Teacher Tom
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Yoan Capote (detail from Isla, oil, nails, fish hooks, artist's blood)I often talk about my blogging habit as the core of my reflective practice as an educator. I generally don't sit down and write because I have answers, but rather...
Teacher Tom
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; As a play-based preschool teacher, I make sure, every day, to have at least two opportunities for making art available to the kids, one indoors and one outdoors. Typically, the outdoor provocation offers the opportunity to get good and...
Teacher Tom
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Growing up, family dinners weren't exactly sacred, but they were our default mode. Most evenings during my first 18 years of life involved the five of us sitting down around the dining room table and talking.Much of what we talked about...
Teacher Tom
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; More often than not in our culture, when someone is talking about "success" we assume they are referring to either material wealth or the result of someone having achieved some sort of victory or prize. And often they are. Most of us are...
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}; I subscribed to The Atlantic for quite awhile, but recently let it expire when I decided to limit my consumption of "political news." I don't have the time or bandwidth. I'm too busy playing with children and reading books.That said,...
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}; "Wait a minute! I know how to play this game."The children were standing around a table upon which were the tokens, dice and other parts and pieces from the board games Monopoly and The Game of Life. The night before, I had discovered,...
Teacher Tom
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Imaginative play is the backbone of most of the play we see in our preschool classrooms. It might be making art or building with blocks or playing house or putting on costumes and creating entire worlds. It's the opposite of our cultural...