enhance my day-to-day life. Of course, as every modern person has experienced, from the moment this desired object arrived in its crude cardboard box, wrapped in too much plastic, I felt disappointment. It's been a couple days now. I'm not sure I like it better than my old wooden cutting boards.

Anthropologist David Graeber tells us that for much of human history, that long span of time before capitalism came to dominate so much of our lives, "the idea that one could resolve the matter (desire) by 'embracing' the object of his or her fantasy was missing the point. The very idea was considered a symptom of a profound mental disorder, a species of 'melancholia.'"

This is what I've experienced in the aftermath of attaining my titanium cutting board. It's a far cry from a profound mental disorder, but there is definitely something melancholic about it. Each time I've used that damn, dissatisfying cutting board, I've caught myself wondering if I've just chosen the wrong brand or price point. Maybe I just need to try a different titanium cutting board . . . It's taken some effort to not click on the cascade of titanium cutting board ads that now clutter my feeds because even as I've acquired the object of my desire, the desire remains . . . and the algorithms seem to know it.

Graeber tells us that medieval psychological theory understood that we were meant to contemplate our desires, but not to strive to sate them because it's in the nature of our desires to be insatiable. In contrast to needs, there is always something more to want, something more the covet, something more to conquer. No matter what we buy, we always just miss the point of our longing, leaving us with a melancholy that can only be satisfied with a new longing. This is what our distant ancestors would have identified as "depression." Shopping malls have always made me feel instantly exhausted: maybe I'm just responding to being surrounded by all that depression.

The stereotype is of children having tantrums over not getting the toy they desire, but that isn't who they are. We make them that way; not you and me specifically, but our consumer culture that runs on this low grade melancholia in which we only live fully in the interim between longing (as distinct from needing) and consumption. 

I use that phrase intentionally -- "live fully" -- because to live fully means to be full of insatiable desires, wants, and dreams. Our lot in life is not to burn up our short existence vainly trying to snuff out our desires through consumption, but rather to contemplate them, to muse upon them, and to be inspired by them. When we succeed in keeping our young children at a distance from media as pediatricians recommend (an increasingly difficult thing in today's world), we see natural, non-depressed humans who are consumed, not by consumption, but by their own curiosity and wonder. 

The other day I was talking with a friend who is a decade older than me. She said, "I still like sex, but it's the desire I miss. The older I get, the more I realize that sex is nothing. If I had to choose, I'd take desire over sex any day. Desire is everything."

I've been writing this as the morning turns from full dark to a sunrise that is now revealing this newly re-decorated room that surrounds me. It's all still new enough that I'm content with everything I see, but especially those two cool chairs that I never desired, but now possess. I catch myself gazing at them several times a day, not sitting in them because they're more like works of art than furniture. I'm reminded of a small bit of tree root I found as a child that looked to me like a cute little bird. I still have that accidental bird and I still sometimes hold it in my hand, feeling the smooth part that is its breast and the pointy bit that is its slightly opened beak. Just outside my window, is our grapefruit tree, another thing I never desired, but now possess. I didn't really care for grapefruit juice, but now I crave it.

Those chairs, that bird-root, this grapefruit tree. I do desire them I suppose, but the desire has come complete with its own satisfaction. Or perhaps, more accurately, my desire for them has grown out of my possession of them. The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer famously wrote, "Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills." He was writing in the early 1800's, long before this modern age of consumerism. Capitalism, mercantilism, and colonialism were on the rise, however, and I wonder if this man's most famous quote reveals an ignorance of what was to come. Perhaps it's still true that we can't choose what we desire, but I think it's pretty clear that we can, unless we are on guard, have desires inflicted upon us, which is what that titanium cutting board was all about. I suppose it's possible that this disappointing object will eventually come to hold a place like the one occupied by those chairs, that bird-root, and this grapefruit tree, but it seems unlikely because my desire grew in the shallow soil of marketing and has already sunk under the nagging melancholia. 

It's now been decades since my family agreed to no longer purchase holiday gifts for one another. We continued to buy toys and books for the kids, but our adult gifts are handmade from materials that, by agreement, cost less than $10. There is no shopping involved. An unanticipated thing has happened with the children. One-by-one, they've all opted out of the store bought gifts, desiring instead to join us adults.

In the end, that is what consumerism robs us of. It seeks to keep us living in the interim between the "buy now" button and opening the box, treating our desires like some sort of low grade fever that is never to be cured, but rather kept under control one purchase at a time. As my friend said, desire is everything. This is what our toddlers know that we've forgotten.

