Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control?

Many practices that most prekindergarten teachers consider essential are more or less banned from Tools of the Mind classrooms. There are no gold stars, no telling the class that they are all going to have to wait until Jimmy is quiet; even timeouts are discouraged. When there is a conflict — when, say, Billy grabs a toy from Jamal — the Tools of the Mind teacher’s first questions are supposed to be: What was it in the classroom that made it hard for Billy to control himself? And what mediators could help him do better next time? The teacher does remind Billy that there is a rule and he broke it, but she doesn’t make a big deal out of the incident. “We pretty much try not to use this whole concept of misbehavior,” Bodrova told me. “These kids are not born criminals. Even if they do something that is completely out of bounds, they do it because they can’t stop themselves.”

Letter to my Child

Dear Kian, As you prepare for kindergarten, I wanted to write a letter to you, my love, to document my hopes for you, my love for you, and my admiration of you. I hope you will live in a world of peace, nature, community, egalitarianism, and high ideals.

I want you to be fulfilled and happy, and value the importance of life’s simple pleasures. This is where you will find true bliss.

Just today you said to me “I believe anything is possible,” and with that, I felt I had achieved the bulk of my intentions with you.

The “No Child Left Behind” Paradox

Today’s kids are not failing the academic standards – the academic standards are failing our kids! “No Child Left Behind” has inadvertently placed undue emphasis on elements that have nothing to do with academic success. The entire system has instead created a generation of button-pushers who lack critical thinking skills as well as the emotional and social intelligence to get their needs met independently. We have to take another critical look at this system before we churn out yet another generation of unmotivated, unskilled, and incapable graduates.

Playing Our Way Through Life

Have you ever tried to hurry a little boy into his clothing and out the door? It is usually to no avail — the shirt becomes a pirate’s hat, and then his eye catches a forgotten toy — everything is so richly distracting to children, because they are still engaged so deeply in living life. So why do we try to pounce it out of them? “Straighten up! Hurry Up! Come on, we’ll be late!”

Waiting for Superman

For a nation that proudly declared it would leave no child behind, America continues to do so at alarming rates. Despite increased spending and politicians’ promises, our buckling public-education system, once the best in the world, routinely forsakes the education of millions of children.

It’s Never too Early to Reason With a Child

Non Violent Communication, and reasoning (rather than punishing) “works” no matter what the age!  Each child in a conflict learns what they can from it! There are a number of techniques you can use to help children of diverse ages in conflict. When two children are arguing over the same toy, for example, we first [...]

Play: It’s the way young children learn

A generation ago, kindergarten was supposed to get kids ready for school. But now everyone is talking about the importance of “school readiness” before kids get to kindergarten. That’s why many parents, anxious for their children to succeed in school, want early care and education programs to have children sit at tables using work sheets, [...]

10 Reasons to Seek Alternives to Public School for Your Child

by Jerry Mintz Many parents don’t realize that the education world has changed drastically since they were in school. Schools and class sizes used to be smaller, dropout rates lower, in-school violence almost unheard of, and teachers weren’t terrified of showing affection to their students, or of discussing moral values. Of course, even then, school [...]

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