Common Cause

On Tuesday, I was sitting off to the side watching our Pre-3 class play. I was struck by how many of them were paired off in conversation: real, face-to-face conversation in which one child spoke while the other listened, then vice versa. The ones I could overhear were short, mostly functional exchanges, although some were apparent non-sequiters being bandied about in the style of conversation. 

It starts to happen about now every year. Or rather, it's about now that I start to notice it because, like most things, it might appear to have sprung up all of the sudden, even while it's something for which they've been practicing their entire lives. Not all of them are there yet, of course, but clearly we've achieved a kind of critical mass. It's a point we reach every year, I suppose, but I don't always pinpoint it like this. 

It's one of those every day miracles when the children begin to turn toward one another like this: having things to say, expressing opinions, sharing silliness, creating bonds, lashing themselves together with words, and without words, in common cause even if now it's only for a few seconds at a time. As I watched, I sat still and silent as if witnessing something so delicate that any movement from me would be to risk destroying it, although I know from experience that what I was watching is as tough and persistent as a weed: it will keep coming back and coming back and coming back.

In fact, by the time they're 5-year-olds together, not so very far away at all, it will be everything many of them can do to pause long enough in their free-form relationships and projects for a productive circle time. For most kids, the drive to connect with the other people is as natural and strong an urge as any they feel.

It might just be me, but I'm regularly amazed at how readily, how easily, indeed how eagerly humans of all ages come together, in dialog or not, to do things together. Sometimes, yes, both inside and outside the preschool classroom, things devolve into bickering, hurt feelings, outrage, and tears. As responsible adults, we respond to these things, helping, coaching, teaching. At the end of the day, sadly, it's often these moments we reflect upon, but really, honestly, most of what happens between the children is this: creating, talking, sharing, building, living together cooperatively in the world.

When I think that there are preschoolers, and there are too many if there is even one, who spend their school time together being taught to read, or count, or made to spend their time focused on their teacher at the front of the room instead of their peers beside them, when I think of children being filled up then drilled or parked in front of screens that "teach" them science facts or how to make mess-less art, I can't help but see an impoverished, stunted education. It's tough like a weed, this drive to connect, but even weeds whither in parched soil.

When 2-year-olds look into one another's faces and talk, this is the heart of a true education. As important as they are, things like literacy and numeracy are mere tools for working and playing together. Doing things with the other people is the substance of our lives, throughout our lives, just ask anyone on their death bed. They'll tell you this has always been what it was about and their regrets are always over those times when they lost sight of that.

When young children play, this is what they do: they say things, express opinions, share silliness, create bonds, and lash themselves together with words, and without words, in common cause. The better we become at this, the more satisfying our lives. This is the most important thing the human animal learns from play.

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Teachers, Parents, Students

An update:

A few days ago, I wrote about Seattle's Garfield High School teachers voting unanimously to refuse to administer the $4 million standardized MAP test, stating that it was a waste of their student's time, a poorly designed test that provides little information of value, and that it is being misused by Seattle Public Schools to evaluate teachers.

Since that time the Garfield PTA and the student body have thrown their support behind the boycott, while teachers from other schools around the district have joined the protest, with several more votes planned in the coming days. The teachers have received support from educators around the country, including former US Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch. 

Critics of the MAP tests point out that the tests, which are administered up to three times a year, are not taken seriously by students (they're neither a graduation requirement nor a course requirement). In fact, they're piled on top of three-to-five other standardized tests that high school students must take in order to graduate. Critics also note that MAP tests' margin of error is often greater than students' expected progress, and that the test has been re-purposed as a tool for evaluating teachers and placing students in select courses, against the tests' original intent and despite years of teacher objections.

According to Garfield teacher Rachel Eells speaking with the Seattle Times:

"I am willing to have my craft looked at and evaluated, but this isn't the way to do it."

