Our Discussion About "Bad Guys"

Most years, there are play themes chosen by our five-year-olds that cause concern. Usually, it's some version of "bad guy" play -- pirates, zombies, spies, superheroes. A couple years back, they were going with the generic "bad guy," which largely played itself out as making fierce faces, posing threateningly, and attempting to capture one another, although it sometimes took the form of attempting to dam up the "river" others were creating in the sand pit.

Typically, the concerns come up because other children begin to report, either to me or to their parents at home, that they're afraid of the "bad guys." It's a delicate balance between the perfectly normal interest of some children to explore the dark side of power and human nature and the perfectly valid desire to not be fearful at school, especially given that some kids are still working out the line between "real" and "pretend." Our parent community had been discussing the subtleties of how we should address this balance for a couple months, both formally and informally, and we had engaged in a lot of circle time discussions among the kids as well, but one day Francis brought things to a head by proposing that we make a new rule: "No bad guys."

The children at Woodland Park make their own rules, a process that requires consensus. When Francis suggested her new rule, dueling cries rose up from those present, one side supporting her and the other against. It was clear that there would be no consensus, but that didn't mean it wasn't a good prompt for a public discussion, one that I hoped would at least get everyone's cards out on the table.

Once everyone settled down, we began to take turns by raising hands and sharing our thoughts on this proposed legislation. It became quickly evident to me that most of the children were actually in favor of banning "bad guy" play, with a small group of boys committed to continuing their favored game. 

I said, "I have an idea, how about everyone who wants to make the no bad guys rule move to that side of the rug and everyone who wants to keep playing bad guys move to that side." 

Gio piped up, "And if you don't care, sit in the middle," a move of diplomatic genius given that he had friends on both sides of the divide. 

My knee-jerk idea had been to create a visual demonstration for our "bad guys" that showed that they were in the minority. Even with a large block of kids choosing the non-commital position in the center of the rug, it was immediately clear that most of the kids with an opinion were all for banning bad guy play, with only five boys remaining staunchly against Francis' proposed rule.

We started with those in favor of the rule, giving them, one-by-one, the opportunity to tell the "bad guys" how their play made them feel, most of whom said they either felt afraid or angry. It was an oddly quiet and sincere five minutes during which everyone seemed to genuinely be listening to one another. As they spoke, some of the kids in the middle shifted to that side. 

When they were done, I turned to the "bad guys," asking, "And why do you guys like playing bad guys?" Each of them took a turn making their case, citing "fun" as their main support, although several made the point that it was "just pretend." A couple of the fence sitters moved to their side.

I then said, "We can't make Francis' rule because everyone doesn't agree, but some people are afraid and some people think it's fun. What can we do?"

After some discussion, most of which was just restatements of the already established pros and cons, the "bad guys" made what I thought was a brilliant and magnanimous offer, "How about we can be bad guys, but we act like good guys." This received widespread approval, but there remained a new minority of those who still supported an all-out ban. By this time, most of the kids were sitting in the middle of the rug, growing restless.

We had been at this discussion for quite some time. We had had a terrific air-clearing discussion in which everyone made their case. But now we were at a logger-head. It was obvious that the matter was not going to be addressed via the formal rules, at least not on this day.

I said, "It looks like we're not going to be able to make a new rule. Some people still want to play bad guys and some people still want them to stop."

And Gio piped up, "And some people don't care."

"And some people don't care . . . But I will remind everyone that we already have an important agreement that we sometimes forget." I turned toward the list of rules we have mounted on the wall: "We all agreed, don't do anything to anybody before you ask them." I turned to the bad guys, "That means you have to ask people before being bad guys to them." I then turned to the rest of the kids, "And I want the rest of you to remember that it's just pretend and that you can always just tell the bad guys to stop." With that I looked back at the bad guys for their agreement on this point, "Right?" They nodded.

Later, when we moved from indoors to outdoors, I was prepared to help the children by reminding everyone about our discussion, but it was unnecessary because, for the first time all year, the "bad guys" chose to make mud soup with our playhouse kitchen supplies, while others swept sand back into the sandpit. 

