Where The Fig Tree Hangs Heavy

Between the ages of nine and 12, I lived with my family in a suburb of Athens, Greece. One summer weekend we got away with some family friends to the coast to spend a sunny day on a favorite sand and shell beach nestled in the curve of a horseshoe of rocky cliffs forming a protected bay. We particularly liked this beach because the waves were gentle and the water was shallow enough that one could wade a good way out without having to reach for the bottom. We had previously discovered that there was good snorkeling along one of the rocky rises, while there was a deep pool up against the other making it an ideal place for diving from the rocks.

But what really made this a favorite beach was that on a previous visit we had discovered a "secret" path leading up through the rocks, one that required a great deal of scrambling and imagination to follow. Even better, it was one that the adults were entirely uninterested in (or perhaps incapable of) pursuing. What made it so magical is that after climbing some ways, we came to a flat area that held a patch of soil. At the end of that was a natural rock archway that we perceived instantly as a small doorway, our size, one that silently invited us, perhaps against our better judgement. We wiggled through to find a single, thriving fig tree, heavy with ripe fruit. It was like the opening chapter of a Hardy Boys novel or the tales of Narnia.

After getting our fill of swimming and diving, the older kids, there were four of us, left our parents on the beach to mind the younger children, intending to re-discover the magic path, the magic doorway, the magic tree. We struggled up the rocks as before, then through the opening in the rocks, where we found the tree. It was later in the season, however, and the fruit was on the ground which was abuzz with flies. This scene did nothing to decrease the feeling that I was in a story, even as the other kids expressed their disgust. We decided to see if this path held any more secrets when one of us discovered that it seemed to continue beyond the tree. Looking back, I'm not sure we were following a path at all, but at the time we could see it clearly.

After some light bouldering, we realized that we had emerged on the other side of the cliff. Above, we could hear the sound of cars passing on the roadway. Below, far below, was the churn of waves as they crashed against the rocks. We stopped to consider. Our imaginary path had dwindled out. Should we climb up to the road and walk back that way or just turn around to return the way we'd come? After several minutes, we decided that we could, in fact, see a path forward, albeit just barely. Indeed, the path was a very narrow ledge, not much wider than our feet. We could see that it opened up to more easy clambering a short way beyond, but first we would have to manage the ledge. Holding on to the rock face with my fingertips I edged my way toward the other side. About halfway across, I made the mistake of looking down into the devil's punchbowl of waves and rocks that would certainly be the end of me were I to fall. I saw my own death in that moment.

I honestly don't recall making our way back to the beach, but obviously we did. I think we failed to get up to the road, then returned the way we had come, although via an alternative to the narrow ledge. Upon our return, we chattered to the adults about the climb, the doorway, and the tree. We told them of our failure to make it to the road and our return, but none of us mentioned the ledge. I don't know if my brother or our friends had the experience I did. In fact, I tend to think that they simply didn't look down at that moment the way I had done and had therefore remained blissfully ignorant of how close to death they had been. Whatever the case, none of us mentioned how high we had climbed or how close to the edge we had been.

Stupid? The person I am now might judge it that way, just as we knew at the time that had the adults known, they would have scolded us. The person I was then, however, held no judgement. It was simply something I had done, something I'd experienced as part of pursuing something. What? Adventure, curiosity, magic? Yes to all of that. Importantly, this experience brought me close to death in a way that has stuck with me to this day. I didn't need scolding or fear-mongering or cautions to tell me what that moment meant. I had looked death in the face, as a boy, calmly, a chapter in the saga of my life, and emerged unscathed. To this day, I find myself returning to this memory in critical moments. It helps me with perspective. It reminds that if one is to pursue adventure, curiosity and magic, one must accept death as a companion, not a friend exactly, but perhaps sometimes as an ally, seeing him, knowing him, then continue forward nevertheless to where the fig tree hangs heavy with fruit.

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Seeking Truth

Around the middle part of the 16th century European scientists like Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton ignited what has come to be called the "Scientific Revolution." For the next two hundred years, the scientific method brought about massive changes in our understanding of the universe by asserting that truth could be found by applying the scientific method of hypotheses, observation, measurement, and experiment, all conducted against a backdrop of rigorous skepticism. Famously, Galileo was found by the Catholic Church to be "vehemently suspect of heresy" and placed under a life sentence of house arrest for defending the Copernican notion that the Earth moves around the Sun.

Galileo wasn't the only scientist to be considered an enemy of truth, a sentiment that continues to this day with sizable segments of our population denying, at least in part, such scientific "truths" as man-caused climate change, the efficacy and safety of vaccines, and many of the foundational principles of how young children learn. Not long ago, I wrote about a man I met who is convinced that the Earth is flat, a man who is apparently not alone in this surprising belief. I'm not here today to argue about any of these specific matters, only to point out that for all of us, there are truths other than those derived from scientific.

Truth is a difficult thing to talk about. Science is only one of the ways we seek truth. Science is, at bottom, a quest to establish facts about reality that hold true no matter who is making the observation. It is a way of understanding realty from the outside. Pope Urban VIII, however, derived truth from his spirituality, which one could say is a way of understanding reality by looking within oneself, and relying upon not experiment, but faith. Artists seek truth by trying to understand reality from the inside out, assuming that reality is inherently subjective and only comprehensible through the filter of self. And then there is the most ancient quest for truth of all, the collective truths we create through our mythologies, those stories we tell again and again until they become reality.

