A Note from Alicia: The Power of Waiting

Dear Families, 

The Power of Waiting

“I will wait,” is one of the phrases I say to children the most often as a teacher and as a parent. It’s one of those tricky lines that can be said with genuine patience or with an undercurrent of exasperation. And it carries a completely different power depending on our tone and our level of sincerity. 

I actually remember with great clarity the first time I said this to a child. Very early in my years as a classroom teacher, we were coming to the end of our outdoor time, and the other two teachers were lining the children up, preparing to go inside. I was crouched next to the climbing structure, peering underneath at a little boy in our class, who had hidden in a moment of anger and frustration and was now refusing to come out. I watched the rest of the children start to head indoors and weighed my options. I could try the magical authority of counting to three. But the truth was that there was nothing I could do to follow through on any possible consequence after I said, “three,” because he was too far back for me to safely take him out. Somehow I had to convince him to come out on his own without rewarding his impulse to hide. 

So, primarily out of a loss for any other immediate solution, I slowly sat down next to the climber. I looked underneath again and said, in my calmest voice, “I see that you’re still feeling very upset, so I’ll just wait here until you’re ready to come out.” I leaned against the side of the climber. After about five minutes, I peeked back underneath and said, “I’m still here. I’ll be right here when you’re ready to come out.” He looked at me and didn’t move. I smiled just a little bit and then returned to leaning against the climber, waiting. About a minute later, he slowly crawled out, cheeks still wet with tears, but otherwise calm and quiet. I smiled again as he emerged. We both stood up. I offered him my hand and we walked inside together without either of us saying another word. 

It’s not always possible to just wait. Sometimes we need to get to school or to work or to any of the many other places that make us feel understandably and unavoidably harried. I have certainly had many of these moments as well, particularly as a parent! But when we are able to take a breath, find our own calm in the storm, and let children know, with sincerity, that we will wait, it is often surprising how quickly they are able to follow suit. 

Image from The Chocolate Covered Cookie Tantrum by Deborah Blumenthal

It is, of course, always powerful to remain calm when children’s tempers heat up. There is truth to the old parenting adage that warns us not to “feed” a tantrum. Research has also shown that when we are able to literally slow our own breathing and pulse rates, there is an emotional contagion that has the power to transfer our feeling of calm to others. The child’s system mirrors ours, slows down, and we come into equilibrium together. (This research holds for adult relationships as well.) 

There is another dimension though to saying the words, “I will wait,” to children when they are spoken with a tone of sincere patience and love. Children are often overwhelmed by the magnitude and loss of control that their own big feelings create. When we let them know that we will wait, we convey our knowledge and confidence as adults that feelings are temporary, and that we know their own storm will pass. By waiting calmly while they rage, we also let them know that their feelings, no matter how big, will never be powerful enough to break our bond. Children need to push against their relationship with us from time to time to reassure themselves that it is still strong and unconditional. By reminding them that we will wait, we let them know, simultaneously, that we have confidence in their own resiliency and that we will always be there for them—two of the most powerful lessons in strength and security we can transmit. 

Shabbat shalom,
Alicia

A Note from Alicia: Thought Without Words

Dear Families, 

Thought Without Words

Last weekend, while sitting in a theater, surrounded by children and parents, for a performance of the mask and prop based Mummenschanz troupe, which you may remember from your own childhood Sesame Street days, I was struck by the murmur of adult voices. At any children’s performance, there is always a natural buzz of exclamations and questions. But my ears perked in this particular theater, as I realized that the voices I was hearing were not children but primarily parents.

Mummenschanz is an entirely visual experience, and many of their performance pieces drift between representational and non-representational moments, leaving us eager to assemble enough visual information to give a name and a story to every tableau. For the adults in the audience, this drive to put words to every moment was nearly irresistible, even when the children themselves were content to just watch, wait, and experience the images and emotions conveyed through each new form and movement. As the performance continued, however, the audience gradually became quieter and more enrapt—the adults, with time, were able to let go of their words and immerse themselves in this other form of meaning and communication, something most of their children easily did from the moment the curtains parted. 

