var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; As clean up time approached, I began to survey the two-year-olds, "I'm thinking that it might be clean-up time." Some agreed while others informed me that they wanted to wait "Three minutes" or "Five minutes." They all knew by … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; The boys were playing together as they often do, running, debating, forming and re-forming "teams," which was the trend of the moment. Being the day before a holiday, about half the kids were not at school, off on their travel … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; When I have something to think about, I take a long walk. There is something about walking that tends to free our minds to think more clearly. This is because our minds and our bodies are not separate things.As professor and a … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Some time ago, I wrote about a new (to me) metaphor to explain an alternative theory of addiction. In a nutshell, the predominate addiction theory is based upon experiments in which rats in cages were given the option between, … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; This morning, as I sat outdoors drinking coffee, a gaggle of Canada geese flew overhead, flapping hard, heading east, honking. Several minutes later they returned, silently, gliding, having circled back. As they drifted down t … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; He approached me, his arms crossed, brow low. "Teacher Tom, ask me a question."For the most part, I strive to ask the children I teach very few questions. Or rather, when I ask them questions, I want them to be real questions, … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I once taught a girl named Laura who would sit with the rest of us on the rug during circle time, but when she spoke, she popped to her feet to pace back and forth. She had fresh, thoughtful contributions to make to our group … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Yesterday, as I transferred through the Montréal-Trudeau International Airport, I took a seat an a restaurant counter for my dinner. The bartender was playing music from her own playlist. As is increasingly the case, I didn't … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I was working a floor puzzle with one of the kids. It's a popular puzzle, one with fairies, unicorns, and a castle, but everyone else was busy elsewhere so we were one-on-one. Soon, however, we were joined by another girl, and … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; For more than a decade, I prepared for my days with children as an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting took place in the room across the hallway. I didn't intentionally listen in, but over the years I grew to feel that I was, in a wa … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; They say that the Golden Rule is the only one we need, that every major religion has some version of it embedded in its theology. And it's a good rule, the most familiar iteration being, "Do unto others as you would have them … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; "Teacher Tom, look what I made!""I'm looking at what you made."I strive to hold a space in which children are as free as possible to create, explore, study, and play with as little adult judgement as possible. I am not there t … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; People are often surprised when I say or write that safety is our number one responsibility when it comes to our work with young children. After all, human babies are born uniquely vulnerable compared to other species and they … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; When someone says, "I'm doing this for your own good," rest assured it is not for your own good. Or at least it's not in your best interest, according to your own judgement, in this particular moment, and usually it is decided … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I was sitting out of the way learning what I could from observing the children as they played. It was a wild game of throwing balls at one another, while the teacher occasionally called out words in Icelandic. I was trying to … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; There was a ball of pink yarn on the floor in a room where children played. One end had been pulled out. I picked it up and retreated to the wall, where I sat on a ledge, holding one end of the yarn. The adults in the room did … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I think most of us, if asked to define "success," would think deeply enough to consider more than the capacity to acquire great wealth. Certainly, we would cite things like having "enough" money and a holding personally satisf … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; We came down from a lined sky descending below the horizonThat sent us lines of waves to blur the line between sand and the North AtlanticOf course, that line was where we stoodIn a lineContemplating the space between tide and … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I'm currently in Iceland, taking part in an incredible weeklong gathering called International Play Iceland. I will share some of my stories with you here on the blog in the coming days and weeks, but today I re-visited a scho … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; We worry a great deal about both physical and psychological injury, and we should, but I wonder if in our efforts to protect ourselves and others, especially young children, we often lose sight of the truth that without pain, … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; In Rutger Bregman's book Humankind, he writes about an experiment in which psychologists told volunteers a sad story about a 10-year-old girl who was suffering from a deadly disease. She is, according to the story, on a waitin … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; A child fell and bumped her head hard enough that we decided to apply an ice pack. I fetched one of those single-use gel packs that one activates by squeezing it in the middle until the internal bag pops and the chemicals mix. … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; "In heaven there will be no law, and the lion shall lie down with the lamb. In hell there will be nothing but law, and due process will be meticulously observed." ~Grant GilmoreEvery rule we make is an admission of failure whe … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Awhile back, I was watching a boy playing around under the