I am in the joyful and exhausting throes of “Cousins’ Camp” (this year we have 18 first cousins, ages 4-13!) and don’t have time for a long post. But I felt compelled to let everyone know about an important window of opportunity to advocate for our youngest children. Currently NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) is re-drafting their position statement on Technology and Young Children. NAEYC is at the forefront of early childhood education. Just to give you an idea of their influence, their Annual Conference draws more than 20,000 early childhood teachers, administrators, professors and others. Lots of people pay attention to what NAEYC has to say. Right now we have a unique opportunity to have input on their statement – and help steer NAEYC in the right direction in limiting screen-time in daycare centers, preschools and other early childhood settings. In a brilliant move, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood has teamed up with the Alliance for Childhood to draft a letter to NAEYC – signed by over 70 early childhood experts. Please visit CCFC’s website today to read their letter to NAEYC and for a wealth of information about this topic. Then you can contact NAEYC yourself. The window of opportunity closes July 30, 2010, so I urge you to act soon and to spread the word! Thanks so much.
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I wasn’t surprised yesterday to read in Newsweek that creativity in the United States is on the decline (The Creativity Crisis). Innovation, flexible thinking and problem solving have all been disappearing from our lives, so it is no wonder our creativity is down. It was heartening then to hear a fantastic story on WBUR about something GOOD that is happening: a new kind of “natural playground” which has just opened in Boston (A New Kind of Playground). This new playground features stepping stones, sand, water and other natural materials, including blocks made from trees that were on the site of the playground. The teachers have noticed a new kind of play happening with their students, where children are interacting with these materials in creative ways that just don’t happen on typically equipped playgrounds. Natural playgrounds are a solution that speaks to problem-solving deficit disorder, a term coined by Diane Levin in 2003 and has written about (such as in So Sexy, So Soon); and also for nature-deficit disorder, which Richard Louv writes about in Last Child in the Woods. It seems a little sad, perhaps, that we’ve gotten to this place where we actually need designed spaces for kids to play with natural materials. But there you have it: this is just what we need. Otherwise, for too many of our children, it just isn’t happening. Natural playgrounds remind me of the song “Water, Sand, Blocks and Clay” by Brady Rymer which I used to sing with my 5, 6 and 7 year olds, “I will make a mountain tall and I will build a castle wall, I will make a forest green and I will make a flowing stream, ’cause I got everything I want and everything I’ll ever need, and I will play all day with my water, sand, blocks and clay…” A great song to sing and a great way to play. For a related story about nature play on playgrounds, see my previous post about the new book Playing for Keeps:Life and Learning on a Public School Playground by Deborah Meier, Beth Taylor and Brenda Engel. The other day my kids were playing in the mud with their cousins. We were replanting some lilac shoots from a very special family bush. While I was thinking about the significance of this 1oo+ year-old family heirloom, the kids were busy stomping in the mud and muck. I didn’t get upset with them – in fact I encouraged them. “Go ahead!” I said. “Get dirty. I just read about a new study that says playing outside in the dirt may actually make you smarter!” The kids giggled at this and started asking each other, “Are you smarter now?” and answering,”Yes! E equals m c squared!” I laughed, with them, but I am quite happy to have this new research in my arsenal in the fight to keep play in our children’s lives. So, the next time your little ones come in the house all grubby from making mud pies or digging to China, rest easy knowing that playing in the dirt has been shown to lower depression, lesson anxiety and now…make you smarter! You see, back in May, Science Daily reported: “Exposure to specific bacteria in the environment, already believed to have antidepressant qualities, could increase learning behavior, according to research presented at the 110th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in San Diego.” Read the whole story here.
Now, having evidence that being outside in nature can actually increase learning behavior – this is the icing on the cake. “This research suggests that M. vaccae may play a role in anxiety and learning in mammals,” says Matthews. “It is interesting to speculate that creating learning environments in schools that include time in the outdoors where M. vaccae is present may decrease anxiety and improve the ability to learn new tasks.”