It was clear that we had really listened to one another and it became even more obvious a couple days later when the mother of the "leader" of the bad guys pulled me aside to tell me: "Last night Henry said he wasn't going to play bad guys any more because Francis doesn't like it." And true to his word, for the rest of the year they played "good guys." 

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

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

Topping One Another Up

After reading a story, then singing our final song together, the children came forward to hug me, not one at a time, but all together, and there we were, a massive scrum of bodies, wrapping one another up in our arms.

Since my first year teaching, this was the way the two-year-olds said goodbye to me at the end of the day. I never asked for it or encouraged it in any way other than, I suppose, to be open to it. It always started on the first day of class each year because there was always that one child who genuinely felt the urge to hug me, to receive a hug from me, then others saw it, thought, "I want some of that," and came for their hug as well. I said the children's names as they approached, "Here's my Sarah hug, my Nora hug, my Alex hug . . ."

Mister Rogers said, "I believe that appreciation is a holy thing." We were saying goodbye to one another, of course, but we were also saying thank you, expressing our gratitude, showing our appreciation, not in payment for any particular favor, but simply for the time we had together. It started spontaneously, then, as the year progressed, became a sort of ritual, each child making it their own. There were some who rushed to be first, others who waited for the crowd to thin. Some didn't want to let go. Some come back for a second and third and fourth hug. A few didn't want to hug, preferring a high five or simply eye contact. Some were moved to hug their classmates.

It was a beautiful way to end our time together, topping one another up before heading off into our separate lives.

******

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

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

The Myth of "Childishness"

We can all, under the right circumstances, behave selfishly, but laboratory studies consistently show that when faced with things like resource distribution, say sharing a plate of cookies, we demonstrate what scientists call "inequality aversion." Even children as young as three will divide a cake out equally, and at six would rather throw a slice away than allow one person, including themselves, to have more.

Indeed, it appears that we Homo sapiens, whatever else we are, are serious about equality. 

Over my decades in the classroom I've witnessed it myself, even amongst children younger than those studied. Sure, sometimes a kid can behave selfishly, but most of the time I find myself inspired by children's instinctive fairness in social situations. I once, in a misguided attempt to "teach" about fairness, tried to give all of the girls a special jewel, while excluding the boys. The moment the girls realized what was happening, they spontaneously handed their jewels back to me, rejecting them, saying, "It's not fair." They would only accept their jewels if I included the boys. There was nothing for me to teach these children about fairness.

Were I to ask a strangers on the street, however, I'm certain that most would classify selfishness as one of the traits found under the heading of "childishness," along with a tendency toward tantrums and unreasonableness. We know what people mean when they say that someone is behaving "like a big baby." And those of us who work with children know that it's a slur against babies and young children in general.

The worst tantrums I've ever witnessed have been adults who have lost it. Unreasonable demands are far from the exclusive domain of children. And when it comes to selfishness, adults are far and away more likely to behave according to their own self interest even when it clearly harms or disadvantages someone else.

Selfishness is a learned behavior. We are born with a natural aversion to inequality. We are then socialized to want the biggest piece for ourselves, not through explicit teaching because most of us value fairness as a moral value, but because of the way the world is structured, with competition being one of the primary mechanism through which we distribute resources. A truly childish society would never allow billionaires to sit on their piles while millions of others are forced to live hand to mouth.

Many of us go out of our way as early childhood educators to teach equality, fairness, sharing, and turn taking, yet the research is quite clear: we are a species that already understands these things, at least in social situations. Perhaps the children should be our teachers. But we do it, I think, because we know the sad truth is that once the kids are in the world beyond our classroom walls, they will find themselves in an adult world in which selfishness often shows up as a virtue, even as few of us beyond the Ayn Rand inspired dead-enders believe it to be anything other than one of the roots of evil.

