Teacher Tom: The Skills That Will Make TomorrowThe Skills That Will Make Tomorrow
"Let's play Tiger Babies."
"I want to be a polar bear baby."
"You can't because tiger babies would eat polar bear babies."
"That's not true! Polar bear babies eat tiger babies!"
"That's not true!"
I stepped closer because it was the sort of argument that could escalate, which is always the case when "truth" is at stake. And truth is always at stake when children are engaged in dramatic play.
Of course, by definition, dramatic play, like all fiction, is about the imagination, a place where "truth" is, at best, subjective. Indeed, the children were engaged in a counterfactual game, one in which they were asserting something that is objectively not true: that they, human children, were in fact animal babies. In that context, it seems absurd to be arguing CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: The Skills That Will Make Tomorrow
