For Your Binder

Might some of the chaos found in the study of play theory be due to the lack of clarity about the popular cultural rhetorics that underlie the various play theories and play terms?    This link will take you to a stand alone chapter (written by Sutton-Smith) of The Game Design Reader:  A Rules of Play Anthology by Katie Salen & Eric Zimmerman, 2006.  If Sutton-Smith is new to you, this will be a good warm-up before you dive into his 1997 classic, The Ambiguity of Play.   #play #theorists

Developmental readiness for writing starts with large motor movement and play!  Not worksh*ts and pencils!  You can supplement your gross motor play with the following appropriate fine motor ones! #play #DAP #teaching #learning #movement #writing 

I'll take Door #2 please, any day every day and all day! #play #teaching #learning 

We need to change the language of the early childhood narrative; we have drained education of it's ability to invoke wonder and passion and have left behind lifeless clichés such as:  investment... outcomes... returns... assessment... quality... #DAP #teaching #learning #DAP

Autonomy is defined as a form of voluntary action (read: choice), stemming from a person’s interest and with no external pressure. When teachers support autonomy, students improve their academic performance, are more creative, better adjusted & feel less stress. But what about at home? Does parental support of autonomy influence the development of executive function and self-regulation skills?  #DAP #parenting #learning #teaching

This is a link to an essay which was published in a few books, including All Work and No Play... How Educational Reforms Are Harming Our Preschoolers, edited by Sharna Olfman. After reading this stand alone essay you might decide that you need the whole book.  You might also start to wonder how many more essays and articles and books we need to write before folks believe us and the power of play!  #play #DAP #pushdown #teaching #learning #theorists

Most of this essay is about defining the characteristics of play, but before listing them, author Peter Gray offers three general points that are worth keeping in mind.  #play #teaching #learning 

Another opportunity to (re)consider what we mean by readiness.  #DAP #pushdown #play #teaching #learning

Here's the backstory: The author, John Taylor, is a retired superintendent of schools in Lancaster, S.C., he offered this history about the essay he wrote while leading that district:  

The parody was originally titled "Absolutely the Best Dentists."  It was written and sent to every newspaper and legislator in South Carolina a number of years ago in an attempt to point out the absurdities inherent in South Carolina's then new accountability act which was focused on absolute performance and threatened retention for every child who couldn't meet very challenging grade level standards. (Not to mention severe penalties for "poorly performing" schools, teachers and administrators.) Since then it has traveled widely to the point that I have not been able to keep up with the uses; but I know it has appeared in teacher association publications in at least three Canadian Provinces and in Australia, as well as dozens in the USA. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) seems to have given the story a new life.  Thus: No Dentist Left Behind.

#pushdown #DAP #play #teaching #learning

From me:This is a good resource AND it still needs to be a "good" book; not a teachy preachy one. Kids can smell your agenda. #books #reading #equity #stories #teaching

The problem here is that ABA addresses the child's behaviors, not the child's needs. #DAP #teaching #learning #specialed

Boys were over four times as likely to be expelled as girls, and African-American preschoolers were about twice as likely to be expelled as preschoolers of European descent. Although a pattern of particular risk for expulsion with African-American students has been demonstrated during K-12, the pattern of disparity appears to begin much earlier.  #teaching #learning #equity #implicitbias #expulsion