Some Notes On Personality

Back in the 80's, during my years working for The Man, the entire office had an afternoon off for a kind of personal development seminar at which we all took the well-known Meyers-Briggs personality test. Afterwards, we discussed the results in small groups. I was the only one in my group not surprised that I fell into the classification of introvert. I remember my assistant manager saying, "This test is crap. You're the most extroverted person I know." 

The pioneering psychologist Carl Jung was the first to popularize the concept of extroversion-introversion during the early 1900's, a notion that has become a centerpiece of just about every personality theory out there. The terms are commonly used as synonyms for "outgoing" and "shy," but that's a misunderstanding of the concept. The basic idea, as I've taught myself to understand it, is that those with the personality trait of extroversion tend to get energy from being with the other people, while introverts tend to get their energy from being alone or with only a few intimates. 

I live with a pair of women who are classic extroverts. They come home from parties, temple, work, and school with bright eyes, chattering, enthusiastic, and in general seeming "all filled up," ready to make phone calls or turn around a do something else. I come home from those same places, places where I talked and laughed and engaged at least as much as they did, but I'm all emptied out: I crave the quiet time to sort through what just happened, to muse, to fantasize, to veg out, to tank up. In other words, I love all of you, but you take it out of me. 

This blog has become one of the places I get filled up. I can't exactly say I enjoy the process of reflection, but I do crave it, nevertheless. I've always done it, of course, even before I became a teacher, going over my day, reveling in things that went well, trying to figure out what I could have done differently when they don't. My extrovert wife, who is quite often my sounding board, used to say, "Stop obsessing," and it would draw me up. Am I obsessive? I don't think so. I think of obsessiveness as a largely destructive trait, one I associate with perfectionism, or a mind that just won't shut off. It's never felt that way to me. I might not always like it, but I really need to mentally process my day. That's what gives me energy.

Some people think of extroversion-introversion as a continuum with the majority of people falling somewhere near the middle (ambiverts). Others, Jung among them, believe that we all possess both traits, with one being dominant, but that there are times when the less dominant side is expressed. 

I'm in the second camp, judging from my own experiences. It's become clear to me, that one of the reasons I am a teacher is that I'm a true extrovert when it comes to spending time with young children. They fill me with energy. I often drag through my early mornings, preparing for the advent of the kids, but once they start arriving it's like a switch is thrown and when our days together come to an end, I find myself wanting them to go on. I often stay too long afterwards, chatting with parents, horsing around with kids, not wanting it to end. And once they're all gone I pass through a period of loneliness which explains why I so often leave the classroom a mess until the following morning -- I just don't want to be there in the quiet building without the children, while in the rest of my life, alone does not equate at all to loneliness.

I've found a few other places in my life where my extrovert side expresses itself, but none so much as my time with the kids. 

We all live with these two sides of ourselves, as do our children. It's important, I think, as adults in the lives of children to make an honest study of them, to understand when and where their introversion and extroversion are expressed. And perhaps more importantly, to recognize that they are not us. The excitement you feel about the lights of the carnival may strike your child as a chore, one that requires summoning up the enthusiasm that comes naturally to you. The peaceful evening at home toward which you looked forward, may loom in your child's mind as grim loneliness, especially after a day of tanking up with the other people.

I often say that school is the place where we practice being together, which is why I don't particularly value having a lot of nooks and crannies where kids can be on their own, at least for extended periods of time. Whether we are gaining energy or spending energy in social circumstances, it's only through experience that we can come to better understand ourselves. While this time might be harder work for the introverted child, the aftermath is often harder work for the extrovert.

Of course, personality is far more involved than this, and although I've not seen any data, I suspect that our fundamental personality type can actual grow and change as we gain experience in life. I know I'm a far different person today than I was 30 years ago when I last took the Meyers-Briggs test and I've seen young children over the course of their 3 years at Woodland Park transform themselves, while others are just more sophisticated versions of who they were at 2. 

Personality is not a fixed thing. And all the tests that purport to measure it really are crap because each one of us defies categorization throughout our lives. There is always a danger that terms like "introvert" and "extrovert" become labels to conveniently and inappropriately slap on other people. Still, if we understand that the concepts describe nothing more than a point in time for an individual, they can give us a framework for thinking about personality, especially the personalities of the other people with whom we spend our time each day, including the children in our care. And every tool that helps us reflect on our relationships with others is a good one.