A flock of geese just flew by my window, low and loud. Right now my desire right is to fly. 

******

I've been writing about play-based learning almost every day for the past 14 years. I've recently gone back through the 4000+ blog posts(!) I've written since 2009. Here are my 10 favorite in a nifty free download. Click here to get yours.

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

Do-It-Yourself!

I've always enjoyed tackling home improvement projects, but have generally shied away from electrical work because of the whole risk of electrocution thing. A couple weeks ago, however, I tackled the job of trading out a half dozen regular light switches for dimmers. As DIY projects go, it's a classic, hardly worth boasting about, but I nevertheless felt proud of myself and so, as a 62-year-old man, I called my father who is my DIY role model.

I grew up with art on the walls created by my father. For instance, he tried out Jackson Pollack's drip-dribble technique on a small canvas that hung in our den. He reupholstered a living room chair. He made a game room table with an inlaid chess board. He invented a football-themed board game based on statistics that were activated by a roll of the dice, predating Dungeons & Dragons and fantasy football by decades. He built an electric train table in the garage that could be folded up to make room for the car. He undertook glass cutting, stained-glass, donut making, and ice cream churning. Not to mention all the day-to-day fix-it projects.

Of course he came by it naturally. Both my parents grew up on Midwestern farms where they produced most of their own food, repaired their own vehicles and farm machinery, made their own games and toys, and, as Dad mentioned in our conversation, sewed and mended their own clothing.

Dad was the youngest of five children, four boys and a girl, and as such, much of the clothing he wore growing up were hand-me-downs, mended time and again, until they were beyond repair, whereupon they were used to make rag rugs and other useful things. In his book Secondhand, journalist Adam Minter writes: "The ideas that a garment or other object was a resource that should be renewed at home was eroding. In the process, the sentimental value associated with clothing declined as quickly as the material value. After all, it's easier to discard a store-bought shirt than one made at home by a mother, a wife, or a sister."

As a preschool teacher, I try to imbue my classrooms with this sort of DIY mentality. It's a place, not for consuming stuff, but rather for finishing or continuing to use stuff. Much of the curriculum supplies, the stuff of our program, are hand-me-downs in the sense that they've come from the attics, garages, and cellars of the children's families. Of course, we purchase paints, paper, tape, and tools, but the bulk of what we interact with are objects with a history, things that were once something else, belonging to someone else, but are now ours to transform with our hands and curiosity. 

In the same spirit, I've always tried to schedule maintenance calls for when the children were present. We once made a plumber's day when the entire class came into the bathroom to watch him install two new toilets. When a chunk of concrete needed to be removed to make way for our outdoor stage, we got to watch, hear, and feel the jackhammer (from a safe distance, of course). Even when we purchased new, super-sturdy outdoor furniture that needed to be assembled, we did it together at the workbench over the course of a week. Likewise, if there was something to be repaired, like the cast iron water pump or a cherished plaything that needed some TLC, I did it on the workbench with the children gathered around. 

At one point, a parent donated an old wooden row boat which we plunked in the center of our sandpit. We painted it, we tried to preserve it, but between the rough play and the elements, the  wood, over the course of a few years, inevitably began to soften. Soon parts were breaking off. Slowly at first, and then suddenly, it disappeared entirely under the sand, although enterprising diggers with a memory of that old row boat, would occasionally unearth relics of a bygone time. Our worm bin is similar place for watching stuff (foodstuffs and yard waste in this case) return to the earth.

Our culture of store-bought commodities designed to be trashed rather than repaired and repurposed has made it increasingly rare for our children to witness how our everyday things transform themselves over time, perhaps picking up a few dings, dents, and rents along the way, perhaps become threadbare or finicky or rusty, but also becoming a part of the story we're living. Our personal histories, at least in part, are stored in objects that have been with us for a long time. 

When we care for objects, when we repair and repurpose them, and especially when we make them ourselves, we transform soul-less commodities into treasure.

******

I've been writing about play-based learning almost every day for the past 14 years. I've recently gone back through the 4000+ blog posts(!) I've written since 2009. Here are my 10 favorite in a nifty free download. Click here to get yours.

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

That's What it Means to Flourish

It took her awhile to get going. For the longest time she stood against her mother's knee, watching the other children as they made their way around the space. At one point a fellow toddler took an interest in her. It seemed as if he had forgotten that he clutched small, wooden vehicle in each hand when he impulsively reached out to her, but by the time his hand was in her face, he was handing her a car which she took into her own hands. 