I confess to a prejudice in favor of science because it is the only path that requires truth to change as new evidence emerges, but when I'm honest with myself, I can see that an equal share of my own "truth" is shaped by spirituality, art, and myth. And, frankly, these various kinds of truth live quite comfortably within me, complimenting one another by filling in the gaps left by the inadequacies of each. For instance, for me it's true that love is the shortcut word we use for that Holy Grail of science, the Grand Unifying Theory. I don't have evidence for that: it's a truth that I've arrived through my soul, art, and our mythologies.

Education can be defined in many ways, but most of us would agree that at some level it is a search for truth, and I would assert that any searcher who ignores the paths of science, spirituality, art, or mythology, will ultimately fall short in that quest, finding themselves unfulfilled. Truth is out there. Truth is subjective. Truth is individual. And truth is collective. It comes from without and within, and it is never complete. As humans, whatever our age, we are driven to seek truth, whatever it is, and by whatever path. Of course, we argue over it, but we just as often agree, even if we've come to it via different routes. The children in our care are truth-seekers as well. At any given moment they are engaged in science, in soul searching, in creating art, or in wrestling with the stories that define us.

Humans are the truth-seeking animal, whatever that means, and the truth we discover is the clay from which we shape the purpose of our lives.

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I've Never Been More Happy To Have Been Wrong

Last night my wife and I were taking the bus home from dinner with Mom and Dad. A couple boarded with a child in a stroller. The father lifted some of the seats near the front to make a space for the stroller, set the brakes, then, oddly I thought, took a seat across the the aisle from the child. Equally strange to me was that the mother also passed on the seat beside her child, instead sitting one row behind. I observed the family, not talking, the mother staring out the window while the father seemed to contemplate his navel. Not only where they not paying attention to their child who was young enough for a stroller, but they had placed themselves apart from him in a public place. I found myself pitying that child who I could not see from where I sat, but who most certainly would prefer his parents to be closer.

But then I caught myself in mid-judgement. Maybe, I thought, the child's asleep, maybe they're all tired, maybe they've been in close proximity all day, maybe they all just need a little space. 

Then the child spoke. The words were unintelligible, but loud enough because I could hear them from a few rows back. Neither parent responded, however, and again I found myself entertaining speculative judgement. As I looked at the father, I imagined I saw a stern figure, a man with a temper. I could not see the mother's face as she was sitting directly in front of me, but I found myself thinking of her as long-suffering, a woman who was perhaps browbeaten. That poor child, I thought. Poor all children I thought as I recognized that this challenging marital dynamic is all too common.

The child spoke again, this time even more loudly although the words still weren't clear to me. Again, the parents ignored him, seemingly lost in their own worlds. I thought there was something about the father that looked Russian. Perhaps an immigrant. I wondered about his own childhood, envisioning a stern father and passive mother in his own past, something he was unconsciously recreating for his child who seemed to have been "left alone" and ignored on the bus. The child spoke again, this time even more insistently, a shout even. This time I understood: "Let me out!"

Oh no. That poor child.

"Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!" The child's voice was rising. The mother leaned forward a bit. I thought she was finally going to sit up front now in order to comfort her child, but she remained like that as the child shouted, "Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!" At first, the father seemed to be ignoring the shouts, but finally he raised his eyes to look across the aisle. Slowly he crossed over, standing in front of the stroller. I was holding my breath. By now the child was wild, his head rising up above the hood of the stroller, apparently struggling against his restraints. I was tempted to step in. I'm an early childhood professional. I knew what that child needed. Perhaps I could role model for these parents a loving way to help their child sooth himself.

The father leaned over the boy in a way that struck me as menacing. What was going to happen? Would I have the courage to intervene? Of course I would if I saw any violence, but what about if he stops short of that, but still scolds or threatens or raises his own voice the way I imagined such a stern father would? I'm a mandatory reporter after all, someone the state expects to report suspicions of abuse or neglect. I wondered if I was about to witness something like that. I read the mother's unchanged position as a sign that she was tense with fear for what was to come.

The mother remained poised, but immobile, the parents not having exchanged as much as a glance. The child continued to rant, "Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!" At first I couldn't see the father's expression, but when I did, I was relieved to see that he was smiling, his face close to his son's who was evidently kicking and tossing about in the stroller. He was saying something softly to the boy, his hands touching him in a way that made me think he was tickling him. Was that what he was doing? How incredibly misguided. Tickling a child into submission? I suppose it's better than yelling or hitting, but just barely . . .

I was in full-on judgement mode when the boy began to settle, still chanting his demands, but ever more quietly. Whatever the father was doing, whoever that man is, wherever he is from, he was supporting that boy to sooth, smiling, touching, speaking words so softly that I couldn't hear his voice. The mother remained poised in her position that I now understood as full attention, as she watched this man work with the boy, and in that moment it landed on me that this couple knew what they were doing and that this boy was loved beyond measure, as all children deserve to be loved.

Soon the boy was quiet again. The father remained standing near the stroller for the rest of the trip. I only now realized that there had not been a seat beside the largish stroller: they had been forced to raise it as well to make room for the stroller. That's why they had all sat apart rather than together. The mother leaned back into her seat again, no longer looking out the window, but at the man who had soothed the boy and even though I could not see her face, I knew that there was love in her expression.