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The Magnificence Of Play

I can't imagine anyone thinks more or more deeply about sensory tables than Tom Bedard over at Sand and Water Tables. I especially love the right hand column of his blog where he lists his eight "Axioms of Sensorimotor Play." Not only do these axioms have the virtue of making me chuckle because they verify my own experience, but taken in aggregate they stipulate that if allowed to play freely and given enough time, children will explore every possible nook, cranny, up, down, laugh, and tear. This is the magnificence of play: no stone is ever left unturned.

Recently, Tom posted about creating levels within his sand table using peg board, and since among the many things I'm curating in the storage room is a large sheet of peg board left over from another project, I thought we should give it a go. For better or worse, our peg board had become a bit warped from being leaned against a wall for a couple years, so I wasn't able to exactly re-create Tom's set up, so I just winged it, duct taping one larger sheet to one side of our magnificent sensory table, then creating lots of smaller mobile platforms from scraps and wooden chopsticks.

We have a massive amount of sand, but it was all the way outside in our sand pit and I had a couple large bins of flax seed within arm's reach, so I went with that. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but a storage room full of oddball loose parts coupled with a bit of laziness is certainly its father.

As the children across all three of our classes, aged 2-6 played with this set up over the week, I saw each of Tom's axioms in action as the children fully explored every level, both over and under, including the floor. They filled and emptied every scoop and container, repeatedly. They discovered that the chopstick supported platforms could be moved around. They discovered they could be taken apart. They discovered they could be put back together. They discovered that the peg board scraps themselves could be used to move the flax seed around.

I've been having a number of incredible discussions about play while here in Athens for my talk on Friday. In one of them we discussed a study in which researchers had invented a toy that had a number of features, both obvious and hidden. With one group of children, the adults demonstrated a handful of the features (e.g., push this button, turn this dial), then handed it over to the children. The children quickly explored each of those features, then were finished. The key element of this toy, however, was that there another dozen features to be discovered that had not been demonstrated. The second group of children were simply given the toy with no demonstration. This group of children played with the toy until they had discovered all of the features. (UPDATE: Thanks to readers, I've learned that the toy I'm writing about here only had 4 functions and one was demonstrated, but the results were as I've described -- the children who received no demonstration of the toy were far more likely to discover the other three functions, and played longer, than those who received a demonstration. Here's a link. Another link is provided by Alec of Child's Play Music in the comments.)

As I watched the children play with the flax seed and pegboard levels, I was in awe of their inventiveness, curiosity and motivation. Some of them spent hours there during the week, asking and answering their own questions, working at their own pace, figuring out this small corner of the world, which is really just a model of the larger world in which we all live.

This is the magnificence of play.

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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Get This App Today!

Let me state right up front, it wasn't my idea to download this latest app for the preschool. It was Luca's mom Megan who thought the school just had to have it. Her own kids had really enjoyed it, it was sooo educational, you know, the usual blah, blah, blah.

I guess I should quit fighting it. After all our kids are growing up in this world, and huge sheets of cardboard are going to be part of it, but I worry about what it's doing to their brains. Still, for better or worse, there we were, taking part in this grand social and developmental experiment.

It didn't surprise me, of course, that the kids took to it right away. I mean, it's cardboard, right? They all seem to be drawn to it.

Honestly, it's amazing how they somehow intuitively knew how to turn it on and start using it.

It only took a few seconds for them to figure out how to get to the napping function where they all cozied in together and made me turn off the lights. I have to say, that doesn't happen often without the app!

But what really impressed was when they discovered the fort building function. How they did it, I'll never know, but, I mean, there they were, 3, 4, and 5-year-olds already learning their forts! And I don't think they even knew they were learning anything. I mean the cardboard app can't be all bad if they're doing forts as young as three years old -- that's a lifelong skill there, people!

They started with the upright, roofless kind of fort. Like I said -- three years old. If you could see my face right now, I'd be raising my eyebrows at you in a knowing way.

Then, get this, they figured out another kind of fort that involved getting low and adding roofs! I mean, I'm an educated guy, but these preschoolers took to the technology as if they were born with it in their genes.

And I have to say, they didn't seem to be turning into cardboard zombies the way I'd feared. Only time will tell, of course, but for now they seemed quite actively engaged: not only with the cardboard, but with each other, and it really looked like it was involving their whole minds and bodies. 

I asked Megan if she'd found any need to set limits or anything, but other than "not in the living room," she hadn't so far. And she guiltily mentioned another feature that I'd secretly been enjoying myself: it really kept the kids occupied when she needed to get something done. I mean, let's be honest, that isn't always a bad thing.

Then they figured out the slide, human sandwich, pig-pile function, which made them squeal. Anything that can make children laugh like that can't be all bad. Still, I had some questions.

I decided to ask a few experts about their thoughts on young children and cardboard, starting with a psychologist who sighed, and said, "Well, it's cardboard. What can you do? You can't ban it. That will only turn it into forbidden fruit." The neuro-scientist perked up when I asked him for his thoughts, saying, "There's actually some very compelling evidence that early exposure to large sheets of cardboard stimulates not only the part of the brain that makes you feel good to be alive, but also seems to have some effect on the every other region of the brain worth developing."

This information in my pocket, but still not entirely convinced, I returned to school determined to try my own experiments. Of course I didn't tell any of my fellow teachers about this in advance for fear of being ostracized, but I took the cardboard outside.

That's right. I was nervous about it, but the kids knew just what to do, discovering the paints and painter's tools function and transforming the cardboard into everything from a bus stop to a castle to a maze to a work of art.

They engaged as if they were born to do it, creatively, scientifically, and socially. 

It's a brave new world folks. I'm a convert. Download this app today! You won't regret it.

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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Good Teachers Are A Flaw In The System

I've written about Michelle Rhee before, one of the faces of the corporate education "reform" movement. For the uninitiated, this is the woman who was chancellor of the Washington, DC public schools when they saw dramatic increases in standardized test scores, became the toast of the factory-style reform movement, hanging with US Education Secretary Arne Duncan and landing on the cover of Time Magazine, only to have it then revealed that those vaunted scores were based upon widespread cheating, not by students but by teachers and administrators.

When I wrote about her, I kind of let her off the hook for the cheating, assuming she didn't know, even though her draconian policies made it all but inevitable, but memos have now been released and sources have come forward that demonstrate that she was fully aware of the problems, discussed them with her staff, and decided to try to sweep it all under the rug. The truth is that she has lied and cheated, her actions have prevented children who needed remedial help from getting that help, she has destroyed the careers dozen of dedicated teachers and principals, and she has used her falsified track record as a way to persuade 25 states to adopt her high-stakes, produce-or-else approach to education. Michelle Rhee is a fraud and possibly a criminal. The Washington, DC school district, already one of the nation's most challenged, was left the worse by almost every measure for her self-serving efforts.

If you're wondering, I've illustrated this distasteful post with photos of children watering the garden simply because I can think of nothing more hopeful than children in the springtime. And despite all of this, I remain hopeful -- and I hope you do too!

If you're after the details on these latest revelations, and the full Michelle Rhee story, I urge you to have a look John Merrow's excellent piece, Michelle Rhee's Reign of Error, on his Taking Note blog. John is a veteran education reporter for PBS, NPR, and dozens of other publications and a leading proponent of quality public education.

What follows is what I wrote about a year ago, and which is still relevant. I included lots of links, which I hope you will use to educate yourself on the dangers and mistakes of the corporate education reform movement. These new revelations about Rhee, what she knew, and when she knew it, are an opportunity for those of us in opposition to push back. I hate that this is how it must be, but this is politics and the emperor is without clothes.

*****

Her school's assistant principal wrote of her:

"It is a pleasure to visit a classroom in which the elements of sound teaching, motivated students and a positive learning environment are so effectively combined."

The head of the school's PTA (and a parent with a child in her class) said of her: 

"One of the best teachers I've ever come in contact with. Every time I saw her, she was attentive to the children, went over their schoolwork . . . she took time with them and made sure."