As the boy continued making his way around the classroom, the girl dropped into a squat at her mother's feet and gave the car a push across the floor. She crawled to where it came to a stop, then pushed it again, then again, until she was halfway across the room from her mother. From there she discovered play dough, then finger painting, then the soapy water in our sensory table. For a time she went back and forth between the paint and the water, dirtying, then washing her hands in a classic turn-it-on-turn-it-off cycle. When children do this, I always find myself humming Tom Hunter's song:

Build it up

And knock it down

And build it up again

Knock it down

And build it up

And knock it down again . . .

It was the first week for these two-year-olds and they were all, according to their individual lights, exploring and flourishing as they played.

This is all very familiar to anyone who works with young children. Some researchers distinguish between exploration and play. Exploration, they say, is behavior that asks the question "What is this?" while play asks the questions "What can I do with this?" But the line is so fine, I find it a distinction without a difference.

And that's our prerogative because play -- like love, communication, art, and pretty much any other foundational human experience -- is notoriously difficult to define. Indeed, for play researchers, their results are often dictated by the definition with which they begin, which accounts for the fact that their experiments and studies often produce contradictory results.

In Gordon Burghardt's groundbreaking work The Genesis of Animal Play, he defines play behavior as "non-functional," voluntary, not obviously like the animal's other behaviors, repeated with modifications, and that it only occurs when the animal is well-fed, safe, and healthy. That final condition is an interesting one because it seems to suggest that play emerges only after the first three levels of Abraham Maslow's famous "hierarchy of needs" are met. It's only when the animal feels physically, psychologically, and socially safe that the play instinct emerges. 

I saw that with our little explorer. It was only once she felt secure enough to move away from her mother that her play (or exploration) began. What she did was non-functional, self-selected, unlike her other behavior, and repeated with modifications. In the words of Maslow, she was, with her other needs met, free to satisfy her needs for self-esteem and self-actualization.

This is all well and good, of course. It's the kind of deep thinking and observation that play-based educators do all the time, but to someone not versed in our profession, what this girl was doing -- what all the kids were doing -- probably looked pretty aimless.

Aimlessness is not something our culture values. Our work-hard-to-prosper mindset doesn't leave a lot of room for aimlessness. We dream of the glorious aimlessness of, say, a beach vacation, but struggle with the reality of aimlessness. We might set off on an aimless stroll around the neighborhood, but destinations and errands often steer us. One of my neighbors, a retired gentleman, simply can't go for a walk without also collecting the garbage he comes across along his way. "I might as well be useful," he says. We all find ourselves, at least sometimes, craving the end to schedules, obligations, and the overall tyranny of usefulness, but our cultural training makes it challenging, if not impossible. I'm just going to lounge by the pool, but I'll also file my nails or catch up on my email or check in with mom. And for many off us, moments of true aimlessness are accompanied by feelings of guilt or shame.

Many discover a kind of aimlessness in meditation for a few minutes a day, and it's obviously a re-centering and restorative practice, but it's not the same thing as the aimlessness of play . . . At least according to my own, ever-changing definition.

When I watch children wander from one thing to another, noticing novelty, pausing when their interest is piqued, doing things over-and-over for a minute or an hour, then moving on to something else without being concerned with usefulness, I see behavior that may be tolerated in toddlers, but is often vilified in poplar culture. Aimlessness in adults is often lumped in with laziness. Parents worry that their teenager doesn't seem to have any "direction." We worry that without ambition, without purpose, life will become a wasteland of regrets and broken dreams.  Aimlessness looks like self-indulgence, even as we crave our own leisure.

In her book Flourish, philosopher and publisher Antonia Case writes, "(T)he habits bred into us by the modern world have left us unable to enjoy leisure properly. We’re either working, preparing for work, commuting to work or recharging our batteries for another round of work. Otherwise, we’re just zoning out in front of a screen. What’s more . . . many of the activities that we deem to be leisure are in fact just another version of toil. Jogging to lose weight, hosting parties in order to "netowork,” learning yoga to be an instructor — these activities are undertaken instrumentally, with a specific goal in mind. Leisure, on the other hand, is done for nothing other than the sheer joy of immersion."

Greek philosopher Epicurus said, "It's not what we have, but what we enjoy that constitutes our abundance."

We live in an era that can be characterized as a dictatorship of productivity, which means that many of us spend our days doing things we don't enjoy. It's always what people come up with when they criticize play-based childhoods: how will the children learn to do the things they don't want to do? In fact, pretty much everything that happens in normal school is predicted on the idea that children won't want to do it. That's why we have so many educators who feel that their main job is controlling the kids. This doesn't make anyone feel happy or abundant.

