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24 May 01:32

Striving Toward Our Ideal

by Teacher Tom


A common characteristic of play-based schools are informal policies discouraging adults from helping children with things they can do for themselves. This goes for everyday personal care things like putting on jackets and using the toilet, as well as physical challenges like climbing to the top of the playhouse or using the swings.


Ideally, we step back as they engage their struggles. When they begin to get frustrated, we might support them with narrative statements like, "You've put your arm in the sleeve," or perhaps helpful informative statements like, "Your other sleeve is behind you." When it's something necessary like dressing appropriately for outdoors or peeing in the potty, we then might step in with actual assistance when it appears the challenge is still too much for them, but only after giving each child a chance to do what he can for himself. When it's something with which the child is challenging herself, like climbing a tree, we might move closer and offer words of encouragement, or say things like, "I won't help you, but I won't let you get hurt."


Competence is built upon perseverance and these struggles with meaningful, real-world challenges (as opposed to the manufactured challenges of tests and homework) are the foundations upon which confident, self-motivated humans are built.


As a cooperative preschool in which parents work in the classroom as assistant teachers, this is one of the most important and difficult lessons some parents learn. Teachers who have never worked in a cooperative often ask me if parents "get in the way" or intervene too much or too quickly, and my answer is, "Yes, they do." When families arrive at our school with their two-year-olds, many are still brand new to the parenting game, primarily experienced in caring for infants who need so much done for them. For first time parents, that is the only parent-child relationship they know, and while there was a time when it frustrated me, I've come to realize that part of my job is to recognize where they are on their journey and to be there as they, and their child, transition into this new phase.


In other words, we don't always live up to our ideal, but rather, as is the case with any ideal, we always strive in that direction. 


The "unicycle merry-go-round" is one of the features of our outdoor classroom. It's made to sit on a paved surface, which we had when we acquired it, but it's now installed on sloped, wood chip covered ground. There's a "track" upon which the wheels are meant to turn, but it's almost always blocked with wood chips and other debris making it nearly impossible for children to peddle. At the beginning of the school year, in our 2's class in particular, there is almost always an adult bent to the task of pushing the children.


But by this point in the school year, however, it's thrilling to see clear evidence of the progress we've made along our journey. Now the adults stand back without my encouragement, as children struggle with the apparatus. The kids identify the wood chip problem themselves. They find brooms to sweep the track. Some choose to be "riders" while others are "motors," pushing one another around and around, taking turns by an unspoken system of their own devices, while the adults stand back, not helping, all of us striving toward our ideal.


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27 Oct 23:10

What If We Taught Art The Way We Teach Math?

by Teacher Tom


Surveys of American students find that the majority of us feel relatively good about ourselves and mathematics through elementary school, an opinion that takes a sharp nose-dive starting in about middle school and continues in a downward trend through high school. This pretty much tracks with my own experience. I was usually pretty good at figuring it out and aside from a couple clinkers, I tended to bring home A's and B's. I even managed a surprisingly high score on my college entrance SAT test, an achievement I ascribe to my strategic ability at test taking more than any mathematical aptitude, which encouraged me to continue pursuing mathematics coursework through my first couple years at university even though I had no future plans that seemed to call for those higher-level math skills.

But even as I was capable of playing the math "learning" game, I didn't like it. I found it tedious and pointless. When I expressed this opinion around adults I was mostly told, in so many words, that I was wrong. When I shared it with my peers, they mostly agreed it was boring, with the exception of the occasional friend who, was, if not joyful, at least able to take a puzzle-worker's pleasure in ciphering. Those were the friends I chose as homework partners, especially if they were pretty girls, which may at least in part explain why I could keep my grades up while despising the work.


Today, as a preschool teacher, I don't attempt to "teach" math, yet all day long I see children engaged happily in both solitary and collaborative mathematical pursuits through their play. It's quite clear to me that humans, young ones at least, take great pleasure in the organizing, sorting, and patterning that lies at the heart of what we call mathematics. They take great joy in counting, in comparing, and in those eureka moments that come with mathematical discovery. It flows through them as naturally as, say, art. 

