One day in March, a parent came to visit The Little Middle School to see if it would be a good fit for her child.

She sat in on a high-level discussion in which students were making plans for our spring trip.

When she left, she said, “My kid can’t do this.”

Maybe she was right. But what I wanted to say was, “It’s March!”

Our students had been learning together since August — almost eight months of growth. What she was seeing isn’t where they started.

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I have always enjoyed card games and board games, from the long summer afternoons spent playing Spit and Spite & Malice with my siblings and cousins to the more recent winter evenings engaging in Euro-style games like Dominion, Catan, and 7 Wonders (again with siblings and cousins, plus friends and in-laws!). Within a game, you create a little world that is continually subjected to outside forces you must reckon with — a cozy version of actual life.

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I wrote yesterday about my reluctance to push a student through developmentally inappropriate material on a too-fast timeline. There is a flip side, however. Learning is not linear, and it’s important to recognize when a student is actually ready to take a leap.

Here’s the uncomfortable part: It may be before you’re ready, and they may leap right over you.

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Yoga is a complex practice with many spiritual, physical, and emotional dimensions. For one thing, it is a tool for observation.

As we practice yoga, we discover the literal and metaphorical places where we may be tense, resistant, or in pain. We notice the difference between the way it feels today and the way it felt yesterday. We experience growth, not only in the sense of being able to do new things but also by seeing changes in the way we approach things we’ve tried before.

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Wouldn’t it be great if you could transmit all of your wisdom and experience to your child?

You could help your kid avoid making the same mistakes you made. They would then benefit from your knowledge and make better decisions.

Unfortunately, your can’t just plug your thumb drive into their built-in USB port and transfer your knowledge files. The download will fail. The ungrateful brats don’t want to listen!

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