Showing posts with label DAYCARE. Show all posts

Saturday, September 11, 2021

TEACHER TOM THIS WEEK IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

Teacher Tom

TEACHER TOM
THIS WEEK IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

Wasting Time

500+ 1d

An Inevitable And Awesome Responsibility

"A Bicycle Is Always Better Than Money"

Be Curious, Not Judgmental

Celebrating Solidarity

To Step Back And To Wonder

The Real Secret To Success

500+ 9d

The Chinese Are Still Beating Us

10d

Teacher Tom

Wednesday, May 26, 2021

Teacher Tom: "The Bigger and More Important Education"

"The Bigger and More Important Education"

Ask any successful person for their secret and they'll inevitably talk about people: parents, teachers, relatives, and friends. Oh sure, some of them talk about hard work and perseverance, but that generally always strikes me as a matter of form, almost like we're expected to credit these Puritan work ethic traits, like a kind of good luck talisman, but the long list, the thank yous and gratitude, is always reserved for the relationships they've had with other people.

Sometimes they might give credit to things they have been taught, like in the case of a mentor, but more often than not it's the relationship itself that they talk about.

"They believed in me."

"They supported me."

"They never gave up on me."

"They loved me."

Rarely does anyone give credit to their education, yet as a society we've convinced ourselves that school is the lynchpin to success.

Researcher, author, and Teacher Tom's Play Summit presenter Peter Gray points out that "almost nobody asks the question, 'What is my child actually learning in school?' Instead, they CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: "The Bigger and More Important Education"

Big Education Ape: Teacher Tom: Let's Turn The World Around: Teacher Tom's Play Summit - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2021/04/teacher-tom-lets-turn-world-around.html

TTPS 2021 Main Summit Registration - https://www.teachertomsplaysummit.com/?r_done=1

Tuesday, May 25, 2021

Childcare is critical infrastructure and for families of color, it’s even MORE critical | Eclectablog

Childcare is critical infrastructure and for families of color, it’s even MORE critical

The following essay was written by Krystle DuPree, a working mother and member of the Ann Arbor School Board. The views expressed here are hers and not those of the Ann Arbor School Board, her employer, or any other group.

Enjoy.

In March of 2020, the world as we knew it came to a grinding halt. Restaurants lowered their numbers to a close. A new fashion and safety accessory emerged as we all covered our faces in crowded spaces. Most significantly, schools and childcare centers that served as essential support to parents and working families closed their doors in the name of health and safety. However, although schools and childcare centers closed, for many parents, work continued, so they faced a significant dilemma, according to the U.S Census bureau. Parents either have had to cut back on work hours or usher in a new generation of latchkey kids.

In states that lead the way in school closures, women were 68% more likely to cut back on or stop working during the school closures in 2020. 1 in 5 working adults stated that they stopped working during the pandemic due to a lack of or a significant change in childcare. Of those not working, women ages 25-44 were almost three times as likely as men not to be working due to childcare demands. When we think of the disproportionate effect on Black and Brown women, Essence magazine noted in December of 2020 that Black mothers are twice as likely to be responsible for CONTINUE READING: Childcare is critical infrastructure and for families of color, it’s even MORE critical | Eclectablog

Teacher Tom: Doing Deep Democracy

Doing Deep Democracy

I was hanging out on one of our swings chewing the fat with some of the kids. I can't remember what we were talking about, but I'd just said, "I guess I forgot," when Roko earnestly replied, "You know, Teacher Tom, "When you get older you forget more stuff."

The following day, I was a sitting in a circle of children heatlessly arguing about Star Wars. Roko was there and when one of the other kids insisted I was wrong about some detail, I answered, "Well, I saw the first movie a long time ago, when I was a teenager. Roko told me that when you get older you forget more stuff so maybe I just forgot."

Roko nodded, "It's true."

Cecelia, who has just finished her first year of kindergarten, didn't agree, "No, the way it works is you go to another school and another school and every time you go to another CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: Doing Deep Democracy

Saturday, May 22, 2021

TEACHER TOM THIS WEEK IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION + Teacher Tom: Let's Turn The World Around: Teacher Tom's Play Summit

Teacher Tom

TEACHER TOM
THIS WEEK IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

Teacher Tom: Let's Turn The World Around: Teacher Tom's Play Summit

We heard it from Mandela,

"Turn this world around,

For the children" - turn this world around.

He's done it once before, and now we hear his call

For the children, turn this world around.

Turn, turn, turn,

Turn this world around

For the children, turn this world around.

Turn, turn, turn,

Turn this world around

For the children

Turn this world around.

~Raffi

It's an urgent message, one that's part of almost every conversation I have these days. The principle project of every society has always been to care for the children, yet in so many ways, we are failing in this fundamental task. I myself have been going along for years, feeling like I was doing enough: that if I just tended my little corner of the world where children are free to enjoy an authentic childhood, where they are respected, where their needs are met in a community that strives to let them grow up as free people . . . but I know now that this is not enough.

These last 12 months have been transformative in so many ways, not all bad. Indeed, many of us have expressed our hopes that the legacy of the pandemic might be exactly the catalyst we need to turn this world around, not just for children, but for all of us. At least as many are expressing fears, because transformation doesn't always naturally happen the way we want it to. No, the only way the world has ever "turned around" has been when we make it happen.

This is the inspiration behind Teacher Tom's Play Summit, a free online gathering of early childhood educators and parents taking place June 21-25. Please join us. Together we will turn this world around.

We've managed to pull together some of the most progressive and thoughtful people in ECE, from Peter Gray, Lisa Murphy, and Maggie Dent to the beloved children's troubadour Raffi whose message of "child honouring" comes directly from the Dali Lama. We have cast a wide net to assemble a line-up of both established experts as well as less often heard voices from marginalized communities. The fate of young children is one of the few issues that can truly unite all of us, and it starts with listening to children, to one another, and sharing our perspectives from around the globe.

Maori educator Brenda Souter says, "It's a journey. It's not a destination . . . And we certainly have not reached it if it is." Ojibwe teacher Hopi Martin warns, "There is a real need to repair what is lost. We've got to work together or we're in big trouble." And Denisha Jones, co-founder of Black Lives Matters in Schools, tells us that first "we have to liberate ourselves" which is, I think, the most logical next step in this journey that may not reach its destination in our lifetimes.

But that's okay. As Defending Early Childhood board member and Play Empowers founder Kisha Reid said to me when last we spoke, "Let's take over the world!" which is her way of saying "Turn this world around."

As we hopefully try to emerge from a pandemic, from political and social turmoil, and as we are finally opening our eyes and ears to the voices of those less often heard, the time is ripe for transformation, for children, for all of us, and we are the ones to make it happen.

Please, please join us. Please share with others. Now is the right time and you are the right person. Click here to learn more about our presenters and get on the waitlist. Let's turn this world around.