Liberated Learning

Actions speak louder than words, but words matter. The power is in matching words with actions. We teach a child to ask, "Is there anything I can do?" rather than "Sorry," so they understand that apologizing requires action, not just words. Coaching a teacher is more effective when you tell them one thing to focus on and then have them observe and try it out. Intentionality is the key whether usin...

Being an educator is vulnerable because we are showing an early draft of our authentic self. We can't improve our practice until we let others see how we show up. Then we need to let the children and our co-workers inspire us to be our best educator self. Like everything, we may feel a bit of imposter syndrome when we try something new, but over time, we can integrate practices that are working an...

Listening to others means more than simply hearing the words that are spoken. Young children have the same complicated feelings adults do, but they have limited ways to express those feelings. What the child is feeling internally matters. This calls upon the adults caring for that child to take on the child's perspective when listening to them. And like much of what we learn from caring for childr...

LL024 Seeing the Other  This week we have an unfiltered conversation about race, gender, and class. Kisa and Mike then reflect on the conversation and see how the topics share a thread of how to see the humanity in others. This can be easier said than done because we experience the world from our own perspective. We need to be able to notice when we are ignoring the perspective of others. Once aga...

Learning is not linear, especially for neurodivergent people. Yet too often our learning institutions are structured as if it is. In high school, the day is often divided into periods of 45 minutes, so students jump from one subject to another. It’s hard to imagine an artist being told to stop working after 45 minutes so they can go swimming and then learn about history. In early childhood, childr...

Equity means everyone gets what they need. But before that can happen, relationships and trust need to be established. Young children often articulate their needs through their actions. When we have a strong relationship with the child, we see both the child’s genius and their needs. When the relationship is cursory, a child’s needs can be seen as deficits and the child can be seen as a diagnosis....

This week we have our first guests. Emma and Amanda Worms share how Emma’s autism diagnosis caused the school to focus on her perceived deficits rather than her humanity. In an attempt to support her, the school took away her agency and her parent’s agency. Eve Trook says that when power is exercised on a child, the child is oppressed. When power is exercised for a child, the child is facilitated,...

When Kisa needed a sense of safety as a child, she didn’t need a teacher asking lots of questions, no matter how well intentioned. She needed someone nearby, someone to come to her quiet. How many children could we, as teachers, connect with if we approached them with quiet attentiveness. Children do this with each other frequently, but we don’t always notice because of a false hierarchy of play. ...

Nature cannot be experienced just watching on a screen or through a window. We don’t just see nature; we hear it, smell it, and feel it. What can we learn from our own experiences in nature? The more we take the time to slow down and truly appreciate all nature has to give, the more we notice. But nature doesn’t change; our understanding does.   Kisa can be found at The Playlab Foundation and Mike...

Like much in life, showing up is the first step. Nature is not just good for children, it’s good for all living things, even grownups. Kisa and Mike share stories of the things they discovered by just being outside. The exuberance of nature allows for opportunities for us to be in awe right along with children. When we liberate ourselves, we don’t just open ourselves to life-long learning, but lif...

Nature is all around us as long as we have earth, air, sky, and water. Getting outside exposes children to the diversity of nature—the various shades of green, the insects flying by, the fluctuations in temperature. It also can make us aware of the diversity of the children in our care. Nature-based play is more common in white spaces, but nature is for everyone. In this episode, Kisa and Mike add...

Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable is a great way to take on other perspectives and stretch your own thinking. Kisa and Mike talk about times when they searched out new experiences for professional growth: driving up a mountain to Play Frontier, attending a speed-painting recreating the Sistine Chapel, playing improv games. These things may sound different on the surface. They are all di...

If we fall for the lie that there is a singular voice of authority, what stories do we miss? Kisa and Mike talk about the reciprocal nature of exchanging ideas. We all construct the knowledge and wisdom that inform our actions based on the stories we tell. That means we need to seek out multiple stories. If you’re the smartest one in the room, you need a different room.  Kisa can be found at The P...