From the introduction, “We invite readers to appreciate the life of the imagination on the playground, to see the energy children bring to exploring their social and physical surrounds, and to share with us the children’s delight in active learning.” If your children are outside – playing, living, laughing, learning and getting dirty – these two new bodies of evidence help confirm what you already know. If your children are inside more than you like, and you are advocating for recess, struggling to bring a garden to your school yard or working to bring more outdoor recreation spaces into your community, now you have two new powerful weapons in your arsenal. Excellent. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that the best toys are not toys at all. Fuzzy blankets and empty boxes rule when you are inside; wild flowers, sticks and rocks I’ve also been reading the Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession With Stuff is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health – and a Vision For Change by Annie Leonard. It is a real wake-up call. I try to be environmentally conscious – but by reading this book I’ve realized there is so much more we as a country can – and should – be doing. Leonard reveals, “We have a problem with Stuff. With just 5 percent of the world’s population, we’re consuming 30 percent of the world’s resources and creating 30 percent of the world’s waste. If everyone consumed at U.S. rates, we would need three to five planets!” My only hope is that this horrifying oil disaster will be the rude awakening our country needs. (It’s not a spill, by the way. A spill is what my son does with his glass of orange juice. It’s a pain to clean up the spill, but we can do it in a few minutes. What is happening in the Gulf of Mexico is a man-made disaster. Definitely not a spill.)
Do the world a favor and forgo all the thousands of Toy Story 3 plastic junk, and all the other aggressively marketed single-purpose toys, and opt for good old fashioned imagination-inducing fabric scraps, empty containers of any type, art supplies, pebbles and the like. Its not easy to break the habit of consumption – believe me, the LEGO situation in my own house is admittedly out of control. We are working on it, though, and my husband has finally agreed that there is such a thing as “too many LEGOs”. Check out this fantastic article Children, Commercialism, and Environmental Sustainability by Tim Kasser, Tom Crompton, and Susan Linn. Related posts: Empowered by Play’s Toy of the Year Award: Nature! When Did Sesame Street Become $esame $treet? Announcing TRUCE’s Infant-Toddler Toys, Play & Media Action Guide! About ten days ago, I got excited about what I was hearing in regards to the Common Core Standards. The standards were released June 2nd by the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers. (States that adopt these Common Core Standards earn points on their application for Race to the Top funds.) As I read Lisa Guernsey’s Early Ed Watch blog, I learned that for kindergarten, the standards presented on June 2nd are slightly better than the earlier drafts. That is good news. What is even better is that the authors included an acknowledgment of the value of play. Specifically they wrote: The Standards define what all students are expected to know and be able to do, not how teachers should teach. For instance, the use of play with young children is not specified by the Standards, but it is welcome as a valuable activity in its own right and as a way to help students meet the expectations in this document. How great is that?! A definite victory for the early childhood world. It is such a victory, that a few days later, on Saturday June 5th, Joan Almon of the Alliance for Childhood included it (several times!) in her keynote address at the Hudson Valley Writer’s Project Annual Early Childhood Conference. I agreed with Joan when she said we should be shouting these words from the rooftops. “…the use of play with young children is not specified by the Standards, but it is welcome as a valuable activity in its own right and as a way to help students meet the expectations in this document.” Did you catch that play is “a welcome activity in its own right” ?! I went back to the Common Core Standards website and hunted for those powerful words. I looked everywhere I could think of, clicking every link a kindergartner teacher might choose for information. I couldn’t find the words – and I was determined to know exactly where they were. I contacted Lisa Guernsey and she helped me zero in. They are on page six of the sixty-six page document for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects. They are in the first bullet in the section titled, “What is Not Covered by the Standards”. Awesome! The conference on Saturday was the perfect place to celebrate this victory. The theme of the conference was “Constructing Worlds, Composing Stories: Where Literacy and Play Meet”. The conference was designed for “educators interested in exploring the role of play in children’s learning, literacy and social and physical development.” The range of workshops included Storytelling; Dramatic Play; Music and Movement; Nature and Blocks – each bringing in specifics about how literacy, math, science and cooperative play are all woven together in rich and engaging learning experiences. Together, these workshops demonstrated how meaningful learning happens through play. Blocks are one of my favorite things in the whole wide world, so I was drawn to Rebecca Burdett’s workshop, “Let Me Build You a Story: Literacy in the Block Area”. I had the honor of visiting Rebecca’s kindergarten classroom in November, and was impressed with her ability to juggle state and district mandates while staying true to what is good for children. I could feel it the moment I entered her room. It was alive with learning in a way many kindergarten classrooms just aren’t anymore.
