We Laughed Together Subversively

I looked up to see a familiar face. For a moment, however, I couldn't place it, but then recognized my friend who I'd not seen since he was five-years-old.

"I recognize you!" I blurted before his name came back to me. He was standing with his mom, pressed into her legs shyly, a posture I didn't recall from a couple years ago when we had seen one another almost every day. But, of course, he would feel that way. For a young child, two years is a very long time, long enough to have completely forgotten his old preschool teacher.

Yet he hadn't forgotten me. He was here because he had told his mother he wanted to visit me. When she asked if it was okay, I'd said to feel free to drop by any time. I've always had an open door policy for alumni.

His mother nudged him to respond, "Hi, Teacher Tom."

I'd met Duncan as a two-year-old who was enthralled with his older sister, often coming to class wearing her old clothes, sharing stories about what Bella had done or said, drawing pictures and making paintings to take home to her as gifts. As he got older, he turned his attention to "great apes," which he taught me included chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans. He wore our classroom gorilla costume almost every day, which included an anatomically correct backside that he would shake to make the rest of us laugh. During the three years that he and I were together he took himself along a wandering path of self-directed learning that carried him from Bella to the great apes, then, in a progression that made sense to him, on to dinosaurs, arachnids, outer space, Star Wars . . .

He intuitively signaled his changing interests by changing costumes, using dress-up as a way to embody his current driving passion. And through it all was woven an abiding interest in connecting with the other children, often bringing them along for portions of his journey.

In other words, he was a kid who always made the most of our days together.

I used my standard line that I use on visiting alumni, "Hey, I used to know a kid who looked a lot like you, but he was a lot smaller."

"It's me, Teacher Tom -- Duncan."

He was taking an afternoon off from first grade to be here. As much as I wanted to spend more time with him, I had other responsibilities so I left he and his mother to nostalgically go through the arrival routine of signing in, hanging up his jacket, stashing his backpack, and washing his hands. We later reconnected up by the cast iron water pump, which his mother had mentioned as something he particularly remembered. By then he had warmed up.

"This pump seems a lot smaller," he said. "Everything seems smaller. My school is huge."

"Yeah, well you got a lot bigger," I answered, "so you need a bigger school. Is your teacher bigger too?"

He thought about it for a second, not hearing it as a joke, then answered, "She's not bigger . . . but she's meaner."

"Oh, come on! She can't be that mean."

He conceded, "Well, she's not mean, but she made a rule -- no costumes except on Halloween."

"That's too bad."

"And she always wants us to tell her math facts."

"Wow, you know math facts? That's pretty cool."

"It's not cool, Teacher Tom. It's stupid."

"I hate doing stupid stuff."

"Me too, but did you know that I'm the smartest kid in my class?"

"I didn't know that."

"I know all the math facts. None of the other kids know all the math facts."

"That must make you feel good."

"It doesn't," he answered while lazily pumping water as the younger kids scrambled to dig channels in the sand into which it was flowing. The kids are always hoping for someone to pump the water for them and Duncan was obliging. "It makes me feel bored, but Bella told me that school is always boring. She's in fourth grade now."

"I'll bet Bella knows even more math facts."

He nodded earnestly, "She even knows more math facts than me. And she gets really good grades, like As and Bs. I also get As and Bs."

"And that's good?"

"Miss Herring says it's good," he answered brightly before glumly adding, "but I can do better."

I thought of the fully engaged boy from a couple years ago. "Good" and "better" and "smartest" and "bored" were not words anyone could ever attach to his learning. It wasn't the first time, nor would it be the last, that I've seen how this system we call school had taught yet another of my young friends to focus on competing, ranking, rating, and jumping through hoops rather than simply engaging the world through their own curiosity.  

I knew that this was why he had remembered preschool, however, and why he had wanted to return. I also knew that this was why his mother had pulled him out of school for a visit. As he reengaged with his self-selected project of being the big kid pumping water for the little kids, I stepped back to stand with his mother.

I asked her about the family and specifically about Duncan. She told me he was miserable at school. I sympathized, then repeated some of what he had said about math facts and grades. She replied, "Oh, he's doing fine. The school work is easy for him. It's this," she said, waving at arm at the playground, "that we're missing. I want that boy back . . . Look at him!"

He was down on his knees in the mud, taking charge of building a proper dam as the little kids swarmed around this big boy, everyone playing the trail-and-error game, the research technique that underpins most play.