In Reggio inspired classrooms, we often reference “the hundred languages of children,” as we consider materials that will provoke children’s thinking and reflect on the meaning of their work. This phrase—the hundred languages—reminds us that children think and communicate in many different ways and that when we view the full range of their expressive capacity with genuine curiosity and respect, we not only come to know each individual child better, but we also allow ourselves to become open to ways of viewing and understanding the world that spoken and written words alone cannot always fully convey. As adults, we need these reminders of the many forms of thought and expression, because when we leave childhood we transition into increasingly verbally driven environments, and in this process of growing up many of us lose the ability to experience the full range of meaning the world holds, limiting our understanding to that which words are sufficient to relay. We may experience moments of contact with the multiplicity of other languages when we are moved by a powerful piece of music or art or by an experience of catharsis that seems to extend farther or deeper than words can capture; we are left “speechless.” And yet young children live and make use of these non-verbal experiences of the world constantly. 

Loris Malaguzzi, the conceptual mind behind the Reggio philosophy, said, “Children need the freedom to appreciate the infinite resources of their hands, their eyes, and their ears, the resources of forms, materials, sounds, and colors.” When we give equal value to all of these resources, we enter the world through the lens of the child. And when we wedge children’s experiences and expressions into our narrow verbal landscape by re-articulating every attempt at communication through words—when we constantly narrate, label, and describe—we risk slowly devaluing and limiting the many resources of thought that are naturally at their fingertips by insisting that everything be named.

Spoken language is of course a rich and necessary tool that is essential to foster as we raise children to be communicative and collaborative. It is also important, however, to give our children and ourselves opportunities to dwell in the possibility of meaning wherever it may grow. Artist and early childhood educator Barry Goldberg says, “The real importance of art in education is not a matter of creativity, or self-expression—nor for that matter does it have to do with developing an aesthetic appreciation of painting and sculpture or honing fine motor skills. Rather, it’s importance lies in the vital awareness that art is thinking, and that as the activity of making art disappears from a child’s life, a realm of thinking disappears with it.” 

As our children build, paint, dance, or crunch through fallen leaves, we are invited to witness ways of thinking that are likely rare in our daily adult lives, but that drive each moment for them. And if we are lucky, we may even find the inspiration to join them in one of their hundred languages, and in so doing to experience the world through our own childhood eyes again, if only for a moment.      

Shabbat shalom, 
Alicia

A Note from Alicia: The Transformative Power of Wide Open Skies

Dear Families,

The Transformative Power of Wide Open Skies

Though my parents both grew up in the Midwest, I was always a die hard city kid. From a very young age, I knew how to find my way from the Shuttle train to the 2/3 platform in Times Square as well as from the Temple of Dendur to the Degas at the Met. I remember the old Hall of Gems at the Museum of Natural History nostalgically. I’m completely at ease in a crowd, but I also get irrationally irritated if the crowd isn’t moving quickly enough, even when I have no reason in particular to be in a hurry.

However, because the rest of our extended family lived in Minnesota, I also learned, at a very early age, how to skate on a frozen pond with my two hockey playing uncles, who brought me inside red-cheeked, happy, and unable to feel my toes. I went fishing, picked cattails, and sanded handmade wooden toys with my grandfather. And when my son learned to fish a few years ago, I happily handed him the muddy worms he had dug up himself in the vegetable garden that morning, as I realized that the lake we were drifting on still brings me a deep sense of peace, not only because it is beautiful, but because those days on the lake from childhood continue to reside in a quiet place in my otherwise urban soul.

Now that I’m a parent in New York, I often find myself bowled over by the many astonishing and unique opportunities the city places in our backyard. And yet I am also always struck, when we leave the city, by how much less frequently I say “no” in the course of a day as soon as we are free from traffic zipping by in every direction, sharing the sidewalk with throngs of other pedestrians, and the onslaught of stimulation that constantly bombards all of our senses. I watch my son relax, as the range of his freedom expands—the towering buildings that usually constrain our view of the horizon, replaced by open fields and wide blue skies, and the horns and sirens of Broadway, replaced by the sound of a breeze moving through the trees or a loon calling out across the lake. 