Research also tells us that most of us, most of the time, also exhibit "inequality aversion." That finding, which has been replicated countless times, flies in the face of what many of us think we know about humans. We tend to think we live in a competitive dog-eat-dog world, but when we look to our left and look to our right we see fellow humans who are, in their hearts, unselfish and averse to inequality. Anthropologists tell us that this has been the norm for as long as there have been humans, that our species has thrived largely because of our instincts in favor of equality. So how did we get where we are?

I have my theories, but the bottom line is that our hunter-gatherer ancestors didn't tolerate selfishness in others. They would start by teasing and mocking someone who hoarded resources, for example, and if that didn't bring them into line, they would turn to shame and even, in extreme cases, ostracize them. I'm not advocating for shaming others, but I can honestly say that I feel ashamed of myself when I've behaved selfishly. I think most of us do. I don't know if those girls who returned the jewels to me were experiencing shame, but I imagine they would have had they kept the jewels. 

No, it seems to me that the only way that anyone can accept inequality is if they have bought into a story that frames inequality as inevitable or even righteous. In the past, that story might have been about the "divine" nature of the hoarder, which would excuse things like royal rule. Today, the story is that those with the most "deserve" it because they are smarter or have worked harder. These are modern mythologies, of course. We know for a fact that no one has the divine right to more. We know that hard work doesn't necessarily lead to more; if it did, most early childhood educators would be living large. And we all know smart people who have never been able to cash in on their brains, no matter how big. 

Perhaps, if we really value equality and fairness, we ought to be thinking more about the stories we tell, both to children and one another. But one story we can stop telling right now, is the myth of "childishness" because it implies that selfishness is our natural state, which is perhaps the most pernicious myth of all.

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

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

Toward a Deep Sense of Self

As a child, my family moved around a lot. I'd called four places home before my first day of kindergarten. I attended three different elementary schools and three different middle schools. My parents, themselves, had grown up in a small, tightly-knit farming community in which everyone knew everyone. To this day, they are still in touch with some of their childhood friends. In contrast, I'm in touch with none of mine. In fact, I can't even remember the names of some of the kids I once called "best friend."

I sometimes wonder if I've missed out on something, especially when my wife gets together with her lifelong besties, but the experience of being the "new kid" is so much a part of who I am that I can't really imagine what it would be like to share such a long history with anyone other than family members. My greatest life lesson, I think, was how to make new friends wherever I go.

For this I credit my mother. Mom was determined that we would have friends wherever we went. If the new neighbors didn't show up on the front porch with casseroles, she would make her own casseroles and show up on theirs. She went out of her way to connect with other families with kids. As we got older, she signed us up for team sports wherever we moved, not as a way to learn the dubious lessons of competition, but rather so that we would have the opportunity to make friends. 

Not everyone enjoys sports, but fortunately we did, and throughout my childhood, my social life tended to emerge not through school, but rather through baseball, soccer, football, basketball, and swimming. Of course, there was competition when another team would come to play, but the core of the experience was daily practice where we built relationships with one another around the cooperation of teamwork. There was never any expectation that we would go on to become professional athletes, nor were we graded or tested. The idea was to have fun with friends.

Some time ago, before I began my journey as an educator, in the spirit of paying it forward, I volunteered to coach what is called a "select" baseball team comprised of middle schoolers only to find that youth sports have changed in horrible ways. These kids and their parents already had their eyes on the big leagues, or missing that, at least college scholarships. It was an unpleasant experience for me, but even more so for the kids who, frankly, demonstrated very little joy, and even less friendship. This wasn't the baseball I grew up knowing. When I tried to lighten things up, parents would pull me aside to let me know that they appreciated the sentiment, but really, they didn't want their child to "miss the opportunity," so, you know, knuckle down. Ugh.

One of the foundations upon which our educational system is built is the myth that we live in a "competitive society" so we must get the kids ready for that. Now, I've never been a stock market day trader, nor have I had the misfortune of being part of a corporate hierarchy. I've never been a professional athlete or a contestant on RuPaul's Drag Race. Indeed, the only time that I found myself in genuine, ongoing competition with my fellow humans was during my time in school and only then when I began to understand that I was being judged (graded, tested) in comparison to my classmates. But outside of school, I've found that competition beyond the occasional friendly board game, is not a meaningful part of my life.