"I won't be able to take him back to school now," she laughed. "They won't let him in the classroom covered in mud. I packed a couple of towels in the car just in case."

We stood together watching Duncan in his element for a long, silent moment, before she added, "But it's still in there, you know? All that time with you is still in there. I know that's why he needed to come back. Thanks for having us."

We send them off into the world, us play-based educators, knowing that while life itself is ultimately self-directed, while schooling stands starkly apart as a place of pleasing adults, competition with your peers, and learning to game the system. It is a kind of battle they will be compelled to fight, one that pits their natural instincts and curiosity against tests, homework, and grades. We can only hope that we've fortified them for it. What gives me hope for Duncan and the other children I've taught is that "it's still in there." And because we're a cooperative school, it's still in their parents as well. 

Later, I found Duncan standing in front of our classroom costume rack looking disappointed. "I'm too big," he shrugged, "None of them fit me."

"Yeah, you always liked our costumes. Too bad you can't wear any at school."

"Actually, I do."

"But I thought you said your teacher has a rule."

"She does, but she doesn't know that I wear Darth Vader underpants every day!" We laughed together subversively.

******

Books have a way of transforming us unlike any other media out there. Be it fiction or non-fiction, a books has the power to fully immerse us into a world in ways that makes us come out the other side a changed -- and better -- person. I've put together this list of 16 books that have done that for me. They are intentionally not early childhood books, although each one has, in one way or another, profoundly transformed my work with young children. Maybe you'll find a few new ones here that will do the same for you. To download the list, click here.

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!

Creepy Crawlers!

John Sain was a couple years older than me, which would have made him seven or eight. We always called him by his full name to distinguish him from his next door neighbor who was also named John. John Sain's father, Mr. Sain, had the caché of being retired military and having once killed a rattle snake in his garage with a garden hoe then called us kids in from the street where we were playing so that we could see first hand what these local dangers looked like. He even allowed me the honor of carrying the sack with the carcass around to the back of the house where we buried it. Mr. Sain once sucked blood from a finger I'd cut on a bit of glass while we worked together on a church-organized roadside litter clean-up crew. After spitting the blood onto the pavement, he told me it was to help avoid infection, which sounded both scientific and manly. Having such a father and being older, John Sain stood a little above the rest of us. He went to school during the day and so could only play with us in the evening and on weekends. When he was out there with us, it made our regular games special.

One day, I showed him some small plastic "army men" that I particularly treasured, which prompted him to invite me to his bedroom where he pulled out what he told me was an "army man making set." There was a small heating element, molds portraying the hollows of soldiers in various action poses, and pellets of lead. The idea was to choose a mold, put one lead pellet in it, melt it over the heating device, then, once the metal had fully liquified, you plunged it in a cold water bath to harden it. 

I expect Mr. Sain wouldn't have allowed John Sain to show such a "big kid" toy to a five-year-old, which is why we were being extra quiet and probably explained why he kept me at a distance as he worked. I admired how cautiously he handled the tools, how he used an oven mitt to handle the hot things, and the drama of the explosion of steam that leapt from the cold water bath. When he removed the newly shaped lead soldier from the mold, he handed to me saying, "You can't keep it" explaining that he would later melt it down again to make a new soldier.

This was the only time I got to see this toy, but I was sure I wanted one, badly. I begged my parents, who reminded me of Christmas and my birthday. I must have been consistent in my request for this toy because at the next gift-receiving opportunity I unwrapped my own casting set. I was only temporarily disappointed when the one my parents gave me melted plastic instead of lead and that the molds were of insects instead of soldiers. I suspect that the "Thingmaker featuring Creepy Crawlers" was considered a somewhat safer version of John Sain's set up, but it still involved heat, melting, molds, and steam blasts, although, to my disappointment, the instructions said to never try to re-melt cast figures. Still, I was absolutely thrilled. I can still experience the fumes of the melted plastic if I try, the heat on my hands, the electrical buzz of the heating element, the topography of the molds under my fingers, and the blasts of steam on my cheeks.

