Sometimes, on a typical day when the The Little Middle School is in session, we’ll split the group: Whoever would like to go to the park can do so, and whoever wishes to stay and work can do that.

Inevitably, the park-going children are exuberantly loud when they return unless we take a moment to help them recalibrate before reentering the building. They’re still using outside voices and taking up a lot of space. The kids who stayed to work will look up in dismay and shush their noisy, boisterous counterparts. They had settled into the zone, and they find the disruption jarring.

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