Naturally, this second year 5th grade teacher with glowing classroom evaluations was fired. Not "let go" as part of a last-in, first-out cost cutting measure, but fired for incompetence based exclusively on standardized test scores. That would be outrageous enough all by itself, but it appears that a large percentage of her students had come from another school in the district that is suspected of cheating on the prior year's tests.  She had even expressed concern earlier in the year that many of her students who had arrived with high reading scores where, in her opinion, barely able to read. So when these students who had been passed along to her with artificially inflated scores were tested in her class, "the machine" found that they had regressed and she was gone. Appeal denied. They even claim they "treated her fairly." It's the Blueberry Story writ large.

How does anyone expect teachers to work under these conditions? 

This happened in the District of Columbia Public Schools, one of many districts scandalized by what appears to be widespread cheating on these unproven, mathematically invalid high stakes standardized tests. What makes this particularly infuriating is that much of the cheating in this case happened between 2007-2010 under the watch of union-busting, corporate education reform poster child Michelle Rhee, who has risen to prominence based on her supposed turn-around of the DC public schools, when it appears she did it all based on lies and cheating. No, I don't think she personally engaged in the cheating, but as chancellor she certainly jumped at the chance to claim credit for those ill-gotten test scores and did everything she could to slow-walk any investigations on her watch. And she's still doing it.

Despite this, Rhee continues to hang out with Education Secretary Arne Duncan, receive $50,000 a pop speaking fees, and generally enjoy being feted as a leading light in American education.

You would think that, at a minimum, everyone with any kind of sense of responsibility about public education in our country would be keeping their distance from this deeply flawed champion of high-stakes testing, charter schools, and the de-professionalization of teaching, but no, they seem to be doubling down.

What's wrong with these people? I'm serious. Everyone from Bill Gates to President Obama to Arne Duncan to Michelle Rhee seem to be victims of some sort of brainwashing. No matter the actual evidence in front of them, they stay the course. No matter how many mathematicians and professional educators demonstrate that their tests are bunk, they stay the course. No matter how many studies show that charters and vouchers, on average, produce worse results that regular public schools, they stay the course. No matter how much their own "research" proves to be simply data that has been "fixed" around a pre-determined result (e.g., We prove that high stakes test scores help children learn by using high stakes test scores to show that children are learning), they stay the course. No matter what, they seem simply incapable of seeing or hearing anything beyond their dogma of corporate education reform, a project that seems specifically designed to enrich corporations, while totally ignoring the educational requirements of children and our democracy.

I used to think we were just dealing with misguided crusaders and dilettantes, well-intended folks striving to give back, but no longer. There are powerful, wealthy people who want our children to be less well-educated, more obedient, and less likely to question; they are looking to our schools to create a citizenry that is so hard at work keeping their heads above water that they don't have the time, let alone the ability or knowledge, to speak for themselves. And they seem to have managed to create these legions of brainwashed followers, who can see nothing but what they've been fed by lobbyists in smokey back rooms. It's hard to know which ones are the zombies and which their cynical masters.

Good teachers stand in the way of this agenda; teachers who think for themselves, who have a genuine interest in education, who understand that the corporate reform movement is not about education at all, but rather manufacturing methods designed to produce unquestioning worker bees. 

How does anyone expect teachers to work under this system? They don't. No, good teachers are actually a flaw in the system. They must be fired because the machine says so.

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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"Sharing" The Right Way

Scarcity is always a problem, not just in preschools, but everywhere. The big difference is that in our preschool, thankfully, scarcity isn't an issue when it comes to necessities, only with those like-to-have-but-can-live-without items like old rowing machines and giant plastic insects.

When I first started teaching we spent a lot of time trying to help children hammer out sharing and turn-taking agreements, often involving me or another adult serving as the time-keeper, or otherwise managing things, and still, when the time was up, there remained many kids tearily reluctant to stick with the bargain, taking us back to square one in which an adult more or less has to force matters. And honestly, it always stuck in my craw that even these dodgy solutions took so much adult intervention.