I'm sharing this story not because I'm proud of my own part in it. I might not have done anything, but my thoughts were harsh, full of the prejudice, based upon ignorance, and, thankfully, wrong, wrong, wrong. I watched the father for several stops, full of admiration for him, for what I'd seen him do, for how calmly he had done it, not once looking around to see what know-it-all jerks like me were thinking. A few stops later they got off. I regret not having told this couple how much I admire them. So I'm sharing this story today out of respect for these parents and for all parents who have been unfairly judged by friend and stranger alike; parents who are loving their children the way they know they should despite what we ignorant bystanders may be thinking. I've never been more happy to have been wrong. I'm looking forward to having my judgements thrown into my face again today.

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Maybe It's Time

You can hardly throw a rock at your computer screen (although I would recommend using the search phrase "parent involvement in schools") without hitting an academic study that finds that parent involvement in a child's education is the number one predictor of educational success, however it's measured. More than teachers, more than pedagogy, more than curricula, more than textbooks, homework, or tests, in fact probably more than all those things combined, we know that when parents are meaningfully engaged in their children's schools, things go much better for both the schools and the children.

Teachers already know this, of course. In fact, most parents do too. According to a survey of research conducted by the Michigan Department of Education, 86 percent of the general public believe that support from parents is the most important way to improve schools. And just so there is no doubt, here are a few other highlights of parent involvement they uncovered:

• Higher grades, test scores, and graduation rates
• Increased motivation, better self-esteem
• Better school attendance
• Lower rates of suspension
• Decreased use of drugs and alcohol
• Fewer instances of violent behavior
• Family participation in education was twice as predictive of students' academic success as family socioeconomic status. Some of the more intensive programs had effects that were 10 times greater than other factors
• The more intensely parents are involved, the more beneficial the achievement effects
• The more parents participate in schooling, in a sustained way, at every level -- in advocacy, decision-making and oversight roles, as fundraisers and boosters, as volunteers and para-professionals, and as home teachers -- the better the student achievement.

There are decades of research supporting parental involvement as the key factor in school success, but if you're reading this, you probably don't need any persuading. In fact, if you're white, hold a university degree, and have a middle class income, there's a better than 80 percent chance that you're deeply invested in your child's academic life. On the other hand, if you are Hispanic or black, dropped out of high school, and live below the poverty line, there's probably a less than 30 percent chance that you attend school events or volunteer time at the school.

In other words, it shouldn't surprise anyone that schools that serve white, middle class families tend to have ample parental involvement. These are the majority of schools in America that are "succeeding." Schools that serve largely poor, uneducated, minority populations struggle to get mom and dad across their thresholds. It also shouldn't surprise anyone that it's the public schools that serve these poor populations that are "failing" according to whatever measure you want to use.

It seems pretty obvious that the best way to improve the performance of these schools is to increase parent participation.

Easier said than done, right? Almost by definition, these are parents who are struggling, who have been failed by schools, who are often single parents, who may not speak English at home, who are, in many cases working 2 or 3 jobs just to get by. These are parents who are are tired, distracted, and beaten down. Even if they want to get involved, they often can't. And many of them, frankly, have simply given up on the whole idea of education to the point that they don't even care. How do you increase parent involvement in the face of that?

I suggest that instead of putting money into things like high stakes testing, educational fads brought to us by policymakers and billionaire dilettantes, or getting teachers competing against one another for bonuses, we might want to consider paying these poor parents to get involved in their kid's school. That's what the research seems to indicate will make the most difference. For anyone thinking of starting a charter school in a poor neighborhood, here's the free idea from Teacher Tom and I bet you won't have to game the system to show improvement.

Well? What's wrong with that idea?

Will parents then just be there for the money? Yes. Some of them. But most of them aren't there at all now, either because they can't afford to or because they just don't care. Money talks, especially when you are very poor. But now we have them at school on a regular basis even if it is just for the money: parent-teacher conferences, open houses, PTA events. We're paying them to learn the basic information and acquire basic skills they need to to help their kids, and of all the things upon which we could spend our education dollars, increasing parent involvement stands to pay the highest dividends. It almost seems like a no-brainer.

Think what this will do for families in which the parents work 16 hour days just to make ends meet. Not only will they not have to sacrifice valuable income to get involved, but they'll also be in a position to help their kids, even if all they do is demonstrate an informed interest. Indeed there will be some who seek to take advantage, to just show up for the cash, but even that, even putting that knowledge about a child's family life into a teacher's hands can make a huge difference for that kid.

And for every family that just shows up for the cash, there will be another family that is actually able to save their at-risk child, perhaps enough to make a "failed" school into a success.

We could even means test, I suppose, but I'd be inclined to make it available to the entire school. I doubt many of the parents who are showing up already will accept the pay because they've already demonstrated a commitment to education and know the school needs the money. And overall, I just can't imagine that this would cost us more than we're spending now, and it would likely improve educational outcomes far more effectively than most the other things on which we're currently trying in the quest to improve test scores.