Mister Rogers once said, "You rarely have time for everything you want in this life, so you need to make choices. And hopefully your choices can come from a deep sense of who you are."

Competition only gives us, at best, a superficial sense of who we are. It teaches us that if we aren't a winner then we're a loser. But even more harmful is competition's lesson that our fellow humans are impediments, stepping stones, and rivals. It makes "things" of them, it dehumanizes them, and it ultimately prevents and perverts our relationships. What my mother knew was that the only way one can ever discover the key to that deeper sense of self is through relationships.

For the most part, those of us who work with young children understand what my mother understood: relationships are the foundation for any life worth living. When we observe children at play, we see that they are driven, not to competition, but rather to cooperation and teamwork. That is where they find joy. When competition emerges, it always does so as both a threat to their games as well as their relationships. In these cases, when we allow the children to solve their own problems, the unpleasantly competitive games either come to an end as children exercise their freedom to quit, or, impressively, they scramble to remove the prospect of winners and losers, restoring the cooperative balance to their game. 

Cooperation, not competition, is the reality I've discovered everywhere I've gone in life. It's inhuman systems, like standard schooling, that create the illusion that competition is everywhere. When it's just us humans playing together, the only thing that matters are our relationships, built through cooperation and teamwork. And through that our deep sense of self emerges as the only guide we will ever need to make choices that will bring us joy.

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

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

The Boy Who Found School Disappointing

"Children do not like being incompetent any more than they like being ignorant. They want to learn how to do, and do well, the things they see being done by bigger people around them. This is why they soon find school such a disappointment; they so seldom get a chance to learn anything important or do anything real. But many of the defenders of childhood, in or out of school, seem to have this vested interest in the children's incompetence, which they often call "letting the child be a child." ~John Holt

As a two-year-old, Angus found school disappointing. 

"He likes school," his mother told me one day as we watched him play alone in his own corner of the playground, "But he'd like it a lot better without the other kids." She said it with a chuckle, one that told me she appreciated it as an eccentricity. I didn't tell her that it's quite common for children her son's age to feel that way mainly because to do so would have been to risk robbing her of her delight.

As a cooperative school, Angus' mother was always welcome in the classroom and she had so far opted to be there every day. During the first week of school she told me of how she had prepared Angus by telling him that school was a place where he would learn stuff. He had interpreted this to mean that he was going to learn to drive a Metro bus.

He was passionate about Metro buses. He was disdainful of school busses. And he actively disliked the toy school school busses we had in the classroom. He came by his driving interest honestly. Riding Metro was often how he and his mother spent their days away from preschool. Sometimes they would choose a destination, figure out their route, then execute their plan. Other times, they would simply choose a specific line out of curiosity and ride it to see where it went. 

One day, I told him I needed to get to my doctor's office in Lake City after school and he informed me which buses I would need to take to get there from the school. When I told him I had to go home first, he asked me where I lived, then recalculated based on this new starting point. One day as we played together I began to quiz him on bus routes. "Where does the 62 go?" "How about the 550?" As far as I could tell, he knew his stuff.

After absorbing the disappointment of not getting to learn to drive a bus, he settled into a routine of pretending to be a bus driver, sitting alone, usually with his back to the rest of us, employing whatever circular shaped object he could find as a steering wheel. To be allowed into his private world one had to wait until he "stopped" and opened the door for you. His expectation was then that you sat behind him. He  would then speak to you, eyes forward, hands on the wheel. When he was done with you, he would inform you that you had arrived at your stop, then pantomime opening the door to let you out.

As he got older, he began to "drive" his bus around the playground (i.e., holding his steering wheel and running). Before long he had established several stops. Children would often wait at one of the stops for Angus, who would transport them (i.e., the children ran along behind him) to as near their destinations as the route would allow. He spent one morning making construction paper "Orca Cards," which is what Metro calls its passes, and distributed them to his classmates. It irritated him that he had to make new ones the following day. "They're supposed to keep them in their wallets!" He carried a wallet in which he carried his own real and pretend Orca Cards. Eventually, other children were inspired to start their own bus routes and for a time we had an entire mass transit system on our playground.