This is a movement that appears to have widespread support among teachers, parents and students, which means it will likely grow over the next month as the testing deadline of February 22 approaches. Teachers at several other Seattle high schools have issued statements of support and will likely be considering joining the boycott in coming days.

Garfield teachers and other boycott supporters are hosting an anti-MAP rally today (Jan. 23) at 4 p.m. at the John Standford Center (2445 3rd Ave. S) in Seattle. If you're in the area, please make your way there.

I'm terribly heartened by this and proud that it's happening in my city. It's a small, first step, but an important one I think, in that it will only be when teachers, parents, and students work together to push back against "drill and kill" corporate education "reform" efforts that we will finally get the public schools we want and deserve.

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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Simpler Is Better

Throwing things, especially balls, is fun. When you throw a ball it tends to then fly or roll away from you, although that's far from certain when you're just learning how. Still, if you want to recreate the fun, you normally then have to track it down, which can really get in the way of your experiments.

When I hung a couple of tennis balls on twine from the cross bar of our retractable canopy last week, I figured I was making a pair of pendulums. The idea was to stack up a few coffee cans on the table tops, then step back and swing the ball in an attempt to knock over the cans -- a form of skittle bowling I suppose.

The 5-year-olds got first crack at it, and though many of them lost interest when it became clear that they were going to be responsible for re-setting their own pins, a handful of them stuck it out, experimenting with the arc of the pendulums, trajectory, velocity, angles, and building techniques. 

Then after awhile, the coffee cans were just getting in the way as the die-hards found that they preferred just throwing those balls to see what they could do. 

For instance, we found that if we threw the balls at just the right time with the right angle, we could get the lengths of twine to twist around one another. Others of us discovered that if we threw our balls hard enough we could get them to go all the way over the top of the cross bar, a feat that was consistently met with cheers.

The 3-5's class was next. The whole skittle bowling thing fell by the wayside even quicker as the kids fell out into two distinct groups: the kids who wanted to just swing those balls and the others who were more interested in using the coffee cans to build, then later knock down.

Far more of these buildings were knocked down the old fashioned way (with the palm of a hand) than with these new fangled swinging balls.

For the Pre-3 class, we didn't even bother with the coffee cans.

I thought I'd made pendulums, but what we really had here were a couple of automatic ball returns, an epiphany I had while watching those 2-year-olds throw their balls over and over and over.

Simple is good. Simpler is better.

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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Beyond MLK's Dream

On this Martin Luther King Day most of us will listen to snippets, perhaps all, of his great "I Have A Dream" speech, but civil rights was not the only cause this great American championed, and it is not the only reason we celebrate his life today. He was also a great advocate for the poor and in 1967 he spoke out against the war in Vietnam.

Time magazine called his "Beyond Vietnam" speech at the Riverside Church "demigogic slander." The editorial page of the supposedly liberal Washington Post stated, "King has diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people."

When I listen to this rarely heard speech, I am shocked by how applicable it is to the wars we are fighting today. I'm reminded that when the powerful are against you, you are probably on the right side of history. And as a teacher, I'm motivated by the knowledge that children do not start wars, adults do, but we send our children to die in them.

Here is the speech:

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The Arc Of Moral History

(I've posted a version of this post for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day for the past several years. I believe that I identify so strongly with this holiday, with this man, because most of his story, and by that I mean the dream of which we've all been a part these past five decades, is the story of my life. Of course there are still racists, but when I look back over where we've been and where we are going, I can see that the long arc of moral history is bending toward justice, just as MLK dreamed it would.)

“Nonviolence is absolute commitment to the way of love. Love is not emotional bash; it is not empty sentimentalism. It is the active outpouring of one’s whole being into the being of another.” –MLK

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." –MLK

When I was in 2nd grade at the Meadowfield Elementary School in Columbia, SC, there was one black boy in my class. He and I called one another “best friends”. We played together at recess. We were the two fastest runners in our grade. He never saw my house and I never saw his. That was 1968, the year Martin Luther King was assassinated.

