I think there’s an important extra job for adults who relate successfully with children – teaching other adults how to relate to children. While some adults spend their lives away from children, most have some contact with them, and many, like me, decide to spend major portions of their lives with children. I’ve had many…
Children probably don’t want to hear too many times about how we used to have to walk miles through the snow, barefoot, to a one-room schoolhouse. For most of us, it wasn’t true, and even if it was, one can get tired of hearing it. Occasionally I enjoy telling children that when I was a…
Having been a teacher for so long, and not having experienced much burn-out, I’m not sure how teacher burn-out is different from banker burn-out or baker burn-out. But I have some hunches. When we are hired by a school system to help young people learn, we have many bosses. Practically speaking, we are hired not…
Ask a child, “What’s your favorite subject in school?”, and you’re likely to get an answer that may be disconcerting: “Recess.” Teachers take pride in preparing materials, activities, and experiences that are exciting, and yet the average child seems to prefer that one part of the day that was not planned by teachers. Recess is…
I’d like to do a little reality check with you. When I started teaching and parenting, there seemed to be a big movement to de-emphasize violence in our culture. I thought it was the dawning of the age of Aquarius. There was a group in Newton called “Action for Children’s Television,” and articles and books…
This is the 100th article I wrote for The Wellesley Townsman. I wrote these in seven months, because I had stored up so much that I wanted to say. I suspect that many teachers and parents store up things they want to say. If you’re a parent, when there is a risk that your children…
In most classes in the Wellesley Public Schools, children are all about the same age. But sometimes, there are too many children in one grade to have two classes, and not enough to have three classes. That’s usually when people are suddenly reminded that it isn’t so important to make sure all the children in…
Last week, you may have read my article about permissiveness/limit-setting. George Bush once got some laughs by announcing that he didn’t have to eat broccoli any more because he was President of the United States. I do like broccoli, and I’m not a Republican, but the guy did have a point. I sometimes don’t clear…
I’d like to try making some dents in what I consider the myth of the permissive parent. In my mind, a permissive parent is someone who lets his/her children do things you wouldn’t let yours do, or at least hasn’t figured out how to stop them yet. What you allow your children to do is…
When you don’t know something, do you consistently admit that you don’t know it? If you’re like most of us, there are times when you sort of know it, but not quite, and you stick your neck out. There may even be times when you have no idea, but you offer an answer with a…