This was a toy I played with unsupervised, alone and sometimes with visiting friends. I emulated John Sain's authoritative caution, keeping others at a distance. Filling the molds took a steady hand. The whole process involved concentration, slow movements, and fine motor skills. The risk of doing things wrong was manifest. I didn't need an adult hovering over me to chirp "be careful" in order to be careful. I imagine my father must have helped me with the first batch, but from then I was on my own, a five-year-old with a toy that could not be sold today to children of any age, learning the kinds of lessons that simply can't be taught through theory. This is one of my earliest memories of play. To this day, I recall it as a kind of giddy balancing act. Always at the back of my mind was the reality that had been enforced by John Sain that one slip and I would be injured, perhaps badly. Indeed, without the danger, I expect it would have been a toy of a single day, something to which I'd never again return after that first afternoon, but as it was, I girded myself regularly. Each time I removed the box with its tidily organized interior from its shelf, I summoned a bit of courage as my heart beat with excitement that can only come direct experience. 

Lead is a hazardous substance, especially for young children, and while the box assured us that the plastic was non-toxic, I still wonder about the fumes it released while being heated. I'm not writing about this to "sell" anyone on the idea of purchasing such a toy for their own kids, but only to share what is one of my earliest memories, which is to say, an experience that made a significant impact on me. The two-time Nobel prize winning chemist Linus Pauling tells of a similar experience with an older boy who had a small home chemistry lab, saying that he was "simply entranced" by the experiments he was able to perform. I don't have a story anywhere near as dramatic, but to this day, I love few things more than cooking over gas flames on my stove top and undertaking art projects that require a steady hand and full concentration. I have no idea what impact my childhood experience had, whether it simply revealed something that was already there or inspired me to something that might have never been otherwise discovered, but I do often think of John Sain, Mr. Sain, and the Thingmaker as I work around heat or when I'm engaged in anything that requires a slow and steady hand.

What I do know, however, is that I have a fine memory of childhood, a real experience that is as much a part of me as the finger from which Mr. Sain sucked blood. There is truth and falsehood mixed up in it, science and myth. It lives not just in my mind, but also in my body and soul, having been fixed there by the manifest danger and the full concentration it demanded.

If you think melting and casting might be something you want to try with your own preschoolers, here is a version I came up with for the kids at Woodland Park to try. It still involves real risk, concentration, and a steady hand, but without some of the unnecessary hazards.

******

Books have a way of transforming us unlike any other media out there. Be it fiction or non-fiction, a books has the power to fully immerse us into a world in way that makes us come out the other side a changed -- and better -- person. I've put together this list of 16 books that have done that for me. They are intentionally not early childhood books, although each one has, in one way or another, profoundly transformed my work with young children. Maybe you'll find a few new ones here that will do the same for you. To download the list, click here.

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!

What Are the Babies Crying About?

Young parents with a crying infant know that behavior is communication, although it may take weeks or months to figure out exactly what it is their babies are communicating. Does this cry mean I'm hungry? Does that one mean I'm in pain? Frightened? Tired? 

Coming to understand our new babies generally involves a lot of trial and error as we try one approach after another. If they reject the breast then we check their diaper. If they don't respond to singing we try rocking, bouncing or cooing. In other words, we try everything we can think of from burping to taking them for a drive until we hit on the proper response. 

The one thing every new parent learns is that the proper response to their baby's cried request or query or demand or complaint, is to do something to change their environment or their situation within the environment. It's not our babies that need to change -- they are the one perfect thing in an imperfect world. Their crying is feedback on their experience in that imperfect world and their place in it. And in this business of being an adult caretaker, the customer is always right, so we do what we need to do to make the world, at least for a time, a bit more hospitable. Then we do it again and again until one day we decide, usually gradually, but sometimes abruptly like on the first day of school, that it's not the world, but the child that must change.

This is the beginning of what we call "education." Behavior continues to be feedback: I need more time. I need to go outside. I need to know everything about this mote I've discovered under my fingernail. That's why I'm covering my ears. That's why I'm bouncing off the walls. That's why I can't keep my eyes on you and attend to your irrelevant blather. The adults have decided that they will no longer respond to their request or query or demand or complaint by doing something to change their environment or their situation within the environment, but rather strive to change the child, to invalidate their communication with, say, scolding, bribing, shaming, and even punishing. I've known far too many children who have been kicked out of preschool because they are unable to change to suit this or that environment or curriculum or methodology. 