As he got older, he became interested in other things, including the other kids, but never did take much of an interest in any of our toys. When he played "construction," he eschewed such childish things as blocks and Legos. He needed real "lumber," a hammer, a saw, and "a lot of nails." I once offered him a yellow costume construction worker helmet, but he rejected it with the wave of his hand. When his attentions turned to insects, only the real things would do. No picture books or plastic bugs for him. He was even suspicious of the lady bugs we raised in the classroom from larva because we kept them indoors rather than outdoors. He didn't use the words "natural habitat," but it was there in his assessment of the situation.

Angus expressed himself well, even as a two-year-old which caused the other adults to consider him "advanced" or even "gifted," but the more I got to know him over the years, the more I came to understand him as simply more "natural" than most of his classmates. I once visited his home. There were no toys in evidence, no safety gates, and no childish art taped up on the walls. The only things that might have caused one to suspect a child lived there were the muddy holes dug in the backyard, the odd collections of household items to be spied around the house, and the bedroom wall covered in framed photographs of Metro busses.

Today, when I hear the expression, "Let the child be a child," this competent, self-directed boy is the first person who comes to mind.

******

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

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

Leaving Me With My Bucket Full

"Teacher Tom, look how many jewels I have."

I peered into her bucket, responding, "That's a lot of jewels." The word "jewels" referred to the colorful florist marbles that she had collected from the playground.

Her friend in turn held her bucket out to me. "Look at my jewels, Teacher Tom."

I replied, "You have jewels too."

The girls were playing a semi-competitive game, hunting as a team until a jewel was spotted. Then it became a mad dash as the girls ran, dove, elbowed, and pushed in order to secure the sparkling bit of glass treasure for their own hoard. They had been playing the game all afternoon, side-by-side. Occasionally, one would complain, "Hey, you're getting all of them," or mope, "I'm not getting any," but their words were directed to one another, not adults, which meant it was none of my business.

As they stood beside me with their buckets, one of the girls boasted, "I have more than you."

"You do not!" her friend answered hotly before continuing in a more downcast voice, "I want more."

She replied dismissively, "Well, I guess you're going to have to find more."

Her friend didn't answer, remaining glumly silent with her head down in an exaggerated show of emotion. Her friend studied her for a moment, then chirped, "I know! I could give you some of mine!" She grabbed a fistful from her bucket and dropped them into her friend's bucket, instantly cheering them both.

"Hey, Teacher Tom, do you want to play with us?" Before I could respond she ran off, returning with an empty bucket for me.

I looked into my empty bucket and said matter-of-factly, "My bucket is empty."

They looked into my bucket. They looked into their own buckets, which now contained roughly the same number of jewels. "I know! I could give you one of mine!"

"And I can give you one of mine!"

They took turns adding to my bucket one jewel at a time, until I said, "Now I have enough jewels. Thank you." With that, they ran off to play their game of hunting, running, and elbowing, leaving me with my bucket full.

******

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

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

Gossiping

What other people say about me is none of my business.

It's a rationale that pops up for me when I feel judged by others, when I suspect or know that someone is talking about me behind my back, or, and this is probably the most frequent circumstance, when I feel insecure about the opinions of others.

The truth is that for those of us who are not Taylor Swift or Brad Pitt, our fellow humans probably spend insultingly little time thinking about us, let alone judging or gossiping about us. Still, try as we might, it's almost impossible to not, at least at times, fret or wonder about the things being said about us when we're not present. And I suspect that's because, we ourselves, judge others, and at least sometimes, we express those judgments to others.

Judging and gossiping are part of being human. In his book Sapiens, historian Yuval Noah Harari relies on anthropological research to assert that not only is gossiping part of human nature, but that it is one of the key traits that allowed Homo sapiens to evolve from a middle-of-the-food-chain mammal to an apex predator. Gossip, it seems, empowers us to create social bonds, friendships, and community. 