The board was so impressed, they decided to budget block purchases for all the first grade classrooms in her school – and next year for all the second grade classrooms. (They found a way to allocate text book money!) Through Rebecca’s presentation, the board was able to understand the deep, rich experiences and real learning that can come through block play. She made the learning visible to them. Brilliant! The power of advocacy cannot be underestimated. Just look: The Common Core Standards include a statement about the value of play and a school board is bringing blocks back into classrooms. These are the stories that give me hope. Let us shout them from the rooftops!
This blog began in May 0f 2009, and since then, I have been on the computer more than I ever have before. It often strikes me as ironic, that in my efforts to encourage imaginative play, and to help families and children reduce screen-time, I have increased my own screen-time. Yuck. I am trying to do more connecting and sharing of ideas and information through Twitter and Facebook – and doing so has actually helped me cut down on my time online. I was worried about adding them to the Empowered by Play networking plan, in that they might increase my time spent in front of the screen, but thankfully the opposite has proven to be true. Nature. That’s where you’ll find me, whenever possible. Right in my own yard, usually – where the bird feeders, breezes, flowers and general green-ness help me relax. This weekend in the backyard, I even spied two spirited fox kits playing and wrestling while their mom watched nearby. Very cool. It reminded me of Bill Crain’s piece about the need for play being innate. Clearly, for these young fox kits, it is. And for my kids, too. In fact, my son just came up and asked me to play – so I’ll be signing off. Here’s to playing outside, finding snakes, swinging in the breeze and picking ripe strawberries! My kids had a great time playing this weekend. At the recommendation of a friend, we tried a new playground. Granted, we had to drive a little further than we normally do, but the results were well worth it. At this new playground, guess what we found – kids! And plenty of them. Often times, when we visit the playgrounds closest to our home, there are no other kids playing except for my sons. At our new playground there were kids of all ages – literally – from infants and toddlers to middle school age, and even high school. In honor of Free-Range Kids creator Lenore Skenazy’s “Take Your Kid to the Park & Leave Them There Day “on Saturday, I decided to hang back as much as possible this weekend, as my sons played at the public playground. Since my boys are only six, and we didn’t have an older kid to bring with us, I couldn’t completely leave them, but I sat further away than usual. I was close enough to watch and hear many of the interactions, and I have to say I was impressed with all of the kids and how they managed. There were a fair number of 8-10 year-olds playing together without a grown up. My sons joined them in a game of tag, and when my son fell (twice) and cried out “Ow!”, both times a child from the group stopped playing long enough to check that the little one was okay. Nice. My sons were fascinated with a group of middle schoolers and giggled in delight as the “big kids” rocked wildly on the small horses. My sons watched closely as this group of middle school aged kids played, laughed, chatted and flirted (all face-to-face with very little cell phone use!). When one of the older boys started using dicey language, his friends kept him in check, saying, “Hey, there’s kids right over there.” When an older girl sitting in a tree called down to my son, “Hey, little kid! Am I fat?!” He thought for a moment, then looked right back at her and yelled, “Who cares?!” and continued playing. (Later he told me about the interaction and revealed, “Well, I didn’t want to hurt her feelings and I didn’t want to lie.”) Pretty good thinking on your feet for a six-year-old. My sons tried and tried to get themselves onto a teeter-totter, but once one boy was on, the opposite end was always too high for the other to reach. Eventually, they found that if they both sat towards the fulcrum at the middle, instead of on the seats at the end, they could play that way, and make the ride go up and down. These “problems” illustrate how capable kids are when they have the opportunity to experience situations and try out solutions. These days, however, due to our culture of fear, kids are not often left to their own devices. They don’t have opportunities to become self-reliant, capable, creative problem solvers. This is precisely why Lenore came up with the idea of “Bring Your Kids to the Park and Leave Them There” day – so kids today could start coming back outside (instead of watching TV or surfing the Internet) and discover other kids to play with. Heck, when I was 6 years old I used to walk to the corner store with a few friends. I distinctly remember one day when we went – without adults – to buy a frozen banana dipped in chocolate. Yum! And it wasn’t just delicious and satisfying because it was a frozen treat. The whole experience of walking along the road, making a decision, handing over the money (I think it was a dime) and walking home was in itself satisfying. The frozen banana was just part of the sweet reward. We also rode bikes, played in the woods and wandered the neighborhood for hours. Lots of kids did; it would be weird if you didn’t. And the few times I remember someone getting seriously hurt (like emergency-room-visit hurt), we knew where the grown ups were, and precisely how to summon them in a hurry. Without cell phones, of course. So thank you to Lenore Skenazy for starting this movement. Many folks think she is a kook (see this article in The NY Daily News). She’s not a kook. She is, however, a hoot. (She gave an absolutely hilarious talk at the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood’s Consuming Kids Summit in April. Here’s to hoping it’ll be available on You Tube soon.) Not only is she a hoot but is, in my book, a hero.