But they need to learn to adapt, we argue, it's a life lesson. The world is the way it is. We say this even though we've all discovered that the real world simply doesn't box us up in packages of two dozen people of like age, sit us in chairs, face us forward, silence us, and compel us to attend to whatever nonsense is on the pre-planned agenda for the day. We say that we are preparing our children for reality, which is to say an unchanging world that will only accommodate requests or queries or demands or complaints within a limited range. There will be no taking you for a drive or cooing or laying you down for a nap on the top of a running clothes dryer (the thing that finally soothed our infant daughter for a time). We continue to do this even though it is demonstrably untrue that this is the way the real world works.

On the contrary, we double down on changing the child to suit this mythical "real world." If you don't keep up, if you don't shut up, we will label you. If you don't know this week's spelling words this week, you're "behind." And you remain behind even if six months later you demonstrate you know how to spell those words because the curriculum has been cranking out new spelling tests in the meantime. 

It's like a train that continues to chug along even when passengers are falling off. Instead of stopping to let them hop back on it continues moving forward expecting the children, children who are screaming "Wait!" to just, somehow, catch up. And if the child won't or can't run after the train, they are labeled as deficient in some way and specialists are called in to fix the child who has all the while been clearly saying, through their behavior, This sucks for me!

In the actual world, however, there is always another train. In the actual world, unlike school, you can take a taxi or ride a bike or walk or opt to go somewhere else on an entirely different timetable. Or just choose to not go anywhere at all. The real world may have its tracks and obstacles, but ultimately it is infinitely malleable. 

What if this were the core lesson of school? What if instead of being charged with shaping all children according to some artificial and arbitrary norm, we made them into places that strive to understand the children's requests or queries or demands or complaints?

Awhile back we were in New York to visit our daughter. While there, we went to see the world premier of a documentary about performance artist Taylor Mac's 2016 "24-Decade History of Popular Music", a 24-hour, one-time-only show about the American experience. The show featured dozens of costumes by the designer Machine Dazzle. During the question and answer session following the screening, an audience member asked Mac to name his favorite costume. He seemed genuinely stumped before good-naturedly refusing to answer the question, quoting author Iyania Vanzant, "Comparison is an act of violence."

Our schools are simply not designed to support each child in achieving their own unique potential, which is what our babies are always calling out for if we would only listen. Instead they are in the business of comparing, measuring, grading, and ranking with some sort of arbitrary standard or norm in mind. This is harmful and limiting not just to every child, but every human. It's violence.

What if we instead saw education as a process of trial and error, one that sought above all else to understand what each child is crying about; what they are communicating about the environment and their situation within that environment? What if, as educators, we dropped our measuring sticks, forgot our timetables, ditched our curricula, and focused instead on listening in order to properly respond to what the children are trying to communicate? Maybe then we would have an educational system that truly prepared our children to engage fully with life itself.

******

Books have a way of transforming us unlike any other media out there. Be it fiction or non-fiction, a books has the power to fully immerse us into a world in way that makes us come out the other side a changed -- and better -- person. I've put together this list of 16 books that have done that for me. They are intentionally not early childhood books, although each one has, in one way or another, profoundly transformed my work with young children. Maybe you'll find a few new ones here that will do the same for you. To download the list, click here.

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!

Exploring the World is How We Explore Our Minds

She stopped right inside the gate. In fact, her mother had to nudge her through and there she stood looking at our junkyard playground for the first time. She was only two-years-old and her mother had brought her to the Woodland Park Cooperative Preschool for the first time. She was not going to be left with us. Her mother was going to stay with her, side-by-side, bottom-on-lap, arms wrapped around one another if that was necessary, because that's the way cooperatives work.

The girl's mother waved to me, then bent to talk softly into her daughter's ear. The girl was probably listening, but there was no visual indication that she heard her mother, or even that her mother was there. She was studying this new place, probably, knowing the way humans work, looking for something familiar. That would be her entry point.

For some kids, the newness is so overwhelming that the only familiar thing they can see is the adult who arrived with them, but this girl, Paula, spotted a small stuffed bear lying on its face. She took her mother's hand and toddled down the short stairway. When she hit the ground, she freed herself and careened toward the bear, falling on her belly. It was her first lesson in the slope and unevenness that characterizes our playground. She lay within inches of the bear. She turned over and, from her seat, she picked it up with one hand. With her other, she brushed at it, knocking off wood chips, decaying leaves, and sand. She scowled into its eyeless face, then, still holding it in one hand pushed herself onto her feet and toddled back to her mother, not falling this time. Wordlessly, she offered the bear to her mother and her mother took it, who replied with a torrent of enthusiastic words.

