Children's Play

I have spent much of the past five years fighting to make play a valued part of children's lives. I was so excited to see this movement featured in the NYTimes yesterday. So many people see this a "duh!" moment, but I want to challenge those people to see the detriment to childhood. This could be because technology is so common or worry of academic standards or fear or a variety of other reasons, but it is a present challenge to childhood today.

Fewer of us live in neighborhoods where children roam and play freely. Educators are finding children arriving in school with little problem solving skills, social skills or even knowledge of (non-video) games.These should be a concern to us--even to those of us with children who have these privileges. Why? Take note of the Newsweek's The Creativity Crisis, that Harvard staff are saying "Want to get your kids in college? Let them play" and employers are finding it increasingly hard to young people with the ability to think outside the box. See that recess is being reduce or eliminated in Providence, Atlanta and other communities. Childhood Obesity is at an all time high.

There are so many working to restore the culture of play. I hope others will step up and support this movement so that we can see true change in our schools and our neighborhoods.

Check out:

• Play On Conference
• The Conference on the Value of Play
• Playworks
• The Alliance for Childhood
• Free Range Kids
• KaBOOM!
• Head Start Body Start
  
• Play for Tomorrow
• NAEYC
• and there's so much more!

What would you add?

Hot Topic: Education!

I've seen two education documentary films this month. Can you guess both? They have left me devouring articles on education. The first film I saw was screened by a local Montessori school--Race To Nowhere. If you haven't heard of it, I highly encourage you to check it out! It features the stresses children experience in today's highly structure society and focus on high-stakes testing. Film maker Vicki Abeles saw the stress on her children and approached educators, parents and child development workers. I left this movie willing to agree that the amount of homework (particularly in elementary school) needs to decrease. Just see more here and here. But the film also left the door open for several other discussions on child development and education.

For example, are children's lives over scheduled? My opinion is, generally, yes. It's not that kids lives shouldn't have a structure and a schedule. In fact, they should! But that the activities scheduled should be more child-led and driven. Children often love to please and therefore follow adult direction, but when we always direct kids what, how and why to do things, these kids never discover life for themselves. Kids need to learn their abilities, boundaries, and likes and dislikes for themselves. It is understandable to see so many lost college students today. They finally have the freedom to discover for them selves safe boundaries, but have no practice from their childhood with smaller consequences. We need to give kids more freedom sooner and some risk that they can handle. This can be addressed by family members, community members, and also schools. Schools, however, need the freedom to focus on the whole child's learning and not just reading and math test scores. Check out this video to hear about it from Education Professor Dr. Pedro Noguera:

The second film is, of course, Waiting for "Superman". Oprah has made it popular and Bill Gates has put money into promoting it. Waiting for "Superman" is a great documentary film. The story is well driven and it made me want to keep watching. While watching I felt sad for the children and families who were looking for a better life through education, sad for the many issues that our education system has, and amuse/angry from some of the horrible metaphors about education--teaching is about filling an empty brain with 'knowledge'!? The film has driven me to some others responses. Steven G. Brant responds by sharing fault in the type of solution thinking the film uses to address education. Diane Ravitch's The Myth of Charter Schools allowed me to finally understand a fuller perspective of the charter school system. Superintendents Michelle Rhee (former), Joel Klein and more shared a manifesto on how to fix our schools. Leading Diane Ravitch, a high school teacher, and Richard Rothstein to respond.

There are LARGE numbers of people who understand we need to improve schools-not by focusing on high-stakes test and privatizing all schools. If we get enough voices, we can improve the lives of children in the US. It won't be about one solution that we all agree upon. Instead, it will be about each community fighting for the solution that allows kids to love and learn from childhood. This will be done much more easily for we also get those in our state and federal governments to value education not achievement (testing).

Write/send these letters.

Race to Nowhere petition

Put Parent Voice back in Public Education

Petition to Oprah

Heavy reliance on test scores for teacher evaluation is misguided

Find a cause in your community, such as:

Playworks

KaBOOM!

Institute for Democratic Education in America

Alternative Education Resource Organization

Alliance for Childhood

Support another community in need:

Please comment with additional resources, and I will add them.

Outdoor Early Childhood Education

My complete fascination with waldkingerten or forest schools has turn into a collection of videos, articles, and websites. Check these out!

Outdoor Preschool in Norway is by far the most interesting video noting the concept of early childhood learning outdoors.