Recommendation 5.4: State and local educational agencies should be encouraged to promote recess for elementary students and physical activity breaks for older students, and provide support to schools to implement recess in a healthy way that promotes physical activity and social skill development. Definitely a step in the right direction, and encouraging news. You can visit the Let’s Move website to read the report and recommendations. The Task Force received over 2500 public comments – so a big thank you to everyone who wrote in about recess and more. On the heels of this success – here is another way to get involved and make change for children and play: The standardized test movement is one of the many factors that is squeezing play out of children’s lives – especially their school lives. Starting in kindergarten, our children are being turned off – instead of turned on to learning. Many folks ask me, “But what can I do?” Here is one thing you can do…today I am spreading the word about an exciting campaign initiated by the folks at Time Out from Testing. Here are there words: Dear Friends, Parent and other assessment reform organizations and individuals from across the country are participating in a postcard campaign to First Lady Michelle Obama asking that she encourage the President to put an end to the use of High Stakes Testing. When she was on the campaign trail she had the following to say about the Bush Administration’s No Child Left Behind Program: “No Child Left Behind is strangling the life out of most schools.” THOUSANDS OF US AGREE WITH HER CRITICISM. WE NEED HER HELP TO END THE RELIANCE ON HIGH STAKES STANDARDIZED TESTS. HERE IS WHAT WE NEED TO DO: On May 29th send a postcard to Michelle Obama with this message: Dear Michelle Obama: We want the same education for our children that you provide for Malia and Sasha. Sincerely, Name: Mail to: Some of you may want to tweak the wording a bit. All that we ask is that you don’t dilute the main message of ending high stakes testing. Remember that once she receives the first 50 postcards, she and her staff won’t be reading them but instead will be counting them. One way to ensure the success of this campaign will be to go viral and use our listservs and Facebook. However, it requires that people go to the post office , buy a postcard and then write the message and address it. In this day and age we fear that will not happen in mass numbers. So we have designed some other ways to make sure we reach our goal of between 50,000-100,000 cards on May 29th. FOR THIS WE NEED THE SUPPORT OF ALL OUR ORGANIZATIONS TO GO INTO THE COMMUNITY AND MAKE THIS HAPPEN!!!! HERE ARE OUR SUGGESTIONS FOR SUCCESS: 1. SET UP TABLES IN YOUR SCHOOLS WHEN PARENTS DROP OFF AND PICK UP THEIR KIDS AND GET THEM TO SIGN THE CARD. YOU WILL NEED TO BUY THEM AND PUT THE MESSAGE ON YOURSELF. ASK FOR A 25 CENT CONTRIBUTION. SOME WILL GIVE A DOLLAR AND SOME WON’T GIVE SO IT SHOULD BALANCE OUT. 2. ASK TEACHERS TO CIRCULATE THE CARDS AND GET THEM BACK TO YOU. 3. SET UP TABLES IN FRONT OF THE BUSIEST STORES ON A SATURDAY/SUNDAY AND COLLECT SIGNATURES ON THE CARD 4. SET UP CARD SIGNING AT YOUR LOCAL CHURCH 5. REMEMBER TO TAKE THEM TO THE OFFICE, FAMILY GATHERINGS, BIRTHDAY PARTIES, SOCCER/BASEBALL GAMES 6. REMEMBER ANYONE CAN SIGN THE CARD—KIDS, PARENTS, TEACHERS, FRIENDS, COLLEAGUES, RELATIVES The important thing is that you keep a record of how many got sent due to your outreach. We will need a count sent to us at info@timeoutfromtesting.org so that when we hold a press conference on that day, we will have an accurate count. WE HAVE VERY LITTLE TIME TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN BUT WE KNOW THAT IF ALL OF US PULL TOGETHER OVER THE NEXT SEVERAL WEEKS IT WILL HAPPEN. THANKS SO MUCH FOR YOUR TIME AND EFFORT, TIME OUT FROM TESTING
The first resource is the brief, yet compelling argument that play is innate (Is Children’s Play Innate?) presented by City College Professor Bill Crain and published in the current issue of Encounter: Education for Meaning and Social Justice (Vol. 23, No. 2.). Crain lays out his theory through looking closely at three lines of research and concludes, “when contemporary educators reduce playtime, they might be frustrating an innate need.” Consider this excerpt: Additional evidence that play is innate comes from George Eisen’s little-known (1988) account of children in the ghettos and concentration camps of the Holocaust. One might suppose that the children’s hunger, fear, and anguish would have completely suppressed their desire to play, but this didn’t happen. Summarizing the diaries and reports of Holocaust victims, Eisen (1988, 66) says, “Play burst forth spontaneously and uncontrollably without regard to the external situation.” Lacking manufactured toys, the children made their own — out of mud, snow, rags, and pieces of wood. When a