Knowing what I know about humans, and especially young children, I recognized that Paula had made a first connection between life as she knew it and this new place. 

As the days passed, she would hand many more things to her mother, who wouldn't always be enthusiastic. Indeed, as her mother likewise became better connected to our space, she was less inclined to nervous enthusiasm and more likely to respond informatively. She would say things like, "This looks like a steering wheel," or "Ugh, that's disgusting." 

Before long, Paula began to connect me to her world by handing things to me as well. As she got to know the other children and the other children's parents, she would try out connecting with them too. None of us responded exactly as her mother had, even when handed the steering wheel. For instance, I pretended I was driving a car, saying, "Vroom, vroom" and "Honk, honk." The other children did even more interesting things in response to being connected to Paula through the steering wheel. Some banged it on the ground. Some tried to roll it down the slope. Many dropped it. Most, after putting it through its paces, handed it back to Paula.

Exploring the world is how we explore our minds. This lifelong expedition is about connecting what we know with the new things we come across until those new things are also part of what we know. No one needs to tell us, just as no one needed to tell Paula, that to really understand something, you must strive to have it in your hands and to look at it from a variety of perspectives, including those offered by the other people. And there is nothing more natural, more normal, than to do it alongside loved ones. Eventually, Paula would be experienced or confident or curious enough to explore without her mother immediately at her side, at her own pace, until she could securely explore both alone and in the company of this wider "family" that she had both discovered and created.

"A husband, a wife and some kids is not a family," writes Kurt Vonnegut, "It's a terribly vulnerable survival unit . . . I met a man in Nigeria one time, an Ibo who had six hundred relatives he knew quite well. His wife had just had a baby, the best possible news in an extended family. They were going to take it to meet all its relatives, Ibos of all ages, sizes and shapes. It would even meet other babies, cousins not much older than it was. Everybody who was big enough and steady enough was going to get to hold it, cuddle it, gurgle it . . . Wouldn't you have loved to be that baby?"

This is what our children need, this extended family, this village of connection, this place of love and connection that is our birthright. I share Vonnegut's wish: "I really, over the long run, hope America would find some way to provide all of our citizens with extended families -- a large group of people they could call on for help."

That is what I set out to create as an educator, a place for families to connect, whether for a few years or a lifetime. This is what I wish we all understood as not just education, but life itself.

******

This happens tomorrow, so . . . last chance! . . . Let's make this year Our Year of Play! Early childhood educators, directors, homeschoolers, and parents of young children . . . please join me for this affirmative and informative live workshop. In the spirit of inclusiveness, I've kept the price as low as possible ($9), so share far and wide. This is a great way to get the whole team on the same page for the New Year. Certificates are available. A replay will also be available. For more information and to register, click here: Making 2026 Our Year of Play

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!

"Comparison is an Act of Violence"

Young parents with a crying infant know that behavior is communication, although it may take weeks or months to figure out exactly what it is their babies are communicating. Does this cry mean I'm hungry? Does that one mean I'm in pain? Frightened? Tired? 

Coming to understand our new babies generally involves a lot of trial and error as we try one approach after another. If they reject the breast then we check their diaper. If they don't respond to singing we try rocking, bouncing or cooing. In other words, we try everything we can think of from burping to taking them for a drive until we hit on the proper response. 

The one thing every new parent learns is that the proper response to their baby's cried request or query or demand or complaint, is to do something to change their environment or their situation within the environment. It's not our babies that need to change -- they are the one perfect thing in an imperfect world. Their crying is feedback on their experience in that imperfect world and their place in it. And in this business of being an adult caretaker, the customer is always right, so we do what we need to do to make the world, at least for a time, a bit more hospitable. Then we do it again and again until one day we decide, usually gradually, but sometimes abruptly like on the first day of school, that it's not the world, but the child that must change.

This is the beginning of what we call "education." Behavior continues to be feedback: I need some me time, I need to go outside, I need to know everything about this mote I've discovered under my fingernail. That's why I'm covering my ears. That's why I'm bouncing off the walls. That's why I can't keep my eyes on you and attend to your irrelevant blather. The adults have decided that they will no longer respond to their request or query or demand or complaint by doing something to change their environment or their situation within the environment, but rather strive to change the child, to invalidate their communication with, say, scolding, bribing, shaming, and even punishing. I've known far too many children who have been kicked out of preschool because they are unable to change to suit this or that environment or curriculum or methodology. 

