Teacher Tom
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; In his classic book A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold, the man sometimes credited as the father of modern wildlife ecology, wrote, "It is part of wisdom never to revisit a wilderness, for the more golden the lily, the more certain that...
Teacher Tom
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Before I'd even met the two-year-old boy, his mother told me, "He has an irrational fear of pinecones."This was important for me to know because there was a pine tree on the playground. And she knew it. I quickly considered how I should...
Teacher Tom
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; "No climbing to the top!"When our daughter was in kindergarten, her school installed an amazing rope-and-steel climbing structure. The kindergartners were forbidden from climbing to the very top, which meant that adults were always...
Teacher Tom
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; When the two boys played alone, they tended toward the art table where they would chatter their way through works of art that involved action -- superheroes mostly. Or maybe they would claim a corner of the rug where they built a fort or...
Teacher Tom
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; An early childhood educator recently told me that if "playwork" was a viable career option in the US, she would have pursued that rather than "play-based preschool teacher."I get it. Over the years, I've had the opportunity to work with...
Teacher Tom
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Several years ago, we had a scare while on a field trip. A boy, racing to the bus stop, attempted to get around one of the adults by shooting for a narrow gap between her and the roadway. While both his feet were off the ground, her hip...
Teacher Tom
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; We spent our holiday weekend in a nearby mountain village with a group of friends. On Friday evening we met at one person's home for food and drink. We then met the following morning for the charming local parade where we likewise...
Teacher Tom
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; "Well, he won't do that again."We've all said, or at least thought it. And more often than not (but not always) we're right. Like when a child goofs around on the edge of a fountain on a cold day and falls in. We expect that unpleasant...
Teacher Tom
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Play-based preschool should be the default. Research consistently tells us that young children -- all young children -- need play and lots of it for both intellectual and healthy social-emotional development. Unfortunately, ignorance and...