“…Having usable space decreases the friction between all the routines and people who live in a home or classroom. Whether you have a whole room for children, a corner in the living room, or just a special bookcase-turned-homeschool next to the kitchen table — that’s enough…”
Read More…Many of us, especially parents and teachers are feeling tremendous pressure to make everything as capital-R right as we possibly can for the children in our lives. Why wouldn’t we? We love and respect the children and childhoods that are entrusted to us. It is literally and figuratively our job to give children consistency, security, and ensure they have everything they need to develop with the best chance of success and well-being.
But what do consistency, security, and development even mean in a life-changing crisis?…
Read More“…Let your only resolution for the new year to think in broad strokes: What do you want life to feel like?…”
Read More“As both a teacher and writer, freewriting is a practice that helps me process and understand my role within the life I live with children. Whenever I feel most stuck, I write. Not for this blog. Not for my job. But as a way to get clarity about I’m doing, feeling, and knowing deep inside. And while freewriting is a tool I discovered in my life as a creative, freewriting is not just for “Writers.” Freewriting is an accessible way of mindfully checking in with yourself, your thoughts, and your feelings…to put it simply: You just write. By Hand. For a while. “
Read More“…To very young children, however, these words are useful. Children employ “Best Friend” and it’s inverse, “Not My Friend,” because it communicates something very clearly and with great effect - closeness or space, sometimes tears, sometimes adult attention…”
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“…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“…Bathroom accidents are physiological responses to the complex logistical, cognitive, and emotional complexity of learning about and living in the world. Young children are tasked with developing so many parts of themselves simultaneously - it is reasonable for the child (and the caregiver) to get stuck or overwhelmed occasionally...”
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.