Our modern mythology tells us that accomplishment, power, and stuff will bring us happiness, but as any toddler knows, it's enjoyment that does that. Pleasure. "The more time you spend attending to the things that make you happy, the happier you will be," writes behavioral scientist Paul Dolan, "Change what you do, not what you think." As every psychologist knows, what we focus on grows. As every toddler knows, aimless doing, playing, is how we discover joy. When I ask parents what they most want for their toddlers, the answer is usually something like, "I just want them to be happy." They mean it, but when I did a little deeper, I usually discover that what they mean is that they want their children to flourish.

Case asks, "Is this the secret to flourishing? To set one's sights beyond the self, to the world around us? While yogis and mindfulness experts may do this by focusing attention on the breath and the immediacy of the moment, a similar approach, but one that is no les effective, is to focus attention on objects and ideas and subjects that interest us, to be attentive to those who are our immediate space, allowing us to escape the empire of self . . . To be utterly absorbed in the external environment is an act of self-denial to be sure, but one without the moralistic overtones."

Looked at this way, looked at from the perspective of our toddlers, we see that aimlessness, contrary to our ideas of it being some sort of failure, moral or otherwise, is in fact how we care for ourselves. It is how we discover what gives us joy, and it's there that we ultimately find our purpose in life. Our myths tell us that we must set goals, but how can we know that the person we will become in the interim will find those goals worthwhile? Unless our goals are immediately achieved, we often find that by the time we attain them they no longer bring us joy. 

It's a cultural sacrilege to think this way, but my toddler friends seem to know that aimlessness, or authentic play, is to be valued above all. It is the top of the pyramid where self-actualization resides. It is the surest, albeit wandering, path to a life of delight, pleasure, leisure, joy, purpose. That's what it means to flourish. And this is, to me, is what education should be all about.

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I've been writing about play-based learning almost every day for the past 14 years. I've recently gone back through the 4000+ blog posts(!) I've written since 2009. Here are my 10 favorite in a nifty free download. Click here to get yours.

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

The Angry Ship Builders

Charlotte said, "I'm going to build a ship," and got to work arranging the blocks.

Ships have always been a popular way for the kids to use our large wooden blocks. It's a simple build which normally involves arranging the blocks into a deck, flat on the floor. Each time Charlotte would place a block, however, one of her classmates would step on it, which frustrated her. 

"Hey, I'm building a ship!"

There was a lot of action in the block area and it got so she was chasing someone off her ship every few seconds. She responded by upping the intensity of her objections.

It didn't seem like anyone was intentionally provoking Charlotte. The situation was more a result of attempting to work on a solo project in a crowded, active area. After having been reprimanded several times by Charlotte, Henry paused for a moment to survey this corner of the rug, and in doing so he seemed to suddenly see the world from Charlotte's perspective. "I'm going to help build the ship." And with that he began arranging blocks.

Without directly acknowledging Henry, Charlotte began to chase the other kids off, still angrily, by saying, "Hey, we're building a ship!"

And Henry took on the tone as well, "Hey, we're building a ship!" Now we had two intense ship builders. 

Soon Audrey joined them, pushing large blocks into place. She said nothing, but wore a fierce, tight-jawed expression as she worked.

"Hey, we're building a ship!" "Hey, that's our ship!"

As the three angry builders made their herky jerky progress, Lilyanna, who had been dancing about the block area to the beat of some internal rhythm, and therefore largely oblivious to the builders, had as a consequence been chased off the burgeoning ship more times than I could count. As she turned a sort of pirouette on the ship deck, the builders said once more, loudly, "Hey, we're building a ship!"

Lilyanna was offended, putting her hands on her hips defiantly, commanding, "Stop!" Saying "stop" forcefully is a technique we teach the children for when someone is hurting them, frightening them, or taking their things. Some kids, however, find it so powerful that they try it out in any circumstance in which they find themselves at odds with others.

This lead to a silent stand-off, with the three builders standing face-to-face with Lilyanna, angry faces all around. Finally, Charlotte said, as if castigating the world, "This is our ship! Mine, Henry's, Audrey's and Lilyanna's!"

Then the four angry ship builders got back to work.

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I've been writing about play-based learning almost every day for the past 14 years. I've recently gone back through the 4000+ blog posts(!) I've written since 2009. Here are my 10 favorite in a nifty free download. Click here to get yours.