The focus of our national discussion about improving schools has been on blaming teachers when it's pretty obvious this is really a parent involvement issue. Awhile back, a Florida state legislator introduced a bill that would have created a parent "report card" that would give parents grades for various types of involvement in their kid's school lives. Although I see this as a gimmick -- parents who are already involved don't need it, parents who aren't will just hear scolding -- but at least it puts the school reform emphasis where it ought to be.

This idea of paying parents, even if it's just minimum wage ($15 per hour where I live), addresses two problems at once, without scolding: puts some money in the pockets of people who need it most and gets more parents into their children's schools, even if it's initially for the wrong reasons. I'm convinced that committed teachers who are supported by their schools, will be able to "turn" a good percentage of these parents, getting them coming back for the right reasons.

I'm sure there are aspects of this idea that are not well thought-out and probably many great ways to improve upon it, but it's been on my mind like a brain-fever for quite some time. Maybe it's a bit idyllic, maybe it sounds a little like throwing money at a problem, but hey, when have we ever tried throwing money at education? Maybe it's time.

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Children And Grandparents Belong At The Center Of Every Community

These grandparents had apparently not received a proper preparation for visiting our cooperative classroom. They stood timidly against the wall as if trying to simultaneously blend in and stay out of the way. This was an odd thing in our classroom, adults standing aloof from the action, rather than dropping to their knees and getting busy. I gave them time to get a feel for the place, the way I would children who prefer to enter new situations as observers, then finally sidled over to introduce myself. They were enthusiastic in their praise of what they had seen so far, echoing compliments I've heard from grandparents for decades:

"This is how we played when I was a kid!"

"I remember those dolls from when (insert adult child's name) was little."

"This looks so fun!"

"Look how happy they are!"

"I've heard a lot about you from both my daughter and granddaughter." 

I'm always excited when grandparents visit. Sometimes I've been forewarned: "I just want you to know that my mom is very judgmental," or "My dad might try to convince you that you need to be teaching them how to read," but I take those cautions with a large grain of salt. I have never experienced a visiting grandparent who didn't fall in love with our cooperative school. Indeed, most grandparents, after their brief observation, behave as if they've always been here.

And indeed, from an historical perspective they have. For most of human history, grandparents, and grandmothers in particular, were integral to raising the young. Of course, the birth mother took on a share of the child care responsibilities at first, nursing and what not, but she was a prime of life woman with other important things to do along the hunting and gathering lines, so the lion's share of child raising was taken up by other members of the community: aunts, cousins, friends, older children, and in particular, grandmothers. During my recent visit to New Zealand, a Maori early childhood professional told me that not only was she raised primarily by her grandmother, she was looking forward to raising her own grandchild. She said it was one of the few old Maori traditions that has survived colonialism.

The evolution of grandparents is almost unique to humans, with elephants and whales being the only other species of which I'm aware that the females regularly enjoy a significant post-menopausal period of life. Compared to other animals, the time during which human young need adult care and attention stretches out for an extraordinarily long time, years in fact. The modern idea that this responsibility should be undertaken by birth parents alone, with most of the burden falling on the mother, is, frankly, a crazy one. It takes a village to raise a child, and grandparents (mostly grandmothers in all honesty) have stood at the center of those villages because caring for children is one of the central projects of every society that has ever existed whether we admit it or not.

I today's world, sadly, most American children are being raised thousands of miles away from their grandparents, which has given rise to the child care industry. Parents who want or need to earn incomes are left with little choice but to send their children off to these surrogate villages populated by low paid, low status, even if well-intended and highly-qualified, professional child minders. As one of these child minders myself, I freely confess to being a poor replacement for grandparents. For most, the only alternative is for at least one of these prime of life parents (usually the mother) to drop out of the work force for a time, which means both a sacrifice of income as well as the interruption, if not complete de-railment, of a meaningful and rewarding career. Meanwhile, our grandmas are counting the days until they get to see their precious grandchildren. Few of us are satisfied with this situation.

I chatted with those timid grandparents for several minutes, sharing some of the "it takes a village" theory behind the cooperative model, boasting about our robust parent community, and soaking up their excitement for what was going on around their knees. Then the grandfather shyly asked, "May I play with the children?" The question broke my heart. Of course he could play with the children, but that he had to ask, that he didn't already know that it was in fact his responsibility to be playing with them, struck me as a sad, sad thing. It was a struggle for him to descend to the floor, but he knelt, then sat, joking, "Now that I'm down here, I'll be here for awhile!" then happily set about joining the children who were building with blocks.

This is how childhood should look, everywhere, everyday. Just as we've ghettoized the early years, we've done pretty much the same with our senior citizens, with far too many of them housed together in homes, cared for by low paid, low status, even if well-intended and highly-qualified professionals.

We live in a time of disconnection, where the machines are taking over, where families are increasingly isolated not only from each other, but within families as well, with all of us living our separate lives, in the surrogate villages of work and school that are poor replacements for the kinds of interconnected, interdependent villages from which we've evolved. Nasty "mommy wars" have sprung up pitting stay-at-home moms against working moms. We have a broken child care model that is too expensive, while paying starvation wages. Too many children are growing up in artificial "villages" of children, where they rarely interact with adults other than their teachers and parents. And our grandparents are living apart from the wider community, the gifts they have being wasted as they count the days until they get to see their grandchildren.