"Social cooperation is our key for survival and reproduction," writes Harari. "It's not enough for individual men and women to know the whereabouts of lions and bison. It's much more important for them to know who in their band hates whom, who is sleeping with whom, who is honest and who is a cheat."

Given the centrality of gossip to our evolution, it might be surprising to consider that most of us, most of the time, are vehement in our disapproval of gossip. Indeed, one of the worst reputations one can have is of being an inveterate gossip. So most of us strive to keep our harshest judgements to ourselves or only express them in the strictest confidence to our best friends, managing our own behavior lest we become, in turn, the subject of judgmental gossip.

My mother used to scold us, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all," a worthy aspiration, but hardly possible when gossip is such a central part of what our species is all about. 

In a study out of Japan, researchers found that even children as young as four will adjust their behaviors when presented with the possibility that an observer, even someone they don't know, might gossip about them. Children in the study shared their treats with peers, not just when others were watching, but even when they thought their behavior would be conveyed to a stranger who was not even in the room. However, when the children were assured that there would be no gossiping, they were less likely to share their treats. "These findings," the researchers write, "suggest that 4- and 8-year-old children attempt to manage their reputation when they could be a target of gossip."

Of course, what we mostly despise is malicious gossip. We tend to not object to gossip about, say, the anonymous charitable giving of a neighbor or the romantic birthday gifts exchanged between spouses. Indeed, we might not even label those things as gossip because we tend to narrow our definition of gossip to the spreading of negative or harmful stories, true or not, about others. The habitual spreading this kind of gossip, if left unchecked, has historically lead individuals to be ostracized or worse.

Gossip stands as one of the most powerful mechanisms by which human communities manage themselves. We may bridle at the idea of being controlled in this way. Likewise, most of us are likely uncomfortable with the notion that we control others, not necessarily because we gossip, but because of the possibility that we will gossip. Even very young children seem to understand this: it is part of what makes us human.

I wonder, however, if this social function of gossip is starting to wane in this era of pervasive social media (which is many ways is just a gossip column on steroids) and political leaders who seem to be immune to the feelings of shame that gossip relies upon. In fact, it seems that malicious gossip is too often rewarded. It seems that there are some who have found that gossip benefits them no matter how heinous their behavior; who thrive, indeed, on infamy. I don't know if this is a modern thing or not. I suppose there have always been those who rise to positions of power and prestige due to their reputations for cruelty and debauchery. At the same time, I wonder how much evil we've managed to avert because of the power of gossip.

When our daughter was born, I was instantly aware that I cared deeply about how she would see me. I wanted her to know me as loving, reliable, competent, and kind, even though I often hadn't behaved in those ways. This is what I mean when I say that our children make us better people. At least in my case, I managed my reputation to the point that I am, today, a much more loving, reliable, competent and kind person than I was on the day our daughter was born.  I did it for her, but also for myself.

The American culture is one in which individualism is set on a pedestal. We love the people who don't seem to give a damn what other people think . . . At least until they do or say things that make us wish they would consider the opinions of others. We admire those who blaze their own trails . . . At least until their blaze begins to scorch the earth for others. 

We want our children to grow up to be compassionate, to care for others, and a big part of that is caring about what others think and say about us. By the same token, we don't want our children to be driven by shame or to sacrifice good and unique aspects of who they are in the name of fitting in or getting along. 

This, I think, is the great dance of being human amongst humans. We are the gossiping animal. What others say about me may still be none of my business and that is often exactly the stance to take in the name of mental health, but that doesn't mean it doesn't matter. 