Two years later the courts ordered Columbia to desegregate its public schools. Most of our neighbors chose to send their kids to private schools, but my parents put me on the bus to Atlas Road Elementary, a run-down facility in the heart of an all-black neighborhood. One of my friends’ moms prepared me for my first day by telling me that she’d seen people “defecating in the roadside ditches” along Atlas Road. My parents, however, had taught me that we were all the same inside and I was thankfully young enough that I took them at their word.

I’m pretty sure my “three R’s” education was sub-par that year: to this day South Carolina’s public education system ranks near the bottom. But that wasn’t the point of desegregation. The point was to have black and white kids grow up together so that they could learn through experience what my parents had taught me: we’re all the same.

In fact it was economics more than race that marked the year for me. I was disappointed almost to tears when we exchanged Christmas gifts (each child brought one gift to be randomly distributed) and I wound up with a pair of socks that appeared used. And race certainly didn’t stop Shirley Jeffcoat from having a very embarrassing public crush on me. We were just kids together. We were all the same, except some of us were a lot poorer than others.

When I spoke to my Pre-K kids about Martin Luther King, I told them about segregated restaurants, schools, and water fountains and they agreed it was unfair. Katherine, in particular nodded along with me. She looked like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. When I said, “And today we try to be fair to everyone,” she looked relieved. When I said, “Martin Luther King’s dream has come true,” she blurted out, “It did!”

I believe that we have solid of evidence that his dream has come true. Racism has not been eradicated in our country, but it’s in full retreat. Racists are decisively in the minority and polls indicate that it’s an ever-shrinking one. And it’s only going to get better because our children are growing up in this world we’ve created, not the one in which we grew up.

The experiment of desegregation and civil rights worked and I’m proud that my parents had the courage to make me a part of it. It’s no accident that just as the “desegregation generation” comes of age, we elect our first black president. I am aware of no other nation in the history of the world that has elected a member of an ethnic minority as its supreme leader.

This was the final battle of the Civil War. Non-violence and love win.

Love is not “emotional bash.” I’m more confident today than ever that love is the most powerful weapon in our arsenal. As MLK said, “I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. It is not an expression of impractical idealism, but of practical realism. Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, love is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. To return hate for hate does nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe. Someone must have sense enough and religion enough to cut off the chain of hate and evil, and this can only be done through love.”

As we celebrate today, we should feel good about ourselves. We have cut off one chain of hate and evil. But racial justice is only the first part of the mission MLK set before us. The poverty I glimpsed in that 4th grade classroom is still with us, and there are still too many who think war is the solution.

Poverty and peace are next on our nation’s agenda: problems just as impossible to solve as overcoming racism in America. When the bus pulls up in front of our home, we must have the courage to put our children on it. We must fight evil with love. And we must not despair that we will not win in our lifetime, but maybe, just maybe, our children will see the promised land.

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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Evolution

Not long ago a reader wrote to me:

When I read your blog I get inspired about a play-based education for my child, but when I visited a play-based school in our area it just looked like the teacher was using it as an excuse to be lazy. She just sat there while the kids wandered around. It's a lovely place, but they looked bored and the teacher looked bored. Are they doing something wrong or is that the way a play-based school looks to amateurs? Maybe it only works with a Teacher Tom???

This reader has had a glimpse of the ugly underbelly. I too have visited purportedly play-based schools in which it appears that the idea has been translated as a teacher, a bunch of indoor toys, a bunch of outdoor toys, and a bunch of kids. As a recipe for a play-date or two, that's sufficient, but it quickly turns to thin gruel when consumed day-after-day.

As Dr. Edward Hallowell writes, "The opposite of play isn't work, it is rote," and rote is what happens to anything, even play, when the learning environment fails to evolve. I don't care how many toy stoves you have or how state-of-the-art your climber, for any particular group of kids, the play value of anything diminishes over time without the introduction of change, both large and small, both permanent and temporary.

