The Teacher's Job Is To Learn

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The Teacher's Job Is To Learn

“…I see my role as a co-constructor of meaning as the single most important part of my work, so much so that I sometimes question the term “educator” itself. There are moments when I have been so equally invested, curious, and in it with the children’s thinking that I wonder a little, what is the difference between me and anyone else who might actually just listen to children and care about what they think and feel. What makes me a capital-T Teacher in an egalitarian classroom? It is this…”

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The Conflicted Mess of Real Learning

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The Conflicted Mess of Real Learning

“…Granted, I was seventeen and seventeen-year olds love to know better than adults by default, but I began to develop something more than adolescent self-righteousness, I started to feel conviction that these children deserved at least as much respect as we “grown ups” were paying the annual paper leprechauns. …”

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Practice, Not Magic: Cleaning Up (Part One)

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Practice, Not Magic: Cleaning Up (Part One)

Practice, Not Magic is a series of posts about the practical aspects of living alongside young children. Focusing on one vignette, we can parse out the developmental from the situational and how to think through common dilemmas faced by parents, teachers, cool aunts, and chosen family, et al.

Children’s resistance to cleaning up can be about a few things. Here will will consider one possible problem and reflective solution….

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There is No Magic Lecture

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There is No Magic Lecture

“…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…”

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