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

"The Ability to Forget and be Forgotten is Integral to Social Transformation"

In her book Monsters Claire Dederer considers the question of what to do about artists who have created beloved works of art, but who have also been revealed to be, well, monsters. Woody Allen is one of her prime examples. At one point she uses the metaphor of a beautiful piece of lace that has been stained. It still might be a beautiful piece of lace, but it’s nearly impossible to not notice the stain. 

Dederer points out that many, too many, of our artistic icons have turned out to be monsters. We all know about Allen, Roman Polanski, and Bill Cosby because their transgressions are relatively recent. Maybe we’ve even taken part in “canceling” them. But even if we don’t approve of so-called “cancel culture” I doubt that any of us can fully enjoy their work the way we once did – the stain is always right there. But many of us are unaware, or have forgotten, that Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and even William Shaespeare have left stains on their masterpieces. Do we forgive them because it happened so long ago? Or did we, collectively, just forget? And is forgetting okay? And if so, how long ago does it have to be for that forgetting to be okay?

As people who work with and care for young children, we are in the business of forgiving and forgetting. Of course, we don’t let a preschooler's missteps stain them. Even our teenagers get to leave most of their transgressions in the past, or at least they did until the advent of the internet where nothing is forgotten. 

Reflecting on my own teenage years, I'm happy that the internet didn't exist in those days. I don't know if I would be the man I am today if I wasn't free to leave my mistakes behind. Much of therapy involves dredging up those old memories and that will always be a part of social-emotional healing and growth, but there is a growing body of psychological research that finds that forgetting negative experiences is perhaps just as important to our social identity development because to remember every shameful or humiliating experience would be immobilizing. 

In her book The End of Forgetting, Kate Eichhorn writes, "I understand that forgetting can . . . be incredibly dangerous but there are times when the ability to forget and be forgotten is integral to social transformation."

I worry about our young people who are, increasingly, living in a world that never forgets. Growing up, we were often warned about how our behaviors would wind up on our "permanent record," but that was a boogyman compared to today. I can't imagine the pressure young people must feel to manage their reputations because a single slip-up can genuinely have lifelong ramifications. Risk taking is essential to cognitive and social development, but today, the stakes of failure are so much higher than for past generations that it's no wonder we are seeing what Jonathan Haight calls "the anxious generation." He lays the blame largely on a loss of childhood autonomy and smart phones, and I don't think he's wrong, but the prospect of a permanent record on steroids certainly plays a part in the rise in anxiety in our youngest citizens. The impact of "celebrity" on young people is well documented. Today, we have an entire generation that is faced with life "in the public eye."

One of the benefits of being allowed to forget our shameful and humiliating moments is that it creates the freedom necessary to transform ourselves into new and better people. That's nearly impossible if there are those out there who continually remind us about that one time we behaved like a "monster."

It’s been decades since Woody Allen was accused of his crimes. Has the stain faded? Should it? If we still enjoy his movies, are we condoning his past behavior? Are we forgetting about his victims and justice?

It’s easier to forgive preschoolers, of course, because they’re so young. Their brains aren’t fully developed. Even if they hit or bite or abuse a classmate, we don’t let that stain them. They’re not monsters; they just made a bad choice. They didn’t know any better. But when should they know better? There are teens who are tried in court as adults. I guess we assume that they should have known better. On the other hand, we commonly expunge crimes from the records of teens under the assumption that they have learned their lesson and they don’t deserve to start life with a stain. But today, courts may forgive and forget, but there is no undo button for the internet.

I don't think I'll ever forgive Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, or Bill Cosby. I remember what they did. Youthful indiscretions are a far cry from using one's position of power prey on the weak and vulnerable. That's a stain I can't not see. Perhaps future generations will be able to enjoy their art without condoning their monstrous behaviors the way I do with Picasso, Hemingway, and Shakespeare. Maybe I'll feel differently when they are in their graves. In the end, perhaps it's only then, when they can do no more harm, that we are able to start separating monsters from their art.

But no child is a monster. As preschool teachers and parents of young children we forgive and forget every day. Indeed, it's our responsibility to help young children move beyond their impulses, their mistakes, and their "monstrous" behaviors. From day-to-day we forget and forgive, setting our children free to live today anew as better people. 

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I've been writing about play-based learning almost every day for the past 14 years. I've recently gone back through the 4000+ blog posts(!) I've written since 2009. Here are my 10 favorite in a nifty free download. Click here to get yours.

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