Our outdoor classroom is a good example, a magnificent space created by our parent community two summers ago during a single week between the last day of school in our former location and the start of our summer program. It was envisioned not as a playground full of toys like swings, slides and climbers, but rather as a collection of "areas" in which certain types of activities can take place -- large motor, tinkering, art, construction, science and nature, sensory. When we stepped back and looked at our work, we spoke of it not as a finished product, but rather as a starting point.

For instance, I'd always hoped we would add some sort of play house to the space, usually imagining it as somehow connected our large sculptural windmill. I'd spoken to many people about it, guys with tools mostly, but also to anyone who would listen, both probing for ideas as well as poking around to see if I could spark another parent project. But up until now, the "third teacher" wasn't, I guess, quite ready for it as all of our energetic conversations sort of faded off without anything happening until early this year when Finn and Grey's mom Jenny asked me if we wanted a backyard playhouse that had, for her boys, become "rote." When we returned from our December holiday break, there it was, almost as if it had always been there, yet another funky parent-lead addition to our funky child-lead classroom.

For the past two weeks, at any given moment, there have been kids in there, those kids often being Finn and Grey who have re-discovered their playhouse in its new iteration. Already we're talking about further evolution: maybe the kids ought to paint it; maybe we'll need to remove the roof; maybe it should be shifted to a different location . . . Conversations that may go no where or everywhere.

Scientists tell us that in most instances evolution is a slow process, with small, incremental advances, but sometimes it happens in sudden lurches. This has happened to our outdoor classroom here at the beginning of the new year.

It had become evident since the summer that our sand pit row boat wasn't much longer for this world. Constructed from wood, it's been with us for 6-7 years, weathering hundreds of children as well as the elements without the benefit of regular coats of paint. Earlier this year, despite holes drilled into it's hull, we were having a problem with standing water, so I dug down through the sand, circle saw attached to my drill, for the purpose of further perforating the bottom when I discovered that I could achieve the project with a single finger through the rotting wood. It was time for a new boat, preferably one made of metal.

Again, I began just talking about it, probing and prodding until Cecelia's mom Eliza let me know that her in-laws were looking to get rid of a 12-footer aluminum vessel. A week ago, a group of us carried it into the space over our heads as the children played, laying it in the sand, where it appears it will remain for the time being. So now, as our old boat continues its inevitable sinking to the bottom on the sand pit, we now have a wonderful new-to-us rower perched for now atop the sand, pointing its prow uphill where, when the water is turned back on at the end of winter, we will be able to use our cast iron water pump to make a river of rapids to flow around it.

All too often I hear people talk about "purpose built" or "state-of-the-art" spaces for children, both indoors and out. It all sounds good, but I think too often these environments bear within them the seeds of their own demise: like the playhouse in Finn and Grey's backyard that became mere routine and rote.   I fear that it becomes a message to teachers that says, "Here's your perfect learning environment, don't let anything happen to mess it up." It's why you never see paint spots on the ceiling of so-called state-of-the-art schools.

All too often I find myself struggling to "maintain" some aspect of our environment, grumbling to myself before or after class about the day-to-day drudgery of putting this or that back in order, in effect, unconsciously fighting against change and for rote. For weeks now, the children, during clean-up, have been stashing a new collection of kitchen timers, not on a shelf where I keep them, but rather tucked into the cavities of some blocks on the other side of the room. Finally, on Friday I left them there where the children clearly feel they belong, deciding to not fight the water as it flows downhill.

All too often I discover it is in my nature to fight change, when it is, in truth, the change that makes a play-based curriculum work. And that is how I'd answer the reader who wrote me: a play-based curriculum must embrace change; the alternative is rote.

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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Following The Leader

When you find a lone nut doing something great, have the guts to be the first person to stand up and join in.     ~Derek Sivers

Back in our pre-preschool days, years before I ever considered becoming a teacher of any kind, my daughter Josephine and I used to attend a Gymboree class once a week. It was essentially an open gym with lots of mats and climbing apparatuses appropriate for the under 2 set, followed by a robust circle time lead by a woman whose name I've forgotten, but whose energy and enthusiasm lives on in me almost every day.

