var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; We never gave our daughter chores to do around the house when she still lived with us. This runs against the current of most of the parenting counsel out there. Her school officially recommended it for all families. Even our … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; "The Thinker," Auguste RodinWe've all experienced the phenomenon of genius in the stairwell, that flash of brilliance that comes to us when it's a little too late. It's that moment when we realize what we should have said in … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; It's odd celebrating Labor Day in this country given the war being waged against labor by many of the most powerful members of our society, and the outright vitriol coming from elected representatives who malign working men … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; The emergence of human language some 150,000 years ago, it is said, also marks the beginnings of such things as our conceptions of time, visual perspective, and the scientific method. Even before the development of the phone … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I have an older relative who responds to almost everything anyone says with "I know." You might say, "Pearl Harbor Day is just around the corner" and she'll respond "I know." Now maybe she does know about Pearl Harbor Day (D … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I recognized them as the nice family from our building, their son, who looks to be approaching 4, was straddling one of those wooden, peddle-less "strider" bikes. He was in the midst of a tantrum, stamping his feet, while em … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; My wife and I have had four dogs over the course of our three and a half decades together. Whenever I have made the mistake of pulling on any of their leashes, they have all pulled in the opposite direction, every time. Beli … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; People often ask me if there is a particular curriculum to which I ascribe. More often than not, when I answer that it is up to the children, I can tell they are frustrated. They think I'm being rhetorical. Certainly, there … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I remember my first exposure to the "technology" of treating children like fully formed human beings -- and I often do think of it as a kind of technology in that it's the application of scientific knowledge for practical pu … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Einar JónssonA two-year-old was standing at the gate, his fingers through the slats, crying after his mommy who had left. The grandmother of another child was sitting with him. I wanted to go take her place, not because she … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; If you would be a real seeker of truth, it is necessary that you at least once in your life doubt, as far as possible, all things. ~Rene DescarteOn the first day of school, the day I meet many of our two-year-olds for the fi … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; At the beginning of each new school year we held mandatory parent orientation meetings where I told the assembled parents that I would not be teaching their children literacy, although they would be laying the foundations fo … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Not long ago, I had a few hours to kill before catching my flight back to Seattle and was kindly invited for lunch and conversation at the home of a new friend. In the car on the way there, she told me that her sons would be … | 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}; One of my mother's mantras is "Count your blessings," which is her way of gently admonishing me to look at the bright side.It's often good advice. And sure enough, I've become an adult who tends to look at the bright side of … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; 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 the toilet … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; There were always a couple dozen ropes on the Woodland Park playground, most of which were tied to something at any given moment. Tying knots is one of those skills, like reading, that most children don't acquire in preschoo … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Typically, our older kids took on the job of making our new volcanos. But since this year's group finally got through to me that they preferred their messes at a distance, especially when it came to paper mâché, we opened up … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; "I didn't do it!"I'd seen the boy push his friend, knocking him to the ground. He was lying there still, whimpering.His mother had told me, crossly, that she believed in punishment. She understood, however, that I was not go … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; "Adolescence" was invented in the mid-1800's by the warlike Prussian nation. They had just suffered a humiliating military defeat at the hands of Napoleon and felt their downfall was due, at least in part, to their soldiers … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Peace Child, Sadako SasakiThere are plenty of reasons to be dubious about the double-edged sword of punishments and rewards, but I've been living with Natalia Ginzburg's words for some time now and as much as I objected at f … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; The boy had shed his jacket onto the floor, leaving it in a heap right in the middle of the room. Under normal circumstances I would have said something like, "Your coat is on the floor; it belongs on a hook," then waited fo … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Most years, there are play themes chosen by our five-year-olds that cause concern. Usually, it's some version of "bad guy" play -- pirates, zombies, spies, superheroes. A couple years back, they were going with the generic " … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; "I'm a fairy," she told me. I guess I didn't respond as she was hoping, so she widened her eyes and raised her voice, "A real fairy!"As she flitted away, I believed her. "Real pretend" isn't a term I've ever taught children, … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I was sitting on a bench near a playground