Children and grandparents belong in the center of every community. It's encouraging to read about preschools being placed in nursing homes. The cooperative model is thriving in some places as a more natural village, but they are few and far between. There are groups of homeschoolers and unschoolers coming together to create community centers, but not everyone can make that work. There are solutions, but so far it's been ad hoc, piecemeal, and insufficient. Last week, I sketched out one idea for how we could perhaps go about addressing this situation on a wider scale, one that might make this sort of village more accessible, but there's a great distance between here and there. Perhaps we'll never get there, but we definitely won't if we don't take the first step. Or maybe "the journey" is a poor metaphor. A better one might be that of getting down on the floor, kneeling, sitting, and happily joining the people we find there to build something new, together. That way, even if we don't quite finish it ourselves, we'll have left something behind for others to continue building.

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When Our Butterflies Are Ready, They Will Emerge

Did you know that if you are in a hurry for a butterfly to emerge from its chrysalis, you can induce it to emerge by breathing on it? The warmth of your breath will trick it into behaving as if its time has come. Of course, it will be premature, incompletely formed, and unable to survive for more than a few minutes, but you can, if you want, induce it.

It's an apt metaphor, I think, for much of what happens in the world of early childhood education, where the ethic of more and faster regularly captures the imaginations of policy makers, corporate "do-gooders," and even some administrators. I know where it comes from. It's baked into our corporate culture, this idea that everything must be driven by goals, assessed by how quickly it can "scale," measured according to data, and judged by rigid standards. It's a world that is dominated by calendars and watches and "we need it tomorrow." And it's celebrated because, you know, it's the way to build "unicorns" (companies valued at over a billion dollars) and "decacorns" (companies valued at over 10 billion).

Yesterday a friend and former Woodland Park parent who helps stay-at-home-moms re-enter the workforce, told me that one of the biggest challenges these women face is shifting from the habit measuring time like a parent to measuring it like a businessperson. She told me that parents of young children (and their teachers for that matter) tend to think more in terms of seasons rather than days and weeks when it comes to getting things done, which is a much more appropriate approach when it comes to human development. They struggle to adjust to deadlines, for instance, that seem arbitrary, because in the timeline of seasons the butterfly will emerge when it's ready, usually, but not always, within the week to 10 day timeframe typically dictated by the process of metamorphosis, and there is nothing one can do to hurry it along.

This is the world of early childhood, a place where the most important things happen, not according to schedules we make, but rather according to the spaciousness of seasonal processes, developmental stages instead of more and faster deadlines; processes that are as old as humanity. And, in part, this is why so much of the "reform" that comes the corporate world is doomed to fail, and to even damage, the children they seek to help.

You can't hurry the seasons, but you can count on them. There's no place for more and faster when it comes to young children. When our butterflies are ready, they will emerge, and not one moment sooner.

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What To Do About "The Parents"

For the past couple days I've been writing about the need for a transformation in America education, one that replaces "school" with evidence-based, child-centered learning. You'll find parts one of and two of this series here and here.

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If I go into Nordstrom and tell the shoe salesperson that I want high heels, their job is to say, "How high?" because the customer is always right. When I go into my doctor, however, and tell her I want Medicine X, her job is to say, "You might want Medicine X, but what you need is a splint."

In education, too many of us act like shoe salespeople when really need to start being more like doctors.

I've had the opportunity to visit schools in a dozen countries, on four continents. I've been to schools in most of the Canadian provinces and half the US states. I went to each of those places to talk to teachers and administrators about play-based preschool education. And everywhere I've gone, I've been generally well-received. Indeed, most of the time, those education professionals already know most of what I've come to talk about, yet I'm there because despite being knowledgeable, skilled professionals, many of their schools are still struggling to implement play-based education and I'm there to provide a nudge in the right direction. Some schools I visit are already fully play-based. I'm invited to those schools, to inspire educators to keep up their good work. They need the boost because most of us work in bubbles and even as we do the right thing, we find ourselves under constant pressure to introduce "just a little" developmentally inappropriate literacy instruction or add a tad more rigorous grading or homework or whatever. Play-based education, despite the overwhelming evidence to support it, is always under attack, even in the most friendly place.

I often ask my fellow early childhood educators about the barriers they face. Sometimes they blame regulations or their government's standardized curriculum. Sometimes they grumble about this or that administrator who refuses to look at the evidence. Sometimes they even blame corporations who are earning billions on the unmitigated disaster of high stakes standardized testing and various curriculum-in-a-box scams. And invariably, among the challenges these educators say they face are "the parents."

It seems that too many parents have come to see their children's schools as a kind of department store where the customer is always right. They've bought into the fear-mongering about "school readiness." They've heard about the higher reading scores at the school down the street. They've seen movies about the no-nonsense disciplinarian with a heart of gold who whips those kids into shape. They've watched online videos about the importance of "grit" and "a growth mindset" and "accountability," and even if it's all a little mixed up in their heads, they know they want that for their kids. And, of course, they've all been to school, so naturally they know a thing or two about a thing or two. Not all parents, of course, but enough that time and again "parents" show up as barriers. And all too often, it seems, professional educators find ourselves in the role of shoe salesmen, giving them what they want, or at least making them think they're getting what they want, even if we know that the shoe they're insisting upon will eventually cripple them.

