The Girl Who Didn't Know How to Play
A few summers back, a family moved to Seattle for the summer from Vancouver, British Columbia for the sole purpose of enrolling their five-year-old daughter Anjoli in Woodland Park's Summer Program. This sort of thing happens sometimes, because of the blog. I find it embarrassing and not necessarily in the best interest of children to commute long distances to attend preschool, especially when I know there are outstanding play-based programs closer to home.
When I asked this father why they had left the girl's mother and older siblings to come so far just for four two-and-a-half hour sessions a week, he told me he was worried about Anjoli. "She doesn't know how to play." All of his children had attended school from the earliest age possible, schools that promised academic achievement, but he had recently seen the error of his ways. He told me that he felt it was too late for his sons, but he hoped that it wasn't for Anjoli.
It all seemed both heartbreaking and bizarre to me, but the father was sincere. I'd never met a child who didn't know how to play. Maybe, I thought, this father simply didn't know what play looked like. Indeed, I started our first day together on CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: The Girl Who Didn't Know How to Play