But they need to learn to adapt, we argue, it's a life lesson. The world is the way it is. We say this even though we've all discovered that the real world simply doesn't box us up in packages of two dozen people of like age, sit us in chairs, face us forward, silence us, and compel us to attend to whatever nonsense is on the pre-planned agenda for the day. We say that we are preparing our children for reality, which is to say an unchanging world that will only accommodate requests or queries or demands or complaints within a limited range. There will be no taking you for a drive or cooing or laying you down for a nap on the top of a running clothes dryer (the thing that finally soothed our infant daughter for a time). We continue to do this even though it is demonstrably untrue that this is the way the real world works.

On the contrary, if you don't keep up, if you don't shut up, we will label you. If you don't know this week's spelling words this week, you are "behind." And you remain behind even if six months later you demonstrate you know how to spell those words because the curriculum has been cranking out new spelling tests in the meantime. It's like a train that continues to chug along even when passengers are falling off. Instead of stopping to let them hop back on it continues moving forward expecting the children, children who are screaming "Wait up!" to just catch up. And if the child won't or can't run after the train, they are labeled as deficient in some way and a world of specialists are called in to fix the child who has all the while been clearly saying, through their behavior, This sucks for me!

In the real world, however, there is always another train. In the real world, unlike school, you can take a taxi or ride a bike or walk or opt to go somewhere else on an entirely different timetable. Or just choose to not go anywhere at all. The real world may have its tracks and obstacles, but ultimately it is infinitely malleable. What if this were the core lesson of school? What if instead of being charged with shaping all children according to some artificial and arbitrary norm, we made them into places that strive to understand the children's requests or queries or demands or complaints?

Some time ago, I was in an audience that saw a screening of a documentary about performance artist Taylor Mac's 2016 "24-Decade History of Popular Music", a 24-hour, one-time-only show about the American experience. The show featured dozens of costumes by the designer Machine Dazzle. During the question and answer session following the screening, an audience member asked Mac to name his favorite costume. He seemed genuinely stumped before good-naturedly refusing to answer the question, quoting author Iyania Vanzant, "Comparison is an act of violence."

Our schools are clearly not designed to support each child in achieving their own unique potential, which is what children are always calling out for if we would only listen. Instead they are in the business of comparing, measuring, grading, and ranking with some sort of arbitrary standard or norm in mind. This is harmful and limiting not just every child, but every human. 

What if we instead saw education as a process of trial and error, one that sought above all else to understand what each child is crying about; what they are communicating about the environment and their situation within that environment? What if, as educators, we dropped our measuring sticks, forgot our timetables, ditched our curricula, and focused instead on listening in order to properly respond to what the children are trying to communicate? Maybe then we would have an educational system that truly prepared our children to engage fully with life itself.

******

December can be a lot for early childhood educators . . . Before winter break, I want to offer you a small gift. This Saturday, December 20 at 9:30 a.m. PST, I’m hosting a free live webinar called The Joy Reset: Finding Your Spark Again Through Play. It will be an uplifting hour of stories, reflection, and gratitude — no to-do list required! If you work with young children and could use a moment to breathe, this is for you. Register here.

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!

Adults Learning from Children

I feel that it's important for us, as early childhood educators, to stay abreast of the latest research in our profession (all of which supports a play-based approach) as well as some of the other areas of cognitive and neuroscience (all of which supports a play-based approach).

Here is some densely worded support for play-based learning from one of the world's top neuroscientists, Antonio Damasio:

Usually the brain is assumed to be a passive recording medium, like film . . . This is pure fiction . . . The organism (the body and its brain) interacts with objects, and the brain reacts to the interaction. Rather than making a record of an entity's structure, the brain actually records the multiple consequences of the organism's interactions with the entity. What we memorize of our encounter with a given object is not just its visual structure as mapped in optical images of the retina. The following are also needed: first, the sensorimotor patterns associated with viewing the object (such as eye and neck movements or whole-body movements, if applicable); second, the sensorimotor pattern associated with touching and manipulating the object (if applicable); third, the sensorimotor pattern resulting from the evocation of previous acquired memories pertinent to the object; fourth, the sensorimotor patterns related to the triggering of emotions and feelings relative to the object . . . What we refer to as the memory of an object is the composite memory of the sensory and motor activities related to the interaction between the organism and the object during a certain period of time.

All that sensorimotor stuff is what we in the preschool world call play.