merry-go-round watching our three and four-year-olds play. A pair of boys decided they wanted a spin. They mounted the apparatus, then one of them turned to me, "Teacher Tom, you pu … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; As a child, there were certain adults who I instantly liked, whereas there were others for whom I would take an immediate dislike. It generally came down to how they treated me. If they looked me in the eye, spoke in their n … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; When we enrolled our daughter Josephine in cooperative preschool, I explained how it worked to a friend, telling her that there was one professional teacher in the room and a dozen assistant teachers in the form of parents. … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; For a time, the children gathered together around the workbench where they made things with junk using glue guns. Others chose to create using construction paper, tape, and staplers. They talked quietly amongst themselves as … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; "The grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and, for children, it's tiresome always giving them explanations." This is perhaps the most famous line from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's novella The Little Prince.It's m … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Teacher TomI recently read Claire Dederer's book Monsters in which she considers the question of what to do about artists who have created beloved works of art, but who have also revealed themselves to be, well, monsters. Wo … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Low pay is a major downside of being an early childhood educator. In most places in the US, our average pay barely rises above the poverty level. Low prestige is likewise a problem, one that goes hand-in-hand with low pay, b … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; In her best selling memoir Educated, Tara Westover recounts a traumatic scene from when she was a girl, one that would have been emblazoned forever into anyone's memory. Her details are lurid and clear the way one would expe … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I attended elementary school in Columbia, South Carolina during the 1960's and was explicitly taught that the Civil War was fought, not over slavery, but over "economic differences" between the North (with its more industria … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Faig Ahmed, hand-woven textileWhen our daughter Josephine was born, we lived in an apartment in downtown Seattle, a block away from the famed Pike Place Public Market. One of the reasons we loved living downtown was that we … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I've got values but I don't know how or why. ~The Who, The SeekerMost of us, most of the time, are reasonable people. That's not to say we're always logical, but only that we usually have our reasons for the things we do, b … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Karntakuringu JakurrpaWhen we die, the arrangement of our physical parts remains the same as it was in life, yet something quite essential is suddenly, from one moment to the next, missing. The people of ancient India called … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; KleoI often watch the Great British Bake Off, a competition show that good-naturedly pits amateur bakers against one another. I don't bake myself, but I find the show relaxing. After 13 seasons, there are no surprises, the j … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I was recently leaving a downtown store. When I came to the exit door, I saw that it had a handle. I grabbed and pulled. The door didn't budge. I then, counter-intuitively, pushed and the door swung open. This is a prime exa … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I recently read the disgusting story of a police officer and his wife who were arrested for handcuffing and jailing his own three-year-old overnight, for two nights in a row, for the "crime" of soiling himself. Their defense … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; A child was playing on our junkyard playground for the first time. At some point he approached me with a small plastic construction vehicle that was missing all four wheels. He said, "It's broken."I answered, thinking I was … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Auke-Florian Hiemstra/Naturalis Biodiversity CenterThere was a street light just outside the living room window of my second-story downtown Seattle apartment. On top of the light fixture were ugly spikes, fixed there to prev … | Continue reading
In 1971, architect Simon Nicholson wrote an article for a magazine called Landscape Architecture entitled “How Not to Cheat Children: The Theory of Loose Parts.” Perhaps it wasn’t the first time that the phrase “loose parts play” was used, but it was this manifesto that in many w … | Continue reading
Psychologist Kurt Lewin, often recognized as the founder of social psychology and one of the most cited psychologists of the 20th century, developed what is known as Lewin's Equation: B = ƒ(P,E), in which our behavior (B) is a function of our personality (P) in the environment (E … | Continue reading
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 actual cast iron hand pump we have on our playground. … | Continue reading
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 … | Continue reading
Back in my short-lived days as a junior business executive, one of my colleagues had a sign on his wall that read: "If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there." It was a statement about the importance of setting goals, plotting a course between here and the … | Continue reading
We must hang together gentlemen . . . else we shall most assuredly hang separately. ~Benjamin FranklinHappy Independence Day! And “happy” is the appropriate greeting for the day. The Declaration of Independence was the first historical instance of the word "happiness" appearing i … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I recently took a book outside, setting up in a shaded chaise lounger with a cup of coffee. The sun was out. It was going to get hot, but would be pleasant for a couple hours yet, especially with the gentle breeze. The mocki … | Continue reading