It was never explicitly stated whether or not the adults were expected to join in the singing and group large motor activities, but after a couple sessions it was clear to me that the parents who sat and watched this circle time tended to have the children who sat and watched, whereas those of us who jumped up and down and wiggled our fannies along with the teacher had children who participated.

Those who know me today may find it hard to believe, but overcoming the sense that I would look like a great big oafish fool was a major challenge for me, one only made possible by what I considered to be the best interests of my child. I was impressed by this Gymboree teacher, an adult woman, no longer young, who threw herself into this activity without any apparent shame or reservation. So while carefully avoiding eye contact with any of the moms in the room (and they were all moms in those days) I threw myself into it, following her lead the way I wanted Josephine to do it. But the Gymboree teacher forced her eye contact on me, just like I was one of the kids, welcoming me with a smile, drawing me into the center of this movement of children and parents, swinging our hips and chanting things like, "Wishy washy, wishy washy, wishy washy, weeeeeee!"

It's just one kid sitting on the giant tube.

The first follower is quickly followed by the second.

And now we have a movement!

Most of us, if pressed, would admit to wishing leadership skills on our child, and we should, I think. The ability to lead with confidence is a relatively rare and vital talent. What we don't say aloud, however, but what is far more important throughout most of our lives is acquiring "followship" skills. It's hard to even write that because, of course, no one wants to raise their child to be a mere follower. The word connotes mindless devotion, giving into peer pressure, being a lamb lead to slaughter. We want strong children who know their own minds, who can say, No!" when it doesn't feel right, who can blaze their own trail, and all of those things are true, but what is also true is that we spend much more of our lives as followers than leaders, if only because it's exhausting to always be at the head of the parade.

There is great power in following, more than is generally credited. The ability to unselfishly look at what someone else is doing and, with an open mind, say to yourself, That looks great. I want to do it too! is really the foundation upon which all meaningful human activity is built.  I was inspired yesterday by a video a friend forwarded to me, and the commentary by Derek Sivers, founder of Muckworks and Now Now Now. It struck me as I watched the video over and over that as much as we claim to value leadership, we spend most of our time with young children helping them learn to contribute as followers in a proper and meaningful way. In our leadership roles as teachers we strive to make things so simple that they are instructional. When we're at our best we understand that the children following us are our equals. And if we really watch what's going on in our classrooms, the rest of the kids are, more often than not, following the other children, not us the teachers.

When we fail as teachers, and we all do, I think it's often because what we are doing simply isn't great enough or instructional enough to attract that first follower. But when we succeed, once we've inspired that first follower, watch out!

But just watch the video, it says it much better than I can:

"The first follower transformed the lone nut into a leader. The best way to make a movement is to be the first follower and show others how to follow." As the tipping point is past in this video and all of those people who were once uncomfortably, perhaps mockingly, watching a lone hippie dancer begin to leap to their feet and rush to be part of his movement, it moves me almost to tears. What a powerful thing we become when we are able to move beyond our self-consciousness, our sense of shame, and leap into something new, even if, this time, it's only because we feel hidden in the larger group. Maybe next time, we'll be the first follower.

Indeed, as teachers we do spend most of our time helping our charges learn followship skills. And that's as it should be because they, like all of us, will spend most of our lives not leading, but making judgments about who and what to follow, then following them, not just because others are following, but because they see a lone nut doing something great and have the courage to stand up and join in.

That's why we must, as much as possible, give kids a choice about whether or not, and when, to follow. Compelling children only teaches obedience to leaders, a dangerous thing. But choice in the classroom gives them the opportunity to really practice how to follow, to learn to think for themselves, to not follow blindly, but rather with the idea of expanding the great thing that lone nut is doing.

And when we're the lone nut, we'll know how to treat our followers.

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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