Learn more about the concept in this Scottish interview of Norwegian Kindergarten.

This less interesting video of a Forest Kindergarten in the UK.

I don't know German, but these two were still fun to watch: Waldkindergarten Bensheim and Waldkindergarten Fuchs und Hase.

And here's kids learning outdoors in Taiwan: Forest Kindergarten Plngtung Taiwan.

Now in the United States, there's the Classroom for These Kids Is Forest.

ForestSchools.com

Cedarsong Nature Preschool near Seattle, WA

Mother Earth School in Portland, OR

For Forest Kindergarteners, Class Is Back to Nature, Rain or Shine The New York Times

German Tots Learn to Answer Call of Nature in The Wall Street Journal

Outdoor Preschool takes root on Vashon Island in The Seattle Times

Children in our world

I've been reading The Happy Child: Changing the Heart of Education by Steven Harrison. It has me flushing out a thought that continues to return to me while thinking about the current state of education and an ideal state of education. But first, let me give you a little perspective from the book.

Education makes one fundamental mistake. It exists.

Education supposes that it has something to impart, and it is from this flawed perspective that all of its problems flow. Holistic learning is not transactional; it is interactional. Far from having something to teach, education has something to learn: it is not necessary; it just needs to get out of the way.

Let's all agreed that in today's world, we don't need people who know facts (facts can be kept and found easily--computers!), but we need people who are self-directed, who are good communicators and good decision-makers. The education system today puts facts and obedience first, not allowing time for students to learn self-discipline, to become good communicators or be directed by their own passions.

Let's also consider that youth are stored away for most of their first 18 years of life in buildings far from the every day society. These students are not allow to participate in our world. They are asked to learn. Teachers are asked to teach, but do teachers even have passion for the experiences they teach? Are teachers ever given the time to experience enough to educate youth?

This is where we come back to my thought... how can we get our jobs done while allowing children to be themselves but also be a part of our world. I would like to propose living in communities that members are willing to share their skills with curious children. Maybe we aren't equipped to live in a community that children can run free, but we might be equipped to come to the children's place. A school that allows not only for children to direct their own learning and discover there own passions, could be a place where adults can come and explore their passions and skills and be available to share these with youth.

I dream of a learning center that has space for the gardener, carpenter, seamstress to complete there work with the help of young ones. I dream of a learning center that also has a guest house for people to come visit and a workspace to compete writing, art, accounting, or other projects while youth are aware and allowed to be curious of visitors and activities. I also dream of a learning center where older youth come and go to participate in their own learning experiences in our world--taking on projects with the local newspaper, retail store, advertising agency, engineering company.

What do you dream?

Traditions

With the holiday season here, there's a lot of tradition making/keeping. These are things that became nostalgia for many, but are also great learning experiences for all of us. My mother has been a part of reading "The Night Before Christmas" on the eve of December 24th nearly every year since she was a baby. I continue this tradition, but have also been a major proponent in the tradition of creating and exchanging handmade gifts among my immediate family.

Extending these traditions to the entire year can extend the fun and learning experiences. Some traditions may be daily or weekly and provide fun and nostalgia for everyone, such as Sundays of laying in bed as a family and reading the paper, or evenings with books and board games in the living room, or going on a walk once a day or week. Also fun are traditions created around days of celebration (even those foreign to you): Chinese New Year or International Magic Week or Lithuania's Independence Day. Each of these experiences may not be something that you know a whole lot about, but you and those close to you could do a little research and try out a new craft or recipe to learn something new. Each year, you may try new celebrations or new activities for each tradition or a new person may join you. Use each other to develop the traditions into new and different things for years to come.

Check out site such at Daily Holidays or use Wikipedia to find the Independence Days for countries. Go to your local library to check out books to research your next holiday--the children's section often has books with simple descriptions of basic traditions to get started.

What traditions will you and your loved ones hold dear?

Playful life

Life isn't a game, but it sure is playful. And why not take full advantage of that. Playing games for a living has it's advantages. I get to play tag with people of all ages. My favorite variety of tag is those games in which everyone is it. People become so lively when they have a goal, a role, a responsibility in the game. Dodge this tagger, run for that person, spin past another, and tag a third person. Each player is included, each player becomes entirely focus on their own role. Life isn't a game, but everyone is it.

Everyone has their role, their goal, and everyone is powerful in this playful society.