swings as a classmate was swinging. It wasn't a particularly risky activity in my view. I mean, I was standing right there, taking pictures, discussing it with him, an … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Those of us who live with animals are often accused of anthropomorphizing them, which is to say attributing human characteristics to them and explaining their behaviors in human terms. I know I do it. I've even developed a hab … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; You've gotta mess with people. ~Utah PhillipsWhen our new puppy played with other dogs, after the initial sniffing ceremony, she proceeded to engage in behavior that, were she a human, would be called "messing" with them. She … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; "Hey! This is my game!""We're playing too."There was a pause. You could tell he was wrestling with his options. Then he replied, "Well, I guess it's our game . . ."It happened in an instant. It could have gone a different way, … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; When the two-year-old girl first caught my eye she was standing directly beneath the trapeze bar, craning her neck to look up at it. She reached upward, stretching on tip toe, her fingers opening and closing as if trying to gr … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; The opposite of play isn't work, it's rote. ~Edward HollowellThis might sound like an odd thing for a teacher to write, but I sometimes get the idea that knowing stuff is the enemy of education. There is little gratification … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. ~John DeweyPeople tend to have one of two responses when I tell them I'm a teacher. Either they say something like, "Good for you . . . Such important work," or … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Economic Forum, and Unicef (and according to the dubious measurement of standardized test scores) Finland has the best schools in the world. The … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I sometimes forget how radical our ideas are about young children. I forget that not everyone trusts children even if most people say they do. I forget that most adults are convinced that children must be guided, coerced, tric … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I started this blog in 2009 simply because I'd written a couple articles for Seattle's Child magazine that I thought were pretty good and felt they deserved a life beyond the recycling bin. That was the entirety of my ambition … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; "Children do not like being incompetent any more than they like being ignorant. They want to learn how to do, and do well, the things they see being done by bigger people around them. This is why they soon find school such a d … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; As a child, my family moved around a lot. I'd called four places home before my first day of kindergarten. I attended three different elementary schools and three different middle schools. My parents, themselves, had grown up … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Two freshly-minted three-year-olds were playing on the floor, not together, but near one another. I was lying amidst them, fiddling with whatever came to hand. The boy picked up a toy that was meant to be a tiny version of the … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; 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 neuros … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Judging by their behavior, we can say that plants are intelligent. They turn toward the sun because they need the light. They absorb necessary nutrients from the soil. They communicate with one another, share resources, and ca … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; "I'm gonna try this.""You're gonna get hurt.""I can't get on. Everybody hold it.""Was that funny?""My turn.""I want a turn.""You can go after me.""I'm next.""Okay, so guys, after me it's you, then it's you.""Then I'm after you … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I'm currently reading neuroscientist Antonio Damasio's book Self Come to Mind and came across this fascinating observation: "(S)mart brains are . . . extremely lazy. Anytime they can do less instead of more, they will, a minim … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; One can argue that humans are among the most evolutionarily successful larger species on the planet.I have to qualify that controversial assertion with the term "larger" because, frankly, the last couple years have underlined … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; When parents complain, "He doesn't listen to me" what they really mean is that their kid doesn't do what they want them to do when they want them to do it. Believe me: they are listening to you. They are almost always listenin … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; The two-year-old said to me, "If you eat this food you can have some ice cream." She placed a plate in front of me on which she had positioned a glob of purple play dough. I said, "What is it?""It's healthy food.""What kind of … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; We are sometimes said to live in a post-mythology society. No longer does a pantheon gods, spirits, and demons control, create, and explain our world. We now have science, philosophy, and religion, but as surly as we continue … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; He said, "Teacher Tom, you should teach us things. You never teach us anything . . . just silly things."I answered, "What do you mean? I teach you stuff all the time.""No, you don't. You just teach us silly things.""Okay, so … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I was recently talking with the person responsible for hiring educators for a large regional chain of preschools. Altogether they employ some 300 teachers. With the school year on the verge of starting they still had 45 vacant … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Several of the kids were taking turns boasting about how strong they were."I can pick up this whole table!""I can pick up this whole school!""I can pick up this whole world!"As their claims escalated ludicrously, some of their … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; The boy was sinking his fingers into the freshly-made play dough in a slow, controlled manner, forming them into fists as it oozed between them. When they were finally firmly clenched, he paused for a moment, then ripped both … | Continue reading