Now, I'm not insensitive to the parent's plight. Most of us aren't professional educators. How can we be expected to sort through all the nonsense that's out there, not to mention the societal habit of traditional schooling, one that will likely take a generation or more to kick even with the right motivation. And yes, these are their children, the most precious thing in their lives: of course we must listen to them, consider their views, and accept that they are at least in part driven by fear. At the same time, education professionals are professionals in the way that doctors are. It's not our job to just give our customers what they want, but rather to help them understand what it is that their children deserve.

From a teacher's perspective, perhaps the most important parts of the cooperative model of early childhood education is that parents are not just invited, but required to work in the classroom alongside the professionals as assistant teachers. There is nothing like being on the inside as a kind of apprentice to really understand how much they don't know, but how much they didn't know they didn't know, not just about their own child, but about children in general. Over the past couple decades, I've watched thousands of parents become educated about the kind of evidence-based learning that is characterized by play-based education. They've come to understand not only is their child a genius, so are all the others. They see that their child might be "behind" in some areas, but so are all the others. And they have front row seats to the incredible natural development of young human beings that takes place when we stop doing school to them and instead allow them to ask and answer their own questions in a beautiful, varied, and loving environment.

In our cooperative, parents rarely show up as barriers. In fact, the opposite is true: more often than not they are champions and allies, sometimes poking at sore spots or pointing out challenges, but always knowing that they must also take an active part in the solution.

Sadly, many American children are growing up in preschools and child cares, places to which their parents are connected primarily by email, the occasional phone call, and the quarterly parent-teacher conference. If we are going to truly transform education, this is something that must change. As it now stands, most parents are being educated about education by non-professionals: policymakers, journalists, and corporate hacks who haven't spent a day in the classroom, but who control the message nevertheless. They get elected on rhetoric about how our children are falling behind. They earn money by kindling the fear of missing out. They attract eyeballs with alarmist headlines. And the consensus of these education dilettantes is that some version of habitual schooling must continue, albeit with these extra grindstones added. Is it any wonder that parents show up as barriers to evidence-based education, which is to say play-based education, because they've been very poorly educated about education.

One of the primary projects of every human society is to care for children. For some ninety-nine percent of human existence, we understood this, which is why children always stood at the center of life. Today, in our wisdom, we have farmed this essential human activity to the fringes. Those who care for and educate our children are low-status, low-paid, and scarcely afforded the respect a professional deserves. We wonder what's wrong with modern society, well I'm here to argue that when we removed the care of children from the center of our lives, we removed the heart of community. We will continue to be "sick" as long as we keep insisting on Medicine X when what we really need is to bring children back into the center of our lives.

One of the ways to do this is to bring parents into their children's classrooms in a meaningful way. People will argue that I'm taking a privileged stand here, that too many parents find themselves too burdened with multiple minimum wage jobs to find the time. I can't imagine a better use of our education dollars than to then to simply pay these parents for their time.

People will argue that employers will never give parents the time off to attend preschool. Right now, that might be true, but here in the Pacific Northwest where there are thousands of thriving cooperative schools, many employers do make these allowances, often motivated by their own memories as co-op parents.

People will argue that employers will fight against us, fearing that having children at the center of their employees' lives will be too distracting. It sounds to me like these employers need to be educated, because whether they know it or not, parents are already distracted by being parents, not to mention the extra guilt and anxiety that comes from having their beloved children so far from the center of their lives. I would argue that employers who can be made to see the light will find that this transformation will result in happier, and therefore more productive workers.

For every objection, there is a solution, but the only way to find it is to keep talking about it. Again, I'm not saying that this is a silver bullet, but there is a lot we can learn from the cooperative model and it's commitment to educating not just children, but entire families.

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If The Time for School Is At An End, Then What's Next?

Yesterday's post, in which I asserted that The Time for School is at an End, prompted many readers to ask some version of the question, Okay, but what do we replace it with? I have a lot of ideas about this, which I expect to share over the course of the next few days and weeks. This morning I'm republishing a post from a couple years ago in which I sketched of one aspect of how we might want move forward with a much needed transformation. That we need something beyond an overhaul, I think, is without question, but what that's going to be requires a discussion, one that includes all of us. I don't imagine there will be one solution, but rather one that is woven from many threads into a single fabric. In that spirit, I offer this thread for consideration.

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I often write here as a critic of normal schools with their compulsory top-down, standardized curricula that devalue the interests of our youngest citizens in favor of adults deciding what, when and how children are to learn. It's a system that flies in the face of what we know about how human beings are designed to learn, a product of the Industrial Revolution that has continued more or less unchanged to this day, perpetuated by habit rather than an ongoing, rigorous application of the science. The evidence is clear that if we truly want well-educated citizens, ones capable of thinking for themselves, of questioning authority, of standing up for their beliefs and values, people who are sociable, motivated and able to work well with others, then we would have long ago transformed our schools into places where children direct their own learning.

Sometimes I like to imagine what that would mean. More and more Americans are opting out all together, choosing a version of homeschooling or un-schooling that works for their families. Others have sought out alternative private schools that employ, say, the Waldorf method or Reggio Emilia or perhaps even the democratic free school model of places like the Sudbury Valley School. These are all fine ways for individuals to opt out of normal public education, but there is a limit to how many of us can afford the price, either in terms of time or money. No, it seems to me that a real transformation of education in America, one that includes all children, must be a public one: well-educated citizens are a public good, one that is vital to every citizen in that it is the only guarantee of our grand experiment in self-governance. So what I'm thinking about here is a true transformation of public education, which, I believe, is necessary if our democracy is to continue to thrive.