Despite my city kid roots, I’ve come to believe that it is developmentally critical—not just beneficial but truly essential—for children to spend some time outside of the city, away from the overwhelming sights and sounds and the many limitations imposed by the constant rush of people and traffic. Environmental educator Richard Louv notes, “An indoor (or backseat) childhood does reduce some dangers to children; but other risks are heightened, including risks to physical and psychological health, risk to children's concept and perception of community, risk to self-confidence and the ability to discern true danger.” By contrast, time spent in nature is a balm that becomes a part of us and impacts every aspect of our wellbeing as individuals and as a community. Louv goes on to say, “In our bones we need the natural curves of hills, the scent of chapparal, the whisper of pines, the possibility of wildness. We require these patches of nature for our mental health and our spiritual resilience.” 

This infusion of nature is a profound benefit of summer camp for many city children. The bus ride out of Manhattan each day takes them to a place that not only provides opportunities for swimming, sports, and crafts, but also provides a critical sense of connection to their world and powerful feelings of confidence and competence that swell as they run, swim, and climb farther and faster, unconstrained by the limits of intersections and shared sidewalks.

Camp is a transformative place, particularly for our city kids, who can’t just step out their back door and into the woods. We are especially fortunate at the JCC to be able to provide our children with these experiences at the incredibly beautiful Camp Settoga (4-12yr olds) and to set the stage for those daily journeys out of the city at Day Camp here in the Nursery School (3-6yr olds). I encourage you to use the links below to get to know more about our camp programs, and if you do not already know Adam Metzger, Head Teacher in Classroom 4 and Director at Camp Settoga, to introduce yourself and feel free to ask him any questions you may have. The knowledge of child development and the continuity of relationships and community that Adam and many of our Nursery School teachers provide for children, both on the 2nd floor and at Settoga, is another very special feature of the camp experience here at the JCC.

In this amazing but hectic city, where we are all raising our children, there is something unique about the seamless yet dynamic journey of a child and a family, as you grow together from nursery school to camp and beyond, in the embrace of a community of peers and teachers, who know your child well and can offer safe, individualized opportunities for them to discover potential they may not have known existed within them!

Day Camp @ the JCC 2020 dates + rates
Camp Settoga 2020 dates + rates
Link to Register

Shabbat shalom,
Alicia

A Note from Alicia: Stretching the Developing Brain

Dear Families,

Stretching the Developing Brain

The psychologist JoAnn Deak describes two categories of learning: ”natural neurologic tasks” and “artificial neurologic tasks.” She defines natural tasks as activities that the human brain evolved to accomplish, whereas artificial tasks are those we teach our brain to do over time, but for which we do not have specific evolved capacities. Most of the activities we consider “academic” are in fact artificial, in that the human brain did not evolve specific centers devoted to accomplishing them. Our brains, for example, did not evolve to be able to read. Many different parts of the brain have to be activated and coordinated in order to accomplish this artificial task. Reading requires auditory processing, visual processing, memory, expressive and receptive language, focused attention, and perspective taking, among many other functions. Each of these discrete areas represents a “natural” neurologic task—something our brains did evolve to be able to do—and each area needs to be strong in order to coordinate the “artificial” or academic tasks later. 

During the first few years of life, the young child’s brain experiences more rapid growth than at any other period in life. New connections are developing at a rate so intense it is sometimes referred to by neuro-psychologists as “explosive.” It is tempting, therefore, to try to condense as much learning as possible into these first few years, when children seem so primed for acquiring new skills. And yet the most significant development that is occurring at this time is in the brain’s capacity for four key types of natural tasks: 1) sensory processing, 2) motor coordination, 3) language, and 4) social emotional connection and regulation. Development in these areas readies the brain for the artificial tasks that will be asked of children later in school, in which each area must be strong enough to coordinate with other areas effectively, when engaged in complex, whole brain learning activities. Jumping ahead to the artificial tasks before strengthening all of these domains is like trying to compete in a triathlon before learning to run, swim, or ride a bike. 

