“…As educators, we design environments and experiences. We use tools and materials. We hope to provoke new ways of knowing in children, families, and in ourselves. These are the mosaic-like pieces of our project. School itself is our large-scale medium for artistic, political, and philosophical progress. And it’s a group effort…”
Read More“…I was ready to rumble over the idea of “boy colors,” “girl colors,” and the rights of all children to wear any dress they want. But as I gained more experience, it wasn’t the children I worried about any longer. I found young children to be open and accepting of interventions like, “Oh, actually colors are not about boys and girls. They are just about color.” Not such a big deal. What I found instead, as if so often the case, if that it was the adults who couldn’t shake the gender habit….”
Read More“…We have to learn to view children as thinkers first and foremost. Researchers of themselves and those around them. We have to value that work. So, for NML, I knew I had to do that literally. As in, pay children for their art and labor…”
“…The key to successful goodbyes is a clear, pre-determined, and consistent routine for saying goodbye each day…”
Read MoreRather than rote academics, your child will be better served, dare I say most ready, if they arrive at kindergarten equipped with strong social-emotional and intellectual dispositions. At the basest level your child will need to come into kindergarten knowing how to be away from home and participate a school community…
Read More“… ‘normal’ though a behavior may be in theory, the lived reality is that this is your specific child who is away from you all day, for whom you worry and love and wish you could be with, and whom you know as a complex and vibrant human being - and they are hurting someone else’s. That’s hard. Very hard…but it’s not forever.”
Read More“…Yet there, in my home, at 11pm on New Year’s Eve, was the echo of some adultified thunder I thought I had pushed aside.
I didn’t have a childproof room. I had a childproof heart, which was much worse…”
“…Young children, especially, are scientists tenured at the intersection of nature and nurture. The drive to constantly learn more is natural -- children have a physiological need to experience novelty and integrate new information into their thinking. Supporting that growth is about providing meaningful experiences and useful, developmentally appropriate feedback. The way we as adults respond nurtures either the development, refinement, or inhibition of children’s understandings…”
Read More“…no matter what happens or how beautifully you’ve prepared a speech about kindness, the power of literacy, or why germs make us sick sopleasestopsuckingyourfingers, there is no one perfect thing you can say that will change someone’s behavior once and for all. This understanding can free us up to really see children for who they are, developmentally and as individuals…”
Read MoreMicah Card is a writer and educator in Los Angeles, CA.
No Magic Lecture is a blog about teaching, learning, and living alongside young children, though the principles here apply to all learners (including you!). Creating a meaningful life with children is about holding a vision and seeing it through together. The phrase “No Magic Lecture” means there is no one perfect thing that must make or break a moment, a behavior, a child, family, or classroom. It’s a reminder, reprieve, and an invitation. Welcome.
Micah Card is a writer and educator in Santa Cruz, CA. She believes in the power of children, thinking deeply and critically, and in reminding ourselves that the point of all this is to grow.
To learn more about Micah’s work and credentials, click here.