If we get rid of schools as we know them, it seems to me that we will still need something "like" schools, safe places for our children to spend their days. Unless this transformation in education comes as a part of a wider transformation in our society, one that does not require so many two-income families, "schools" will need to continue to serve this function. Indeed, I reckon that the school facilities that we've already built will work just fine as a starting point: large buildings with lots of room and, typically, with a fairly substantial amount of land surrounding them.

Neighborhood children of all ages would arrive at these "schools" in the mornings just as they do today and, as in the democratic free-school model, they would be free to pursue their own interests throughout the day with the support of "teachers" whose jobs would be re-defined to more closely resemble that of professional play-workers, adults who spend their days loitering with intent, not intervening or directing, but available to step in, minimally, when needed.

There would, of course, continue to be the cafeteria, a place where professional cooks prepare and serve meals, the difference being that these kitchens would be open to the children to participate as their age and interests (e.g., chopping, stirring, measuring, serving) allow under the guidance of the kitchen staff. Likewise, there would be a garden and greenhouse tended by professional gardeners charged with supplying the kitchen, and who would also likewise make room for children interested in any or all aspects of that process. There would be a functioning workshop where professional carpenters would build the furniture and other items needed by the school, another place where children of all ages are welcome. These transformed schools would be home to musicians and other artists, mechanics, engineers, computer scientists, psychologists, athletes, handy(wo)men, nurses, custodians, accountants, yoga masters, and other specialists, each going about their real work while also always making space for young apprentices of all ages, role-modeling, supporting, and teaching, allowing the children to explore as their ages and interests dictate.

But, of course, the children would not be limited. If a group of kids take an interest in, for instance, building a rocket, the more experienced children (which would likely most often be the oldest, but not always) would lead, while the adults would be there to help with locating information or securing materials.

These "schools" would not just be for children. Neighborhood seniors, for instance, would also be invited on campus to spend all of part of their days, sharing their skills and wisdom, while also participating in meals and serving as audiences for dramatic and musical performances. In the evenings, parents would be encouraged to not just fetch their kid and rush off, but to rather spend their evenings there, together with other families, dining, dancing, reading in the library, or puttering around the workshop or garden, and otherwise hanging out with their neighbors, creating community.

Each neighborhood school would be "owned" by the neighborhood, in the way that our cooperative school is owned by the parents who enroll their children. Each household would have an equal voice in how their school operates, managing the funds to best serve their community, democratically creating a school that most perfectly reflects the aspirations and dreams of the people who live there.

These transformed schools would be, like our democracy itself, grand experiments, each one continually evolving to serve the needs and interests of the neighborhood, and especially the children. I envision them as standing at the hearts of their neighborhoods, around-the-clock gathering places, based not on commerce, but upon the shared interests of the people who live in the community: places that serve as models of real self-governance in action. I imagine that children who are raised in this type of environment will grow into the sorts of citizens we most need.

This is just a thumbnail sketch of one of the ways I see transformed public education in America. There is so much more to talk about. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

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The Time For School Is At An End

Over the course of the last 70 years or so, our expectations of children have changed dramatically. In many ways we perceive them as less competent. As a society we have lowered our expectations of what they are capable of doing in the world. They no longer walk themselves to school. None of them carry pocket knives, and for that matter, are kept far away from most tools. And even if you trust your own child to be home alone as you run a quick neighborhood errand, the wider society considers you neglectful because, of course, children younger than, say, about 15, are perpetually on the verge of stupidly killing themselves (or being killed by nameless, faceless others) if left for even the briefest moment without adult supervision. Or so our urban legends about childhood would have it. As a result, our children are growing up in a world scrubbed of risk, challenge, hurt feelings, and failure because, as we've come to believe, they are not capable of handling it.

At the same time, and perhaps partly as a result of this cultural paranoia, we've placed unreasonable expectations on our children, especially our youngest children in the form of schooling. We are institutionalizing our children at younger and younger ages. They are spending more and more time in "school" and less and less time playing, while being subjected to greater and greater academic expectations. Today, more than 80 percent of kindergarten teachers expect five year olds to be reading. In 1998, that number was 30 percent, and in 1950 that number was approaching zero. That our literacy rate hasn't budged over the past half century despite these developmentally inappropriate expectations tells us that our early literacy efforts, at best, have no impact, but there is ample evidence that this phenomenon is taking a mental health toll on our children, with one in five children between the ages of 3-17 struggling with a diagnosable mental illness, mostly in the form of anxiety and depression, much of which can be linked to these pressures.

These dynamics represent bookends of fear that are crushing our youth. We're afraid they are going to be hurt so we've dramatically restricted them. We're afraid of them falling behind so we reign them to carts in academic coal mines. It's almost as if our greatest fear is of childhood itself . . . or children, or liberty, or play.

