Getting To Know City Kids: Understanding Their Thinking, Imagining AndSocializing

In bedrooms or on playgrounds, under sheets or inside cardboard boxes, children use play to make sense of themselves, others, and the world around them. In this study of six urban children (ages 8 to 12), the author challenges the prevailing misconception that poor city kids are “troubled,” “passive,” and “dumb.” Guided by the children, the author goes behind the scenes to unveil the breadth and depth of their curiosity, industry, and imagination. Far from being passive victims of their environment, the children show us-- through play-- how they bravely imagine new worlds and try to build them. This revealing study will stimulate alternative approaches to looking at children’s capacities to learn, urging teachers to build on and extend the complexity of children’s play as it relates to the intellectual work of the classroom. The book concludes with practical suggestions to help teachers in their attempts at Getting to Know City Kids. .

Sally Middlebrooks is director of education for the Association of Science-Technology Centers, Incorporated, in Washington, D.C.