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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.

Turns out Tom, Ross, and Joey had more to say about children's confidence and how adults often (unintentionally) interrupt its development.

Ross is thinking about confidence. Does practice in one area translate to gains in confidence overall? Is it a trait that is already there for children or can we help it grow? Tom points out how giving encouragement can help someone be confident. "You got this!" Part of the art of teaching is figuring out what conditions different children need to feel confident to try things. Ross wonders if it's as simple as working alongside one another and keeping things fun. Joey mentions a recent critique she read of how too much adult interference in children's activities increases anxiety. The conversation winds up with a deep dive into the organization of block shelves.

Parking cars for the MN State Fair has Tom thinking about spatial literacy. Skills built in childhood are very useful in adult life!

Watching children playing with driftwood at the beach has Joey thinking about classroom materials. Sometimes it all just feels like so much stuff! How do we balance simplicity and complexity? Tom reflects on intentionally empty bulletin boards. Mike recalls times of relfection while packing up materials at the end of an investigation.

Mike continues the conversation about physical literacy. How can we be encouraging and support learning, even if we don't have all the skills ourselves? Mike talks us through the early stages of stilt-walking as an example.

Tom's grasping at an idea and needs help making sense of it. His idea is "physical literacy" and how children become literate in how they use their body and interact with the world. We probably don't think about it much and don't provide for it. Mike suggests that we support physical literacy skills up until the time children learn to talk, and then we stop valuing it. Joey wonders if there are physical literacy levels just like there are reading levels. Do some children stall out at less developed levels? Do teachers even notice? Are adults physically literate enough themselves?

Mike kicks off a discussion about how much space children need for their bodies and how close (or not) they can be from one another with a look at how third spaces are used at his program. Joey wonders what it would look like if we could map the circumferences of how much space children use around them. Tom argues that children are often quite comfortable playing in very close quarters. Ross points out that it can depend on who is playing nearby. From there, the conversation flows into reading books and studying grasshoppers.

Ross is thinking about motivation and the impact on children's feelings of worth. How does it feel to be asked to do something versus forced to do it? This leads the group into a conversation about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and the dreaded "rewarding of bad behavior." Mike points out how things often get muddled because the older language of behaviorism doesn't match our more current language about regulation. If we shift the focus to meeting children's needs, won't children feel more competent (and therefore motivated) if their needs are met?

Joey is all in on cozy spaces, but "calm corners" have never really worked for her. It turns out Mike, Tom and Ross share her concerns. They discuss the challenges of asking children to regulate all alone and how a pinterest-inspired space can't replace proactive stratgeies and skillfull, nuanced responses to children's needs.

Tom's thinking about who uses what space in the classroom whether it is gendered. Mike explains gender schema theory. Ross is reminded of the gender-coded ailes at stores like Target. Is this code replicated in classrooms? Joey reflects on her bias against toy dinosaurs and the role of gender in her dislike. Tom sees access to movement as the key to making spaces welcome for children on all genders.