So what happens? Is our national "hatred" of math a problem with humans or a problem with how we try to teach it?

One of the most useful parts of attending professional events like the Play Iceland conference from which I recently returned, is the time one spends just shooting the breeze with colleagues. I'm an early riser and while discussing this topic with my new friend Tim over breakfast, he shared a fascinating way of thinking about the problem with math education.


What if we taught art the way we teach math? We start by showing students all the colors, not to play with, but to memorize. Then, after a few years of that, we give them two or three colors and permit them to only paint straight lines over and over until they've mastered them. Then we work on arcs and then other curved lines for a few years. Finally, after many years of this sort of drilling, we move on to shapes where we drill some more. Then comes more repetitive drilling on colors, color mixing, composition, until finally, after many tedious years, the art student, now at a university, is finally permitted to actually create something of his own. Oh, and never, ever take a peek at someone else's paper. It's a ridiculous, backwards idea, but in a very real sense, this is exactly how we attempt to teach math.

I have a good friend who holds degrees in both physics and math. He once told me in frustration, "The problem with math in high school is that they think it's about numbers and memorizing and right answers. There are no right answers in math! It's messy!" You see, for him, math is a blank canvas upon which he can explore, guided by his questions and creativity. This is how I see math being explored by the children in our preschool classroom.


I'm a product of the sort of math education one finds in our schools today: one of rote learning, where you don't get to ask your own questions or express your own creativity. I'm sharply aware of how ignorant I am, but I do know what math is not: it is not algorithms and ciphering, even as that forms the basis of what we call "math education." I do know that math learning can and should be a joyful, fully human experience, one, like art, that is not discrete from the rest of the world, but woven through everything we do, yet we are producing generation after generation of young adults who "hate" math. 

This is not a problem with people or math, it is clearly a problem with how we expect children to learn it.


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03 Jul 01:26

When did we start trusting “experts” over our own eyeballs?

by renegademama

A few weeks ago, in an uncharacteristic move because I hate pain, I engaged in a conversation on Facebook about sleep training. It was in response to an article basically saying how sleep training does not harm baby brains, or whatever, which I believe. Great cool whatever.

But the thread degenerated (AS THREADS DO) into a discussion about “data” and “science” and this and that the other thing, referencing and quoting and linking, everybody attempting to “prove” their position as “right” and good and valid and BACKED BY SCIENCE.

There is one reason I’ve never sleep trained my kids: Because it’s never felt right.

Period.

That’s it. That’s the extent of my insight on the topic.

And that is enough.

 

 I don’t care what you do. Do what feels right in your gut. We don’t all have the same guts, so it makes sense that what feels right to us would vary.

we don't know what the fuck we're doing but somehow we're doing alright

we don’t know what the fuck we’re doing but somehow we’re doing alright

This is enough for me, and ultimately it always has been, but I wonder sometimes when we as parents learned to trust 3rd party “experts” more than our own observations, feelings and experiences. I have heard of mothers crying outside their baby’s door grasping a timer, waiting for the 1-hour mark to be up so they can go in and get their baby. They read it in a book. It’s supposed to work.

I have seen mothers killing themselves to adhere to “attachment parenting” rules, terrified they’ll obliterate their child’s chances at happiness if they put them in a crib.

 

I have an idea: If it doesn’t work, how about we stop doing it?

If you feel every compulsion to not let your baby cry, don’t let her cry. If you need your baby out of your bed, get him out of your bed. If nursing isn’t working any more for either party, stop. Or keep going. Keep going until it doesn’t work any more.

Fuck the books. Fuck the experts. Fuck em all.

There are hard things in parenting: Keeping boundaries. Watching your kids suffer the natural consequences of their mistakes. But these things are right. They feel right. They are hard, but necessary.

Neither sleep training nor co-sleeping is fucking “necessary.” Those are matters of preference. Learn the damn difference, world.

Hey moms: You are enough. You know enough. It all passes eventually. I don’t mean this is some kumbaya bullshit way. I mean it seriously. We all have the capacity to assess what’s working in our lives and not. That’s kind of what being an adult is, right?

