IDEC 2013 - part 2 - anticipation and foms

At the music camp I go to twice a year, WoMaMu, we always have a problem with FOMS, also known as the Fear of Missing Something. This happens when there are three or four workshops scheduled at the same time and you want to go to more than one of them. 

I am having an even bigger problem with FOMS here in Boulder as I prepare for the start of the International Democratic Education Conference. Each workshop time has not three or four but TWELVE fascinating workshops to choose from, and I've spent the evening narrowing my choices DOWN to three or four. How will I possibly choose? Let me give you some examples:

Monday afternoon, I could go to:
- Innovative Learning to Build Strong Community
- Consensus and Participation of Communities in Schools
- Making Learning Visible: Documentation as Democratic Praxis

Tuesday morning, I could choose between:
- So, I want to start a school...
- Mindfulness & Movement in the Classroom
- Inquiry, Dialogue, and Really Big Pictures
- A hike in the gorgeous Flatiron mountains.

Tuesday afternoon it gets even harder:
- Cross-cultural experiential learning
- Community and School Parnerships
- Transformational Storytelling
- Music Making as Democratic Learning

...and so on.

One of the gorgeous buildings at the University of Colorado Boulder

One thing I'm really looking forward to is Monday morning's tour of The Patchwork School in nearby Louisville, CO. I feel a special kinship with The Patchwork School because I like to imagine that I kind of invented it. Here's how: I was driving home from work at the preschool one day a few years ago, thinking of how sad it was that our school didn't include elementary ages. I began to daydream about the kind of school I wanted to expand into, and started thinking of names for schools. I came up with The Patchwork School. When I got home I googled it, and found that it already existed and looked even better than my imaginary school. So, I can't wait to see it in person, in action, and to get to hear all about it from the executive director, Michele Beach.

With so much to learn and see and do, I'd better go get some sleep.

transformers and math in a commercial-free preschool

Commercially licensed characters. Are. Everywhere. Kids these days are inundated with them from birth. Even adults these days grew up inundated by them, so much that it's hard not to think of some of our favorites as "classics" and make them an exception to the rule. 

What's the rule? Around here, it's "No commercially licensed characters at school." We like our school to be a haven where the bombardment of images from TV and movies stops for a few hours and children are free (or forced) to use their imaginations (and memory) to guide their dramatic play. That means T-shirts, lunch boxes, books, classroom materials, backpacks, costumes, shoes, hats, blankets - everything - must be free of commercially licensed characters.

The kids don't forget about their favorites when they walk through the door, of course. There is still plenty of talk and pretend play from Star Wars to Disney princesses and everything in between. The difference is that the "stuff" isn't there to define the game for the children. They have to rely on their mental recall and language skills to reenact favorite stories. If they want light sabers or crowns, they figure out how to make them from the materials available in the art room, using their creativity and problem solving in the process.

This week I got a glimpse of another great outcome of having the commercial character ban in place. Some of the kids have become interested in Transformers, and spent much of their time outdoors playing Autobots and Decepticons, explaining the characters and game to their friends along the way.  Indoors, they invented a new use for the ever-popular Magna-Tiles: they built a variety of 3-D shapes, named them after their favorite Transformer characters, and then had them transform into flat shapes.

"Watch how it transforms," they told me. "You put the arms up, then the head..." and demonstrated until the flat shape had returned to its original 3-D glory. This reminded me of 4th-6th grade math lessons in which children learn to visualize 3-D shapes from a flat drawing that can be folded up into a shape. These kids will be champs at that, and they don't even know they're learning it. And they might not have had the chance to learn it if store-bought Transformers had been allowed at school. 

For more on the commercial-free movement, go here:
Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood

look what i can do

look!
look at me!
look what i can do!
watch this!

did you see me jump so far?
did you see me climb so high?

see, i wrote my name.
i can write it backwards, watch.
i'll show you how i did it.

look what i made!
i made it myself.
i put it together and then it broke, but i tried again and it broke again
but then i tried a different way and this is what i made, see?
watch what it can do.
this part turns around and this part shoots lasers.
this is how it flies, watch this!

come and see what we made -
we did it together.  
i built the house and my friend made the garage.
this is where the animals live, and this is where they go potty.
if you want to come and visit, you have to knock on the door.

come and see what we are doing -
we are putting on a show.
you are the audience, you sit over there.
watch us dance, see what we can do.

this is what we're learning
this is what we're building
this is how we're growing
watch us and see

don't go away yet,
take a second look
take a closer look, lean it and examine
ask me some questions about how it works
ask me why i put that piece over there.

don't ask me what it is, because it's obvious to me -
ask me to tell you everything about it.
ask me to tell you what i was thinking about
ask me to explain the parts you don't understand

let me tell you all i have to tell
listen to my thinking, my reasoning
don't say "that's nice," and don't say "i love it,"
unless you want me to learn to only work for your approval.
tell me it looks like i worked very hard
tell me you think i must be proud of myself
tell me you notice how i kept at it, even when it was difficult,
and i figured out a way to make it work
i practiced and practiced until i learned how to do it
tell me, "remember when you didn't know how to do that?"
i will smile and say, "when i was little."
tell me you wonder what i'll learn to do next
tell me you can't wait to see

i'm making my learning visible every day
all you have to do is open your eyes
and look,
look at me.