Or as Damasio writes, "The fact that we perceive by engagement, rather than passive receptivity, is the secret of the "Proustian effect" . . . the reason why we often recall contexts rather than just isolated things." And speaking of Proust, I also think it's important that we all read Proust because he has come as close as humanly possible, in fiction, to showing us how the human mind really works.

I also think we should all know at least a little something about those who came before us, like John Dewey, Maria Montessori, Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, and Loris Malaguzzi, the founder of the Reggio Emilia system of early childhood education.

One of the things I find most useful from Malaguzzi's work, for instance, is the concept that every child has three teachers: adults, the environment, and other children. There is a tendency for us to focus on adult teachers, but the truth is that when children are allowed to play, the environment and other children have far more influence than the heavy hand of the adult. They are far more likely to accommodate all that sensorimotor stuff.

The photo at the top of this post is from 1963. I'm the bigger child holding the book, apparently reading to my newborn baby brother. I'm not actually reading, of course. That ability wouldn't come until I was closer to six or seven, which is when the developmental window for reading tends, on average, to open. But I had already learned about reading from an adult, my mother, and now I was, in turn teaching my brother everything I knew about reading. According to mom, I continued "reading" to him until well after I was actually reading. When my brother entered first grade, his adult teacher found that he was already well beyond his classmates. I'm not saying it was all due to my child-to-child teaching, but our family likes to think so.

When I reflect on my own childhood, I can honestly say that I learned at least as much from other children as I did from adults.

I've done my reading, I've taken classes and workshops, and I try to expose myself to a wide variety of people. I learn a lot from other adults and the environments in which I find myself, but I've often said that most of what I've learned about the world, and most of what I've written about here on the blog for the past 16 years, I've learned from children. I emphasize most. 

Malaguzzi was writing and thinking about the teachers of children, but the science makes it clear that adults have three teachers as well. The other adults and the environment can only take us so far. It's only when we are open to learning from and with children, when we play with them, that we too learn at full capacity.

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Registration starts tomorrow for my accelerated version of my course on how classroom management works in a play-based setting. Here's the link to learn more and get on the waitlist for "Controlled Chaos: Teacher Tom's Guide to Play-Based Classroom Management."

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!

Because She is a Genius

The boy was running at full speed when he tripped and fell chin first. As falls go, it wasn't a particularly hard one and thankfully the surface on which he fell was forgiving, but the impact startled him and he came up crying.

I wasn't far from where he fell, but still wasn't the first caretaker on the scene. That would be Hattie. Of course, it would be Hattie. This was one of the first days of a summer session which meant we were a multiage mixture of children who had been coming to Woodland Park for awhile alongside newcomers. Over the course of the previous two years, I'd gotten to know Hattie and her particular genius, which was caring for others. With Hattie on the scene, and without blood in evidence, I knew I could step back.

Hattie went first for the boy's head, placing a palm on it, lowering her own face to his. She might have said something to him or she might have just been making sure he knew she was there, locking eyes, sharing breath. Her other hand went to his chin, rubbing it gently. He raised his head, pushing himself up to a partial sitting position. Hattie's arm was now draped over his shoulders, her eyes still on his, studying, interpreting his expression which remained pained.

We adults had come to refer to her as Mother Hattie or Nurse Hattie and that's exactly how she appeared as she began to rub the boys back before noticing that one of his shoes had come off in the fall. She tried handing it to the boy, who whimpered, "I can't," so Hattie proceeded to gently wiggle his foot into the shoe.

As humans we have come to value a certain type of intelligence, the kind that is self-conscious, solves puzzles, uses language, and ciphers; the kind of thing that is measured by the crude instrument of what we call IQ tests. We arrogantly assert that our intelligence is a higher one and are forever ranking other species' intelligence in relationship with our own. Chimpanzee's are the second most intelligent animal. No, it's dolphins! Ravens! Pigs! Elephants! Anyone who has ever loved dog, however, has seen the kind of intelligence Hattie was displaying as she wrestled that shoe onto the boy's foot: one that is about intuitive mood-enhancement and unselfconscious love, not puzzle-solving. And frankly, from a Darwinian point-of-view, one that favors traits that support survival, not of the individual, but of the species, then, in this moment of caring, this moment of crackling, breath-taking intelligence, Hattie demonstrated an intelligence neither higher nor lower, but just right for dealing with this moment.