As teachers invited parents into our classrooms last night, adults engaged in the kinds of activities that comprise the majority of the young child’s preschool day, painting, shaping clay, building, using dramatic play props, and playing games. These highly sensory, highly social, playful experiences, for the young child, muscularize the areas of the brain that will work together throughout life as increasingly integrated thinking is necessary. They provide the critical building blocks for all future learning. As educator Vivian Gussin Paley noted in her book, A Child’s Work, “When our concerns about academic progress in the early years cause us to minimize play, we may end up mourning the loss of many other worth developments.” For these later developments, upon which we often place so much urgency, are in fact dependent, on a neurological level, on the strengthening of the natural areas of the brain that occurs most readily through hands on, social play in the early years. 

Thank you for playing with us!

Shabbat shalom,
Alicia

A Note from Alicia: Lessons in Leadership

Dear Families,

Following a Child's Gaze: Lessons in Leadership

As the fall breezes have kicked up this week and a few crunchy leaves have started to drift to the ground, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about a little boy who profoundly shaped the curriculum in my three’s classroom at just this time of year. As the maple pods swirled to the ground, and the other children in our class were gazing downward, eagerly collecting the treasures of fall, this boy was fixated on the branches above, expertly monitoring the movement of the squirrels, as they jumped from branch to branch, preparing for the cold months ahead. Gradually, his sharp eye began to draw other children to his side and into his observations. They started to gather around him when we went outside each day, spotting squirrels together, until nearly the whole class was newly fixated on tracking the squirrels’ frenetic movement above. 

Over time, this grew into an extended curriculum, in which we observed squirrels, read about squirrels, painted squirrels, took walks collecting evidence of squirrel activity and nest building, and attempted to photograph them before they dashed up a tree trunk and out of sight. The little boy who drew the other children into becoming squirrel scientists, continued to be a leader in our investigation, as the others knew his keen eye could be counted upon to spot the slightest movement in the branches.

Yet, in remembering this study—one of the deepest and richest of my time in the classroom—what remains most profound about the learning experience of the group that year is not the extent to which their representational drawing and painting skills developed as they created images of squirrels in the classroom, or the investigative capacities that emerged as they took clipboards and magnifying glasses outside, or the many counting games we played with the half nibbled acorns we found and the squirrel puppets we kept in the meeting area. The most profound aspect of this memory for me, as a teacher, is the fact that the little boy, who was in every way the leader of this research and the identified expert among his peers, also happened to be a child for whom speaking out loud was, at that time, nearly impossible. Though we knew from his parents that he had extremely well developed language skills, speaking in front of others was paralyzing. For most of the year, we rarely heard his voice, and when we did it was usually an almost inaudible whisper, followed by a quick wide-eyed glance around, as he checked to see who might have heard him.

The experience of this little boy taking the lead in our classroom reflects the most powerful potential of emergent curriculum. When teachers have the flexibility to attend to and follow the children’s curiosities, everyone’s knowledge and expertise is equalized, and each member of the classroom can, not only become a leader, but be seen by their peers as a leader, free from the bounds of predetermined content, roles, and expectations.

I am certain that the children in this particular class extended their academic skills more fully than in any other year, because they were so invested in capturing squirrel data, gathering information about squirrels, and finding ways to express and represent their learning. However, I am also sure that their notions of who has knowledge, power, and the capacity for leadership were dramatically shaped by a year of following a brilliant, silent little boy. And I am sure that his sense of his own place in the world was transformed as he was quietly placed at the center by his peers, who recognized and revered his expertise, even when he could not express it aloud. These lessons in leadership, diversity, and dignity could never have been found in a fall curriculum box, waiting on the shelf to be pulled down each year and inevitably placing my voice and knowledge as the teacher at the forefront of our work. These lessons could only be found by following the gaze of a little boy into the treetops.

Shabbat shalom,
Alicia