var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Anyone who has ever worked with young children, at one time or another, has resorted to distraction as a way to sooth an upset child. I know I sure did. In fact, I once considered myself the king of distraction. I was confid … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I met this four-year-old boy because he had been forced to leave his previous preschool. Apparently, he had taken to hitting, biting, kicking, and otherwise abusing the adults around him. From what I'd been told, and I didn' … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; There will always be unknowable things. For those things, even in this age of science, we rely upon belief. There are obviously religious beliefs, faith in a higher power, but even atheists build their lives upon belief.We m … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; "I'm painting out of my mouth"We've all seen photos of prehistoric cave paintings. From the perspective of today, they seem crude, comparable to the art our preschoolers make: stick figures, hand prints, and similar images m … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I've never written about the day I became a father. I think about that day and often tell parts of the story, but so far I've not found all of the words to do so, if words are even adequate. What I need to say is too complex … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; "I'm The Hulk!"The three-year-old flexed into a wrestler's pose, baring his teeth. His parents had named him Chase. I said, "Good morning, Hulk."He corrected me, "I'm The Hulk." So, I corrected myself, "Good morning, The Hul … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; When I think back on all the crap I learned in high schoolIt's a wonder I can think at all.And though my lack of education hasn't hurt me noneI can read the writing on the wall. ~Pau … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; At the beginning of the 2015 school year Seattle's Public School teachers were on strike. They had a list of demands, most of which were ultimately met, including the requirement that all elementary school children receive a … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I was 28-years-old when Irish singer Sinead O'Connor released an album entitled I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. That sentiment, only wanting what you already have, was a new idea for me, one that, in a small way, blew my m … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus says, "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek a … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Humans aren't very good at hiding our emotions. Our faces, hands, feet, and bodies tell the tale of what we are feeling even when we are trying to hide the truth from others. In his book Humankind, Rutger Bregman, writes abo … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Chihuly glassThere is more reason in your body than in your best wisdom. ~Friedrich Nietzsche The stereotypical argument used to exclude women from business, science, politics, the military, or indeed just about any categor … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Two days ago, my wife did an amazing thing. She was born with thick, curly, red hair. It's one of the reasons that people never forget having met her. At least once a day, and often several times a day, strangers will compli … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; "When Sammy put the paper on the wallShe put the parlor paper in the hallThen she papered up the chairsShe papered all the stairsShe even put a border on grandma's shawlWhen Sammy put the paper on the wallShe poured a pot of … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; When our daughter Josephine was a preschooler, she would complain, "I wanted to play with her, but when I asked to play, she said, No." This wasn't a once or twice complaint, but one she voiced almost daily, and more often t … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; We live in an age of distraction. The average office worker checks their email inbox 77 times a day. Our phones have become distraction machines. We go down internet rabbit holes, chasing links like a kitten in a swarm of bu … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; We were playing with our classroom "catapults," crude ping pong ball shooting devices that are not really catapults at all, but act like them with the help of rubber bands, which I built in my garage one summer. They are ext … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; In John Lennon's song "Beautiful Boy," he sings the line, "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans." He may have come up with it all on his own, but 20 years prior, the cartoonist Allen Saunders similarly w … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; We must find a way to make wrong things right, hand in hand, together.Living in a RainbowlandWhere everything goes as plannedAnd I smile'Cause I know if we try, we could really make a difference in this worldI won't give up, I … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; We were playing with cardboard boxes and cardboard blocks. A group of three-year-olds discovered a game that involved standing in a rough circle around a box while drumming on it together with long blocks. Before long they beg … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; The children were rowdily queuing up to take turns jumping from the impromptu "diving board" they had created from a plank of wood they had rigged up. The distance from springboard to the ground was about two feet. A few leapt … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; We once had this little platform built from a pair of shipping pallets and some discarded fencing slats that resided just behind the windmill. They were products of our very first summer session, and we've been using them as o … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Tam Van Tram (detail from Nonconceptual Space)You can't swing a dead computer without hitting someone yammering on about artificial intelligence (AI). It will eventually evolve to enslave us. It will be the greatest boon to hu … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; You've gotta mess with people. ~Utah PhillipsWhen our dog plays with other dogs, after the initial sniffing ceremony, she proceeds to engage in behavior that, were she a human, would be called "messing" with them. She