This week, we share an episode of The Home Grown Podcast where Bethany Corrie and Melinda Marshall talk to Kisa about...well, everything.   The Home Grown Podcast can be found at  https://thehomegrownpodcast.podbean.com/   Kisa can be found at The Playlab Foundation and Mike at Inclusion Includes Us, on Instagram and Facebook. Their books are available at  https://www.redleafpress.org/   Theme mus...

Listen...when we hear perspectives that are different from our own, we can get defensive or dismissive. But if we are serious about changing anything—  about shifting the conditions we say we care about—then that pattern has to be interrupted.  Not later.  Not when it’s convenient.  Now.  Listen...    Kisa can be found at The Playlab Foundation and Mike at Inclusion Includes Us, on Instagram and F...

What is required of a fire keeper? On today’s episode, Mike and Kisa unpack what it means to tend to the children in our village long before any of them feel the need to burn it down just to feel its warmth. They know If they try something and fail, they are loved.   If they try and succeed, they are loved.   If they act out in anger, they are loved.  Even if they don’t get the red plate today, th...

Liberating yourself starts with dreaming of what you want in the world. It’s not about ignoring the challenges but imagining a way through them. Kisa tells Mike about her writing process working on her new book, "We Are the Ones We’re Waiting For." Kisa and Mike both find that writing is less about coming up with new ideas and more about connecting the threads of the ideas that keep popping up.   ...

The first 1,800 days of life remind us that the micro shapes the macro. The smallest moments—how we respond, how we care, how we show up—matter more than we often realize.    On today’s episode, Mike (also known as Mildly Helpful Mike) and I talk about small steps toward the liberation of self and others, and what might be possible if we chose to show up in mildly helpful ways a little more often....

LL009 Care and Cooperation  When we focus on our community of children and educators rather than each child as an isolated individual, we find an infinite number of ways children show up as a helper, speaking up for themselves and speaking up for others. Too often, the culture of early childhood education tries to foster “self-help skills” with the goal of independence. But most children show thei...

Liberated Educator Job # 1: Make it normal for each child to appreciate every other child. Create a space where everybody understands that everybody is different. Even in a homogenous space, everyone brings a different cultural context because culture is multi-faceted.  What if every child in a room that looks the same still saw their unique culture, identity, and experience as something to be cel...

What if we've been moralizing play in ways that quietly shape who gets to hold power later? What if we let children play the way they want to play? What if let each child learn about themselves by trying out multiple ways to play and ultimately, multiple ways to be in the world?    Kisa can be found at The Playlab Foundation and Mike at Inclusion Includes Us, on Instagram and Facebook. Their books...

There are so many neurotypical assumptions in the field of early childhood that cause many of us to see neurodivergent children through a deficit lens. Kisa and Mike wonder what would happen if we viewed these same children with a lens of curiosity and celebration. Some children may play differently than most children, but play is play.  Mike references the article Including Autism: Confronting In...

People of the global majority have to work twice as hard to be twice as good. Kisa shares how she can face people questioning her expertise and --to no surprise—Mike shares that he hasn’t been questioned in the same way even when someone disagrees with him. Kisa and Mike dig deep into cultural curiosity, expertise, and what it feels like to navigate learning spaces where your humanity is always up...

Having all the answers is a Eurocentric idea that is woven into the educational system. But we are better served with curiosity. When children play, they actively construct their knowledge. We should bring that same curiosity when working with children. Another shortcoming of the idea of having all the answers is that each of us sees the world through are unique cultural lens. Just because you hav...

Kisa and Mike reflect on the view of educators as people who bestow skills and knowledge on children and find it to be a dehumanizing practice. This practice creates a barrier to authentic relationships between everyone in the learning community, children and adults. This is especially true for the flibbertigibbets of the world who can be seen as a problem to solve rather than person to celebrate....