As a follow-up to my post The Perils of Education I was preparing a piece on play. My chief concern being that the word play – like the word progressive – is itself so plastic and open to so many interpretations that defining it is like holding water in your hand: However hard you try to hang on it dribbles…
On my recent visit to England I came across a small trove of Child Education magazines (published by Evans Brothers Ltd. of Russell Square, London) from the early 1960’s. They had belonged to my mother – a regular subscriber – who looked forward to reading each edition. Although she was by then near the end of a long career as…
Come play the way we learn – it’s an invitation and it’s on a billboard right there on Hooker Avenue*. The invitation is to the big event we have coming up on Saturday – Fall Festival Reimagined. I love that invitation because it strikes right at the heart of the negative stereotype that I heard so much about when I…
Bloxes – they’re everywhere. All over the Chapman Room and now migrating to the lobby and Kenyon. What’s a blox? It’s a corrugated cardboard cube. It arrives in six flat pieces. When folded into a grown-up lego-like building block it’s a fascination. It’s a portmanteau word. Web + Log = Blog Breakfast + Lunch = Brunch Box + Block =Blox…
If you’ve been to the webpage, read your email, looked at Facebook or been on campus you will know that the FFR (Fall Festival Reimagined) wing of the PA is actively recruiting older students and parents to be Play Agents for the big event on Saturday, November 19th. Readers of this blog will know that I’m a card-carrying believer in…
A snow day is a gift of time for play, independent work and keeping connected in the ways that make sense for the work you want to do. When there’s a chance of a snow day everyone gets excited. And for all kinds of reasons. For many it is the potential for some good play time – a chance to…
So here – as promised – the Ned Hallowell five-step solution for happiness and all that ails us including schools and schooling. And as presented at Mohonk on Friday it was a welcome antidote to the one-size-fits-all formula of more of the same that has failed us for decades. It is always good to be skeptical of anyone who claims…
Childhood is another country: they do things differently there.* Great researchers and thinkers about education (think Froebel, Piaget, Vygotsky and so many others) have always known that children are not miniature adults. Their work demonstrates basic truths about childhood development: While growth can be encouraged, supported and enriched, the essential developmental milestones and timetable for growth remain fairly constant. What’s…
Every year there are new hats on the shelf in the kindergarten. Every year there are so many opportunities for kindergartners to try on new roles and responsibilities. Kindergarten is known as the age of industry for a reason: Make a suggestion and these children are ready to take it on and try it on. Whether it’s the post office,…
A must read article from the Times of London. Playing Games Makes Your Child Clever
Here’s an article to read by David Elkind in the NYTimes Playtime is Over It’s an important topic. It’s an interesting article. And it’s one well worth reading and talking about. There is one piece though, that I have to comment on right away: For children in past eras, participating in the culture of childhood was a socializing process. They…
With google now declared the word of the decade, tweet the word of the year and unfriend now officially in the OED, the English language is clearly still on the move. When it comes to brand name eponyms some make it, some don’t. In the UK at least hoover is a familiar verb but here is one that did not…
So the debate on the purpose of play in early childhood simmers on. It popped up on my Facebook page yesterday with this from the ASCD: Play is problem solving That then led me to the The Playtime’s the Thing from the Washington Post. The pressure is on to raise achievement scores and this puts the squeeze on time for…
Great essay by Daniel Roth in Wired magazine about “geeks” and school. Some extracts: “The driving force in the life of a child, starting much earlier than it used to be, is to be cool, to fit in,”….”And pretty universally, it’s cool to rebel.” …. “The best schools….are able to make learning cool, so the cool kids are the ones…
Looking through old PDS school photos – pictures of children working with tools, wading waist deep in muddy ponds and handling a plank on a cabin roof – started me thinking about risk. Taking risks is an essential part of children’s play and overcoming fears and obstacles is how we all grow and learn. Here’s a PDS picture that was…