From where I sit, the time for school is at an end. We have clearly reached a point of diminishing, dramatically diminishing, returns. For most children, most of the time, school is a place where they can be safely warehoused and made to nose the grindstone in a way that is contrary to what large majorities of scientists and psychologists tell us is appropriate. This is the same phenomenon we're seeing with environmental denialism. We, as a society, are so committed to our habit of schools that we struggle to even consider a world without them, the most common knee-jerk question being, "But without schools, what will the children do while their parents are off at work?"

It's a central question, a question about caring for the children more than "education," an important question that has been answered in different ways by different societies throughout human history. Most prime of life adults have pretty much always worked productively in useful ways, this is nothing new in human evolution, and while birth mothers may have traditionally shouldered a somewhat larger share of the burden of child care, a substantial part was handled by the wider community, the village. Instead of ghettoizing child care into out-of-the-way, low paying, low prestige corners, most prior human civilizations have placed caring for the children at the center of life, creating communities in which children were included, in which caring for them was the responsibility of us all, and in which they were free to have a childhood, under the watchful eyes and loving hearts of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and neighbors. It's from living in a community that we learn what we most need to learn, from a wide variety of adults and other children, the lessons of working together, of being personable, of asking a lot of questions, of taking responsibility, and, when ready, and not necessarily waiting until the arbitrary age of 18 or 21, to assume our own productive, useful work.

We are currently a long way from achieving anything like that vision, but it is nevertheless the way forward, not just for children, but for all of us. If this change is to happen, it won't come from on high, but rather must bubble up from us, from individuals choosing to place caring for our children at the center of our lives. Indeed, it's already happening with more and more parents opting for homeschooling, unschooling, cooperatives, and democratic free schools. There is a lot of irrational fear to overcome. There is a lot of science denialism to overcome. There are a lot of addictive habits to break. And there are economic realities that make it seem insurmountable. But we know what to do and that is to create community, to find it, to nurture it. It can begin to happen in libraries and on playgrounds, in work places and nursing homes. It can begin in our schools and churches; where sports are played, where music is made, and where dancing is happening. It starts when we seek to make space for children everywhere that community is happening. It starts with learning to trust more people, including children, because trust is the greatest antidote to fear.

If there ever was a time for schools, it's at an end. When we bring the children back into the center of our lives, we will once more have the kinds of communities in which we can all thrive, together.

(I've written a follow up post in which I sketch out one idea for how a future without schools could look.)

I've published a book! If you are interested in ordering Teacher Tom's First Book, click here. Thank you!

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!

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Irrevocable Decisions

Author and Yale University professor of philosophy and cognitive science L.A. Paul proposes a puzzle in which you are to imagine that you are approached at a party by a charismatic stranger with whom you exchange a few minutes of delightful banter. He says to you, "I'm a vampire and I think you would make a great vampire." He goes on to offer to make you into a vampire, telling you how wonderful it is, how you will be immortal, how you'll have super strength and speed, the ability to fly, and, like him, you'll be irresistibly charming. You have to admit, that all sounds pretty good, but you have some concerns. "What about the blood drinking? I don't like the sound of that. And I don't know if I can live without ever seeing the sun again. Those seem like a pretty big downsides." The vampire nods, "I get it, but let me assure you, once you're a vampire, those things won't matter."

Dream the Combine and Clayton Binkley

What do you decide? Becoming a vampire is an irrevocable decision. You can't really know if you'll be able to abide the negatives so you have no choice but to take the vampire's word for it. Becoming a vampire means you will become a whole new individual. Not only will you have super powers, but you be someone for whom drinking blood is not repulsive and never seeing another sunrise is no big deal.

Paul's point is that transformative experiences require something irrevocable to happen. Of course, we don't always get to choose our transformations, such as the type that happen when, say, someone loses a leg, but others we do get to choose, but only if we have the courage to make irrevocable decisions. Deciding to become a parent is in many ways quite similar to the decision to become a vampire. There's no going back and the moment that baby is born everything changes.

I recently sat down with a friend who is considering a major life change. He's decided to leave his current job and is seriously considering going into a whole new profession. He's in the process of weighing options, assessing the pros and cons, considering the impacts on his loved ones. That he's going to make a change is clear, the only question is whether or not it will be a transformative one. Another friend in a similar situation has defined her fulcrum as being between "safety" and "following my heart." Both of these people are looking at being "vampires" from the other side of their irrevocable decisions: they see the cool stuff, but aren't sure if they'll be able to live with the blood drinking. They've both asked for my advice and I've urged them to choose transformation.

I am not the person I was 50 years ago. Every atom in my body has changed, numerous times, between then and now. I have encountered hundreds of moments that irrevocably changed who I am. Transformation is a fundamental aspect of how the universe works: if you don't choose your transformations, they choose you, and there is no way to know what it means until you are on the other side. We live in an ever-emerging now, so in that sense, every moment is a transformation. We are always in the process of emerging, but I've come to see that we don't always have to live at the effect of transformation. We can be the cause as well, at least sometimes, but it requires doing something frightening. It requires stepping into the unknown. It requires making an irrevocable decision and then summoning the courage or gumption or whatever to embrace it like a parent embracing their newborn baby.

As for regrets, we all have them, but the worst, I think, are those we harbor about things we didn't do. We're all going to be transformed. The question is: do we choose our transformation or does it choose us?

I've just published a book! If you are interested in ordering Teacher Tom's First Book, click here. Thank you!

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!

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