Except with parenthood. With parenthood you need to believe strangers. THEY KNOW BETTER FOR YOU. (They’ve convinced us of this because $$, people. MONEY. The more desperate parents become for “answers” the more stripped of their own confidence to make decisions for their families – the more they’ll pay for guidance.)

 

I tried to “sleep train” Arlo once. He was 10 months old and nursing all night and driving me batshit. I was determined to do something new.

After 20 or 30 minutes of crying I went over to the crib and put my hand through the bars onto my baby’s cheek. I felt the wet of his face, the frantic gasps and tiny shakes. The heat of his body. He calmed a little. I removed my hand and he wailed again.

I put my hand back on his cheek. His chubby little hand shot up and pressed mine against his face as hard as his little baby arm could push. His dimpled palm against my hand, holding me there almost desperately, or so it seemed.

I said “FUCK THIS” out loud, scooped my baby up and took him back to bed with me, said “Mac we’re not doing this, just come to bed.”

And as I laid there and nursed him and felt his quick little post-crying breaths smooth out back to the peace we both knew, I knew I would just hang out here in messed-up sleep land until a new reality surfaced.

Because a new reality always, eventually, surfaces. That’s what I’ve learned in 14 years of motherhood. It’s all temporary, though it doesn’t seem so at the time.

The co-sleeping thing wasn’t really working, but it worked better than whatever the fuck that was.

So yep, I didn’t sleep train my baby because he pressed his hand against mine.

And that’s enough.

 

Mac said “You know Janelle we’ll never regret them being in our bed. We may regret kicking them out.”

And he was right, for us. For our family. For the way we do family. That’s how we roll. And it’s cool. We get by. We get through.

Shockingly, despite this rampant co-sleeping, we have kids who sleep without issue and don’t burn puppies.

Sometimes they all sleep together on the floor, and often two are crammed together on a twin bed, and even more often all three kids are in the same room in bunk beds, but I’m unsure where the problem is there. Humans who enjoy human closeness? OH THE HORRORS.

Clearly, kids learn to “self soothe” even if you don’t teach them shit about “self soothing” (at least not on purpose).

THE BOOKS LIED. Turns out you don’t have to “train” kids to sleep well. Or maybe cosleeping is good “training” too.

Whatever.

About a month after our experiment, Arlo suddenly started nursing once a night instead of 14,897 times. The problem resolved itself. Can you imagine?

It was temporary.

It’s all temporary.

Four kids who sleep and don’t burn puppies. Winning, motherfuckers.

 

Yesterday I was fidgeting with my houseplants and started thinking about how we treat plants. When we bring a new one home, we read the label to learn what sort of light it likes, how much water, etc. And we make all kinds of choices the best we can, given what we know. But if the leaves change color or fall off or it isn’t growing well, we change things up.

We move it to a new spot. More light. Less light. More water, less. Maybe we repot it.

We may try 4 or 5 spots in the house, a couple different watering patterns. Maybe we read about the plant, Google it to see what other people suggest.

But ultimately, we trust the leaves. We trust our eyeballs. The plant is thriving or it’s not. It’s healthy or it’s not. Our efforts are working or they’re not.

We never think to ourselves “This plant is defective because it isn’t thriving in the spot Google SAID IT SHOULD THRIVE.” We don’t just keep forcing a certain arrangement because it “SHOULD” work. We can see plainly that it isn’t working. Who cares what the plant book says?

Maybe this is a freak plant. An anarchist plant. Maybe this plant has zero fucks to give. But it’s ours. We committed to it. We do what we can.

Ultimately we don’t really care why it isn’t happy, right? We just respond. We see our job as an arranger of externalities, of things we have control over, to create an environment in which the plant can thrive. We know it can. We never doubt that. We know it has within it everything it needs to become its best self. A healthy vibrant thing.

 

I wonder why we don’t do this with kids. I wonder why we don’t just trust our eyeballs. Is it working? Are the leaves falling off? Is it droopy?

Are we droopy? Are we not thriving?