I like the books of Robert Munsch, mainly because he is a storyteller first, and they are structured so that it's easy to borrow his stories like Stephanie's Ponytail, Murmel, Murmel, Murmel, and The Paper Bag Princess, and make them into my own oral stories. One story, however, that I could never make my own was the book We Share Everything, in which the kids wind up making a mockery of the adult mantra that was the book's title. I mean, that's kind of how we were doing things at Woodland Park and I couldn't bring myself to reveal the flaws in our system.

It was the advent of the 2-seat swing set, I think, a couple years ago that lead me to rethinking the whole idea. At the time, there always in seemed a kerfuffle over the swings. Children would whine, "She's not giving me a turn!" One day, probably because I was distracted with something else, I responded, "She's using the swing now. When she's done, it will be your turn." I then said to the girl swinging, "When you're finished swinging Sophia wants a turn." Minutes later, when I looked up, there was Sophia getting her turn. There are still individual parent-teachers who manufacture sharing solutions for the kids, especially around the swings, and when something new is introduced (like our slot-car track with only two-tracks) the adults still need to manage a system, but when it comes to day-to-day sharing and turn-taking, I've more or less stopped trying to help.

When a child complains to me about "turns" or "sharing," I now generally just point out the facts: "Johnny is using it now, when he's done it will be your turn," making sure that Johnny hears me say it, sometimes, even confirming with him, "When you're done, Johnny, Suzy wants a turn." It doesn't always result in Johnny doing the right thing, but most of the time it does. In fact, very often Johnny voluntarily ends his turn far sooner than he would have had I been there compelling it.

But, as is true with anything we adults turn over to the kids, they are often far more inventive when it comes to solving their problems if we give them that space, even when scarcity is involved.

For instance, my parents are moving into a smaller place, and they had a rowing machine that was too old to even sell, so I decided to try plopping it down in the outdoor classroom, with the idea being that if the kids don't play with it, we can at least dismantle it bolt by bolt at the workbench. It's not been as popular as the swings, but on any given day, children will play with it, often using it as a space ship. A few days ago, I noticed Lily standing on a log, her harms wrapped around one of the uprights of the swing set. She looked either bored or melancholy, so I thought I'd check in.

I said, "I looks like you're just hanging around."

"I'm having my turn standing on the log."

I was confused, especially since there was an empty swing seat. "Are you waiting for a swing? I see an empty one right there."

"No, it's my turn to be on the log."

Still confused, I asked, "Do I get a turn next?"

"No, it's Hazel's turn next."

I spotted Hazel several steps away, struggling with the rowing machine. "Is Hazel waiting for her turn to stand on the log?"

"No, she's having her turn on the machine." With that, Lily stepped off the log and went over to Hazel. Without a word between them, Hazel stopped rowing and gave up her place. As Lily began to row, Hazel stepped up on the log and wrapped her arms around the pole. They continued this sort of wordless trading of places for several rounds as I watched.

Or how about our giant plastic insect solution? We have a collection of these large insects. There are a couple dozen of them. They're all popular playthings, but there are some that are more sought after than others. Typically, when we have them out, we have to deal with the problem of hoarding, a word that I've introduced to the children to describe the phenomenon of a child collecting the bugs (or whatever) and not playing with them, but rather just preventing others from playing with them.

When I arrived on the scene, Marit was the only child playing with the bugs. She had lined them up along the top of a block, side-by-side. Thinking I detected the beginnings of a hoarding situation, I said, "You have all the bugs."

"No I don't," she answered, "There are some over there," pointing to a collection of smaller, less desirable insects. "This is my store. I'm selling bugs."

"Can I buy one?"

"You can buy anyone you want except the bee. That's my pet."

"I'd like the scorpion." I picked up my merchandise and pretended to hand her money.

"No, you have to use the money over there," again pointing to the other insects. "I'm pretending that the other bugs are the money."

I handed her a small rubber spider, a clearly less attractive bug, and she gladly turned over the scorpion no questions asked. Before long, other kids joined us and Marit had a booming barter business going. She made no distinction between larger bugs and smaller, desirable and undesirable: everything was a one-for-one transaction. Soon Rex had joined her as a shop keeper.

For the rest of the week, we played with those bugs, always with someone or a group of kids operating a "bug store," and not once did we have to deal with hoarding. Not once did scarcity cause us to whine. It was the kind of beautiful we're-all-in-this-together solution that only a child could contrive.

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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