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

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

Creating a Learning Environment for Creative Thinking and New Ideas

Jean Piaget in his office

The conventional wisdom is that an uncluttered classroom is best for young learners. I regularly see photos labeled as "classroom don'ts" with scads of posters and other art on the walls, things dangling from the ceilings, and materials stuffed willy-nilly on shelves. These busy, messy spaces, we're told, are full of distractions, making it difficult to concentrate. They are visually over-stimulating, whereas a cleaner, tidier space, with it's bare walls and organized shelves, calms children, which is, according to this theory, the proper mindset for learning. Indeed, research indicates that a tidy space may promote such desirable traits as healthy eating and generosity. People in tidy spaces are, likewise, more likely to follow rules, adhere to expectations, and to make "conventional" choices, which would, I presume, make them better at, say, passing a test.

"If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?" ~Albert Einstein

Research also indicates that a messy space promotes creative thinking and stimulates new ideas. "Disorderly environments seem to inspire breaking free of tradition, which can produce fresh insights," according Kathleen Vohs, the University of Minnesota psychological researcher who studies these things. "Orderly environments, in contrast, encourage convention and playing it safe."

So I can understand why educators concerned with such things as "classroom management" and marching children through a curriculum would value a spit-spot classroom.

Steve Jobs' home office

I can also understand why educators might want the visual of a tidy space as a way to appeal to parents considering where to send their children to school: order is very appealing in the abstract.

But it seems that what we lose is creativity and independent thought. And, indeed, as we will be exploring in my 3-week, pre-holiday course -- Controlled Chaos: Teacher Tom's Guide to Play-Based Classroom Management -- that's a lot to lose in the name of arbitrary adult control.

I'm certain that some people are reading this with arguments in their heads one way or another, because, naturally, we all have our personal preferences. My own home tends to be very tidy ( . . . as far as you know, because I tidy up for company!) I suppose I consider my natural state, as far as space goes, as right on the edge. What I do with the next hour will often determine whether it's neat as a pin or a pig pen. I've seen a kind of ebb and flow. It almost feels like I need to occasionally clear the canvas, so to speak, before I can launch into my "real work." And then for weeks, the laundry situation is a mess, my counters are bestrewn, and my table tops are home to disorderly stacks.

Albert Einstein's desk. Ralph Morse/Time

The notion of space is a fascinating thing to consider. For most of human existence, we spent the bulk of our waking ours in unconfined space, with the sky as our ceiling, but we've always also created interior spaces in which to secure ourselves. Today, most of us spend most of our lives indoors and this goes for children as well. Indoor space is fundamentally different than outdoor space: one is finite, the other infinite. We feel we can control our indoor spaces, whereas, beyond the confines of our gardens, the outdoors is a place where we have no choice but to give up control: the sun rises on the evil and on the good; the rains fall on the just and the unjust. There is a feeling of freedom that one can attain outdoors that is more elusive when we're confined. We breath easier, we set aside our urge to control. We can't organize the trees or tidy the clouds. Being outdoors allows us to more easily just let go, which, is the best mental state for creativity.

Interior order is a more attainable thing, or so we think. We seek to control as much as we seek to be free. Both urges live within us. When someone sets themselves free indoors the way one might outdoors, we often talk about it as "giving up," a phrase that can be uttered in joy or in despair, and I suppose messiness can mean either of those things. Our interior spaces are like that. They often reveal our mental state. And changing the nature of our interior spaces can, quite often, trigger changes in our mental state and vice versa.

Is this really a good learning environment?

But these considerations are about spaces we can control. Piaget made his own office messy. I clutter up my own home. Classrooms, however, are shared spaces, much in the way that Mother Nature is a shared space. We release control outdoors, at least in part, because it's simply too vast to consider controlling, there are too many variables, too many agendas, so we "let go" which is a nicer way of saying "give up." When I see a tidy classroom, I see a single hand of a control and it doesn't belong to the children. I worry because I see space designed for and by "management." Not only that, but I know that the children who spend their days in that space are not free to manipulate the environment toward their own ends.

My goal is always creative thinking and new ideas. That is what learning is in my book. And toward that end, I've always preferred classrooms that are creations of all of us, not just "management." This means, "letting go" and embracing the notion of "tidy enough." This is the natural state of a world in which children have agency. It is the environment of creative thinking and new ideas.

