Teaching With The Body In Mind

Maybe it's because he's been listening to too much Pink Floyd, but Ross says it's time to leave the kids alone. He doubles down on team stop helping so that children can feel empowered, trusted, and capable. Mike is reminded of toddlers doing clean up jobs with gym mats. Joey thinks adults are really bad at waiting. Tom believes that children are always looking for challenges.

As everyone is busy preparing costumes for Ross' favorite holiday, enjoy this episode from way back: Ross wants to talk about spooky stuff. Being faced with scary things, from monsters to giant potatoes, is a big part of childhood. Fear will pass (like all emotions), but what do children do when they have these feelings and how should adults respond? Originally recorded October 2019

Fall is busy and internet connections are not so good in rural Michigan. Until the group gets a few new episodes recorded, enjoy this one from way back in 2021: After a visit to the zoo, Tom wants to talk about boundaries. What can be learned about boundaries when children walk on the edge of the path? What gets lost if we only walk in the middle?

We often see restlessness as a problem, but what if we saw restlessness as a good quality? So many of our spaces for children don't support restlessness and so we've come to see restlessness as a bad thing. Restless children are the ones who discover new things. Restlessness can be a motivator for curiosity—boredom's cousin? The conversation takes a brief detour at the end to consider how children...

Turns out Tom, Ross, and Joey had more to say about children's confidence and how adults often (unintentionally) interrupt its development.

Ross is thinking about confidence. Does practice in one area translate to gains in confidence overall? Is it a trait that is already there for children or can we help it grow? Tom points out how giving encouragement can help someone be confident. "You got this!" Part of the art of teaching is figuring out what conditions different children need to feel confident to try things. Ross wonders if it's...

Parking cars for the MN State Fair has Tom thinking about spatial literacy. Skills built in childhood are very useful in adult life!

Watching children playing with driftwood at the beach has Joey thinking about classroom materials. Sometimes it all just feels like so much stuff! How do we balance simplicity and complexity? Tom reflects on intentionally empty bulletin boards. Mike recalls times of relfection while packing up materials at the end of an investigation.

Mike continues the conversation about physical literacy. How can we be encouraging and support learning, even if we don't have all the skills ourselves? Mike talks us through the early stages of stilt-walking as an example. 

Tom's grasping at an idea and needs help making sense of it. His idea is "physical literacy" and how children become literate in how they use their body and interact with the world. We probably don't think about it much and don't provide for it. Mike suggests that we support physical literacy skills up until the time children learn to talk, and then we stop valuing it. Joey wonders if there are ph...

Mike kicks off a discussion about how much space children need for their bodies and how close (or not) they can be from one another with a look at how third spaces are used at his program. Joey wonders what it would look like if we could map the circumferences of how much space children use around them. Tom argues that children are often quite comfortable playing in very close quarters. Ross point...

Ross is thinking about motivation and the impact on children's feelings of worth. How does it feel to be asked to do something versus forced to do it? This leads the group into a conversation about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and the dreaded "rewarding of bad behavior." Mike points out how things often get muddled because the older language of behaviorism doesn't match our more current lang...

Joey is all in on cozy spaces, but "calm corners" have never really worked for her. It turns out Mike, Tom and Ross share her concerns. They discuss the challenges of asking children to regulate all alone and how a pinterest-inspired space can't replace proactive stratgeies and skillfull, nuanced responses to children's needs.

Tom's thinking about who uses what space in the classroom whether it is gendered. Mike explains gender schema theory. Ross is reminded of the gender-coded ailes at stores like Target. Is this code replicated in classrooms? Joey reflects on her bias against toy dinosaurs and the role of gender in her dislike. Tom sees access to movement as the key to making spaces welcome for children on all gender...

Tom's been watching the World Cup and thinking about the many different ways people hug. Naturally this leads to a conversation about what children learn about hugging. Is hugging professional? How is it diffrerent for men in the classroom? What if you don't want a hug? What is the role of family culture?

Ross has been taking notes and wants a follow up conversation on the ways that physical play creates an entry point for social relationships. Tom points out how joint ventures in the physical world create openings for friendship—bumping cars, filling big buckets with sand. Joey is reminded of recent statue game where physical play was a path to quickly forming relationships. Mike wonders if physic...

Mike emphasizes the importance of allowing for mistakes while children are learning social skills. There will be bumping and complaining, but also essential development. Tom recalls two children who happily squished close together to fill a tube at the sensory table. A blanket rule about squishing would have shut down that learning. Helping children tune in to one another is the goal.  

Joey is thinking about the role of the body in social learning and building social skills. Ross reminds us of the importance of making mistakes while we learn. Sometimes you have to spill the water on Mike to learn how much he doesn't like it. Tom is running late, so it's up to Mike to coin the phrase, "the body is a social tool." Tom finally arrives and gives his approval.

Ross circles back to a conversation about what sharing really means. Tom reminds us that when teachers strictly impose time limits or make decisions about when children must "share," they take away the chance for the children to define what is possible. When children are included in decision-making, we see more sharing and acts of kindness than we may have thought possible.

Tom reflects on a friendly game of cards with his grandson that became locked into a fight. When and why is it important to follow the rules when playing games with children? When do you play the "friends way" and when do you play the "rules way"?

Mike leads a discussion about the nonlinear nature of learning. As Ross explains, children's learning looks like a "Family Circle" cartoon, not a straight line.

In a continuation of last week's conversation about how children learn, Ross is thinking about how unprompted feedback can squash intrinsic motivation and discovery. The conversation flows from there. The group talks about the stages of the learning cycle, how play based teaching can sometimes gloss over these stages, the importance of attunement, and the impact of the timing of feedback.

Joey is triggered by a guest to her school wondering when the "learning" would happen. What could she say to this visitor if she could go back in time? Ross might turn the question around to help make the point that adults also need interest, excitement, and motivation to learn. Mike is reminded of a Lillian Katz quote which points out we are often wasting time for most of our students when we thi...

Joey wants to talk about racing and competition as she's been spending time with children who shout, "I'm first and you're not!" Is competitiveness and hierarchical ranking just part of typical development or does it reflect a system of values that we are modeling for children?  Mike and Tom share ideas for de-escalating when emotions run high at competitive moments. Tom is reminded of shoppers' b...

Ross is thinking about unhelpful help again. How much are we helping children and when does our help cause an interruption? Joey recalls a time when intervening to support a child's speech interrupted the flow of a conversation. Mike thinks about a child who likes to knock things down and the decision whether to intervene before someone's tower comes crashing down. Perhaps we need one more word th...