By the time Hattie had finished with putting the shoe on his foot, the boy was finished crying. 

The kind of intelligence that Hattie mobilized in just the right moment is often dismissed as a secondary kind, generally not even included in discussions of intelligence, but rather demoted with terms like "intuition" or, even lower down, "instinct." But watching Hattie, I knew I was witnessing the kind of genius we could do well to foster in ourselves and others. It's neither higher nor lower, but it seems to me to be exactly the kind of intelligence humans will need to rediscover if we are to survive much longer.

Back on his feet, the boy beamed his gratitude at Hattie. There was a brief moment in which I was tempted to say something to her like, "That was kind" or "Thank you." But I she didn't need me to say anything. Genius knows itself. When she finally looked at me after watching the boy dash away, however, I smiled as the boy had, and I knew, without a doubt, that she understood, because she is a genius.

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I've been writing about play-based learning almost every day for the past 15 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!

Monuments to the Urge to Create Cooperatively

You can count on it happening several times every school year: the kids just start heaping every moveable object on the playground into a pile. The picture at the top of this post is of a small one created by three-year-olds. They filled in a deep hole the kindergarteners had been working on in the sand pit.

In my mind I call them "learning piles," these accumulations of moveable items culled from a loose parts playground. 

Sometimes they start off with "Let's build a space ship . . . " or some such thing, but as the game progresses it becomes about what else can we put in the pile. The pile pictured here is a small, tidy one compared to the ones the older kids make that include shipping pallets, old tires, tree branches, house gutters, and, sometimes, even the tables and chairs. There have been times when the project wasn't complete until everything that can be moved, has been moved.

These are never solo projects. Typically, there's a lot of teamwork involved, especially with the heavy things. Indeed, they are meaningful, emergent, child-led projects that at one level offend my adult sense of both purpose and aesthetics. In fact, I sometimes wonder if this is why this exact process emerges year after year in play-based preschools around the globe: because the adults would never think of doing this in a million years and when one of these piles is being created, we tend to just stay out of the way. The only time we pile things up like this is in preparation for throwing the junk out.

But this is an opposite instinct at work. I've come to think of them as impromptu monuments to the urge to create cooperatively. And when the children stand back and admire their work, the look of accomplishment in their faces is inspiring.

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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!

"Gross National Happiness"

The small, landlocked South Asian Kingdom of Bhutan uses an index called "Gross National Happiness" to guide all of it's economic and development plans. They take it very seriously and the success or failure of every governmental policy is measured according to this index. One must even submit a GNH impact statement for review before undertaking any new endeavor, public or private, that may impact on the general well-being of the nation.

I just mention that by way of pointing out that there are ways other than money, perhaps even better ways, to assess the real value of an economic activity, just as there are ways other than test scores and grades, perhaps better ways, to assess the real value of education.

For instance, I've never come across a standardized test that measures the ability and willingness to take turns, but everyone knows that it's one of a happy life's most essential skills.

And you're sure not going to get very far if you don't work well with others, but you don't see that on any of the corporate academic assessment matrixes.

Or how about curiosity? I'll take curiosity over knowing the capital of Bhutan any day. (It's Thimphu. I was curious and looked it up.)

And anyone who has studied what it takes get what you want out of life knows that boldness . . .

. . . and the willingness to take risks . . .

. . . and the ability to fall down . . .

. . . and get back up is far more important than the ability to diagram a sentence or deduce that the answer is "none of the above." What meager things we've come to expect from our schools.

A well educated person is skeptical and often full of doubt.

The look at things closely and doesn't necessarily take my word for it.

An educated person tries new things . . .

. . . and plays dramatically with their friends, practicing the complex interpersonal skills that will ultimately get them through life.

When I'm assessing students, I want them to be able to stand on their own two feet.

And to invent new things (at least things that are new to them) . . .

. . . and to feel proud of their accomplishments.

I'm looking for kids who help others . . .

. . . and can work well on their own . . .

. . . concentrating . . .

. . . and persevering . . .

. . . and just being silly.

I want to see that they are full of awe and wonder.

And ultimately, like the King of Bhutan, I'm always looking out for our Gross National Happiness.

Because in this world if we are to be truly happy, we are to be happy together. No one can call themself educated unless they understand this. And therein lies the most important academic skill of all -- the capacity for unmitigated . . .

. . . unbridled joy.

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I've been writing about play-based learning almost every day for the past 15 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!