It's tempting to fall back on the common wisdom of "finding a balance," but I think that's bunk. Balance is too often just a version of "both sider-ism," a dull compromise that leaves everyone dissatisfied. No, I think of my classroom space more in terms of ebb and flow in which the canvas is periodically cleaned. 

Our spaces shape us and we shape them in a back and forth between our urge to control and our need to be free.

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In this 3-week course, you will learn how to break the cycle of control, command, punishments, and rewards that have characterized the childhoods of so many of us. If you're ready to transform your classroom management skills so that you are truly supporting every child to get their needs met, and in turn transform challenging behaviors, then please consider joining this pre-holiday cohort for Controlled Chaos: Teacher Tom's Guide to Play-Based Classroom Management. To learn more and to register, click here. Registration closes soon!

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!

Classroom Management that Accommodates Our Natural Need to Move

Neuroscientist Patrick House asserts that "the entire purpose of the brain is to make efficient movement from experience."

Another prominent neuroscientist, Antonio Damasio claims that the thing we call consciousness (or mind) emerged from the so-called universal emotions like fear, anger, sadness, happiness, disgust, and surprise which are the triggers for action, or movement, related to survival.

"Movement is so fundamental to life that its absence defines death," writes psychotherapist Christine Caldwell.

Young children move -- a lot. They run when adults feel that walking should suffice. They squirm when adults expect stillness. They jump and shout and swing and balance and shake their heads and giggle even when we threaten them with punishment. Indeed, the term "classroom management" is all about preventing or at least controlling the movement of children. Yet if the scientists are correct, movement is the fundamental principle behind everything that makes us human. 

Plants are intelligent. We can tell by their behavior, which is to say their movement: they know to sprout, to turn toward the light, to find water and minerals with their roots, to release noxious chemicals when attacked by pests. The reason we tend to dismiss their intelligence as inferior to human intelligence, however, is that we believe, perhaps rightly so, that plants do not share our capacity to know that they are intelligent. That is the blessing and curse of being human. We possess minds that allow us to at least approach the question of why we are doing the things we do. Our minds, which evolved from our emotions, which in turn evolved from the necessity to move in order to survive, are capable of knowing that what we are doing is intelligent . . . Or stupid, stupid, stupid as the case may be.

In school, we likewise judge the intelligence of children by their actions. Specifically, we judge them by their ability to provide pre-approved answers to our questions or to demonstrate proficiency in some pre-approved activity like reading or ciphering or recalling the dates of this or that historical event. In preschool we might judge their intelligence by how they grip a crayon or help themselves to a glass of water without spilling. And all of this judgement is undertaken within the confines of what we have arbitrarily determined to be the proper behavior, action, movement in our artificially created environments. And we correct, criticize, and punish when a child's behavior, actions, or movements do not fit our definition of proper.

In my brand 3-week, pre-holiday course -- Controlled Chaos: Teacher Tom's Guide to Classroom Management -- we will be examining what school could be like if "classroom management" actually followed the science and accommodated our natural need to move.

At the end of the day, it's hard not to look at what we do to and with children in the name of education as adults attempting to manipulate and compel children to move or not move according to programs we've pre-set for them. If the scientists are correct, our minds have evolved as a way of determining how we should move or act according to experience. When a child has a tantrum or runs around the classroom or can't sit for circle time or hits a classmate, we are seeing evidence of their intelligence. And as intelligent adults perhaps our first instinct should not be to control their behavior, but rather to take their intelligence seriously. When we do, we ask ourselves: What is it about this place that causes this intelligent child to move in this way? And if we are to value that child's intelligence we will take action to change the environment or our expectations or our ideas about classroom management.

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In this 3-week, pre-holiday course, you will learn how to break the cycle of control, command, punishments, and rewards that have characterized the childhoods of so many of us. If you're ready to transform your classroom management skills so that you are truly supporting every child to get their needs met, and in turn transform challenging behaviors, then please consider joining the inaugural cohort for Controlled Chaos: Teacher Tom's Guide to Play-Based Classroom Management. To learn more and to register, click here. Registration closes soon!

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!