And if the answer is “yes,” why don’t we try something new? Change it up? Give it a shot and see what happens.

Trust that within us we too know what we need, what our kids need, or at least realize we are the “experts” on our own damn families, and we don’t need data or facts or books or articles to back our game. And trust that our kids have everything THEY need to thrive, if given the right environment. We have everything we need to provide that environment.

We’ve got giant green leaves, deep hungry roots, a yearning for sunshine and each other.

And that’s enough.

So hey there mama. For what it’s worth, I’m here to tell you that your no reason is enough. A tiny baby hand rested on yours is enough. The simple realization of “this isn’t working” is enough.

You don’t need my validation. I don’t need yours.

But it feels right to give it anyway.

Just like this morning, when Arlo woke up, crawled over, and did this.

If it works, I ain’t fixin’ it, no matter how many books insist it’s broken.

FullSizeRender-7

The post When did we start trusting “experts” over our own eyeballs? appeared first on renegade mothering.

27 Mar 18:41

Coyote Not-So-Ugly

by Jenny the bloggess

Conversation with Victor when he came home from a business trip:

Victor:  Jenny.  Seriously?

me:  What?

Victor:  ”What?”  There’s a dead fox on the wall.   That’s what.

me:  And she looks awesome.  And technically it’s a coyote.  Honestly, you should have seen her before the makeover.

Victor:  Makeover?

me:  She was significantly less foxy before the wig, makeup, false eyelashes and assorted accessories.

Victor:  *sigh*

BEFORE. (I had to take her into several stores to find the perfect hair color and accessories. People were all "IS THAT A DOG'S HEAD IN YOUR PURSE?" and I was like "No. It's a coyote and she's been dead longer than I've been alive so stop judging me.")

AFTER. (I haven't settled on a name for her but I'm leaning toward "Penelope Vanderpelt.")

me:  She turned out so awesome that she decided to take a bobcat lover.

Victor:  And that explains the dead bobcat on the wall.

BEFORE. (As with almost all of my quiet pets, he came from a flea market. He practically screamed at me to buy him.)

AFTER. (Yes, I'm aware that the hat looks ridiculous. It's almost impossible to find a good top hat for a bobcat to wear. I'm still looking.)

me:  I haven’t figured out his back-story, but I suspect he speaks with an English accent and says “biscuits” instead of “cookies”.

Victor:  Huh.

me:  But he’s a passionate lover once the hat come off.  Which it does.  Mainly because I don’t love it and I’m still looking for a better hat.  This is his third hat.  Whiskers O’Shaunnesy does not have a face for hats.

Victor:  I’m going to bed.

me: Someone called earlier but I couldn’t pick up the phone because I was working on Mr. O’Shaunnesy and so I just hit “speaker” with my elbow and yelled “I CAN’T PICK UP THE PHONE BECAUSE I’M SUPERGLUING A MUSTACHE ON MY BOBCAT.”

Victor:  Who was it?

me:  I dunno.  They hung up on me.

Victor:  Shocker.

me: I’m sure it was a telemarketer.  Anyone who called us on purpose wouldn’t be shaken by that kind of a greeting.

Victor:  One day when I run for congress this is all going to be very hard to explain.

PS.  On a surprisingly related note, a ton of you have asked if I’ve been watching Immortalized on AMC.  I have, and I’m a little in love with Takeshi Yamada, who makes me look totally normal and makes “hairy trouts (which are -surprisingly- not sex toys).  It’s even possible that I might get to be a guest judge next season, which would be awesome because in my mind all the AMC shows are shot in the same neighborhood and that means that I could probably just sneak over to the Walking Dead lot and beg them to let me be an unpaid background zombie.   EVERYONE WINS.

PPS.  Vaguely related:  These are auctions I’m currently fascinated with on eBay.  Most are older than I am and one has been through some sort of terrific fire.  They all look as if they’ve just been shocked with a passive-aggressive surprise party given by everyone they’ve ever cheated on.

"Oh, my God, Frank...what are you wearing?"

I have a problem. Someone stop me.