Where did all the silly fun go

Establish a joyful school and classroom culture that assures equal opportunity to learn for all. Learners include teachers and leaders as well as students. ~ Regie Routeman 

We are going to have some fun with the children in our CCSU Literacy Center on Monday. Put a sign saying no kid is allowed to read this DANGEROUS Book! Make a big thing about saying their tiny brains can’t handle ideas. Everyone knows ideas are too dangerous for kids! Sometimes kids and Teachers need a little silly.

So much of school these days is Chrome Book Busy Work Sheet work. When children arrive at our Literacy Center, I always ask; what you did in school today... 

The most common response is boring stuff. Did you read anything exciting? The most common response is no, we didn't do any reading. If I dig a little deeper, I discover most of what is called reading is isolated skills, if they read something it most often is some decodable text.  The term joyful appears less and less in this high-stakes-testing upload your data-driven every-hour era.

Children run to our CCSU Literacy Center and hang out long after their sessions are over, we often have to tell them it is time to go home. I love to set up silly invitations to read, pretend that I don't want them to read....make it fun, and give out plastic gold medals for reading. Our children love to come here, our secret is Tier 3 tutoring by fully certified teachers and a little silly fun. 

I will bet my bottom last dollar that every single child read April Hillband's "This Book is Dangerous" and talks it up tonight.

Sometimes I wonder where joyful learning went in our schools,
Dr. Jesse P. Turner 
CCSU Literacy Center Director 

Don't tell the Policymakers, Data Junkies, or Rigor Ed Reformers. But tonight it is don't worry be happy We'll be jamming to a little Bobby McFerrin > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU <