Teaching With The Body In Mind

Tom asks, how do we encourage children's agency? It seems like more than just offering choices. Mike defines agency as when you can affect your world.  What does it look like in simple classroom actions like using scissors or eating snack? Agency is not the same as independence. Tom asks us to consider where we find agency on our lives. Joey wonders if there is such a thing as too much agency? 

Maybe it's because he's been listening to too much Pink Floyd, but Ross says it's time to leave the kids alone. He doubles down on team stop helping so that children can feel empowered, trusted, and capable. Mike is reminded of toddlers doing clean up jobs with gym mats. Joey thinks adults are really bad at waiting. Tom believes that children are always looking for challenges.

As everyone is busy preparing costumes for Ross' favorite holiday, enjoy this episode from way back: Ross wants to talk about spooky stuff. Being faced with scary things, from monsters to giant potatoes, is a big part of childhood. Fear will pass (like all emotions), but what do children do when they have these feelings and how should adults respond? Originally recorded October 2019

Fall is busy and internet connections are not so good in rural Michigan. Until the group gets a few new episodes recorded, enjoy this one from way back in 2021: After a visit to the zoo, Tom wants to talk about boundaries. What can be learned about boundaries when children walk on the edge of the path? What gets lost if we only walk in the middle?

We often see restlessness as a problem, but what if we saw restlessness as a good quality? So many of our spaces for children don't support restlessness and so we've come to see restlessness as a bad thing. Restless children are the ones who discover new things. Restlessness can be a motivator for curiosity—boredom's cousin? The conversation takes a brief detour at the end to consider how children do or don't use pathways.