skeptical interviewer asked a girl how she could have played in Auschwitz, her face lit up and she said, “But I played! I played with nothing!With the snow! With the balls of snow!” (p. 72) I was impressed with Crain’s reasoning when he shared his thoughts at the In Defense of Childhood conference back in March. I have been telling others about this amazing Holocaust story and have continued to ponder his ideas. I am thankful to have a written piece to contemplate and pass along. The second resource is the essay Core Standards in Kindergarten by teacher Dr. Eric Gidseg in the current issue of Collage published by Community Playthings. The entire issue is dedicated to the Common Core Standards and the implications for early childhood. Gidseg eloquently uses the story of his young student Gabe to illustrate a very real struggle that kindergarten teachers are facing everyday: Gabe is a bright little boy in my kindergarten class with sparkling blue eyes and loads of enthusiasm and energy. He knows just about everything that there is to know about fire engines and rescue vehicles. He can stand before a classroom of five-year-olds, show his detailed drawings of a ladder truck, and describe how it is used by firefighters when they attack a fire. Over the course of this school year Gabe has taken just about every book on firefighting and fire equipment out of the school library. Gabe is not yet secure, however, in the connection between the letters of the alphabet and their sounds, nor is he able to count beyond the number 15 without becoming confused and repeating himself. This is in spite of daily classroom experiences and instruction to support such learning, differentiated for his current level of achievement. I am faced with a challenge. I know from more than 30 years of experience as a kindergarten teacher that there’s nothing wrong with Gabe—that he will learn to read and count perfectly well, given time and encouragement. But he has not met the standards that have been created to guide kindergarten instruction and learning. This child will have a failing report card if I cannot help him to master these skills. In spite of my long experience, I am unsure of myself as I am forced into an increasingly didactic role with children like Gabe. In all likelihood I can get Gabe to develop these skills, but at what cost? I am thankful to Gidseg for shining a spotlight on this struggle, and for sticking with the fight. We need experienced teacher such as him, working with our youngest children. More and more experienced early childhood teachers, who know what is possible and what is right, are leaving the profession heart-broken. They take with them decades of experience and deep knowledge about how to create environments where young children thrive and learn and grow – and want to be. The third great find comes from the US Play Coalition, and the announcement that registration is now open for The Conference on the Value of Play set to take place at Clemson University February 6th – 9th: The Conference on the Value of Play will emphasize the health and educational implications of play while still focusing on the role of parks and recreation in facilitating play for all. We are thrilled to have Dr. Joe Frost, Parker Centennial Professor Emeritus from the University of Texas, serving as the Honorary Chair of the Program Committee for The Conference on the Value of Play. Dr. Frost and the program committee are working to create a program that will include nationally acclaimed keynote speakers who will address the role of play in facilitating physical and emotional health, cognitive and educational success, and overall quality of life for people of all ages. There you have it…three great finds for the fight to protect play. If you know of others, please send them this way!
This week the New York Times ran an article about Admongo.gov, a media literacy campaign aimed at 4th through 6th graders (In a World of Ads, Teaching the Young How to Read Them, April 27th). After reading the article, and checking out the website, I was moved to write the following letter to the editor of the NY Times: To the Editor, — Meanwhile, there are other problems as well. For example, the fake advertisements are pretty tame. The curriculum does not dive into issues such as violence and over-sexualization, which are a huge part of marketing towards children. There are some useful tools, such as materials aimed at helping families deconstruct ads and have conversations at home, but whatever might be good, comes at the cost of giving Scholastic more space to advertise in our schools. I feel strongly that schools should be free of advertisements, so for me, the poster above – which will be popping up in schools all over – is actually just a big promotion for Scholastic – a for profit company.
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