tries to … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Primitivism is the word used to identify the myth that life prior to the industrial era was brief, brutish, and simple. It's a concept that emerged from the European Enlightenment, the era during which large parts of the globe … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Recently, one of our toilets stopped flushing: the chain that connects the tank lever to the flapper had broken. I cycled to the hardware store and located the replacement part I needed. Back home, I turned off the water to th … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I enjoy cooking. I enjoy eating out as well, but the truth is that I'm always a little disappointed when 3 p.m. rolls around and I realize I won't get to make anything because we have a dinner invitation.I have friends who dis … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; The long-term effects of the things we do to children in schools is a notoriously difficult thing to capture in research.Generally speaking, however, we as a society have concluded, based on our collective behavior and with li … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Several years ago, I had an aisle seat on a flight from Perth to Sydney in Australia. To my right, in the center and window seats, sat two sisters, 7 and 9, whose parents were in the row in front of us. I'd offered to exchange … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; When we moved into our new home, I found a stack of notepads in a kitchen drawer. The former owners must have been card players, bridge players I'm guessing, because the notepads feature a fan of playing cards along the upper … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; There is a new nature preserve near my home. I was told by a naturalist working on the project that it will one day be "a world class" place that will attract people from around the globe. Right now, however, it's just a forme … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; The boy wanted to figure out how to "walk on a ladder." It was one of the step-stool style ladders that live on the playground. After messing around for some time, he figured out that by standing on the middle step and clutchi … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; In this world of trends, I'm probably already too late, but I've been reading about the so-called TikTok protests being staged by students across the UK. In schools around the nation, teenaged students are, en mass, engaging i … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; The two of them, a boy and a girl, built a wall. They had the entire checker board rug to themselves, they had all the baby wipe box blocks to themselves, and they decided together to build a wall to, in their words, "keep the … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; It recently occurred to me that I've done the Hokey Pokey on four continents. Impressive, no?This may not make me the world's leading expert on the classic song and dance, nor does it necessarily mean that I believe that that' … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; There was a tree on the playground with an angled trunk. Every now and then, the kids would challenge themselves by climbing up it. There are no branches on this trunk, no reliable hand-holds, so they never made it very far be … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; One of the great "lies" in all of literature is William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies. For those unfamiliar with it (and I can hardly believe there are many over the age of about 35) it's the story of a group of British sc … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; "You're going to be okay," her mother cooed, but the girl wasn't so sure. She clung to mommy's knees, watching the room uncertainly.This wasn't her first time at school. This three-year-old had been coming for a couple months, … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Currently, a higher education bill is being considered in the state of Florida that would prescribe that "Natural science courses must afford students the ability to critically examine and evaluate the principles of the scient … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; The teacher . . . is not a machine which follows a certain syllabus, which has certain lessons to recite to the child, and too make him recite them back. She is a sensitive human being who works with her intellect, and loves h … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; A while back, I was passing a table at which four boys were eating snack. They were discussing a classmate, a boy with sensory challenges that often manifested in ways that disturbed and even hurt his classmates. One of them s … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Based on my informal and unscientific surveys of early childhood educators, one of the biggest hurdles to fully realizing play-based education is "the parents." Not all the parents, of course, but there are apparently a lot wh … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Everybody's had to fight to be free. ~Tom PettyThe American labor organizer, folk singer, storyteller and poet Utah Phillips once said, "The state can't give you free speech, and the state can't take it away. You're born with … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. ~James BaldwinI don't claim to be a parenting expert. I'm just a guy who has spent a lot of time playing with child … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; "I would prefer not to." ~Bartleby the Scrivner: A Story of Wall Street by Herman MelvilleIt's important to me as an educator, to reject or defuse or diffuse any power over others that comes my way. Classrooms can too easily b … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; "Some day, I will live in that hotel," the girl said, pointing to a luxury tower. She was walking with her family -- mom, dad, a couple of older brothers. "I'll let you live there with me, but I get the whole top floor to myse … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Ian was a three-year-old with an older sister named Eleanor who he adored. One day he arrived at school wearing one of his sister's dresses.Even as young as that, he stepped through the door self-consciously. Maybe someone at … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; 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 Woodla … | Continue reading