Vivian Gussin Paley: 3 books

With the publication of Boys and Girls in 1984, Vivian Gussin Paley took readers inside a kindergarten classroom to show them how boys and girls play—and how, by playing and fantasizing in different ways, they work through complicated notions of gender roles and identity. The children’s own conversations,...

"No adult can escape the adult perspective; but simply recognizing its inevitable limitations in a children's world enables a few gifted educators to accept the existence and vilify of whole kindergartens full of different perspectives. One such person is Vivian Gussin Paley. . . . Her books....

Bad guys are not allowed to have birthdays, pick blueberries, or disturb the baby. So say the four-year-olds who announce life's risks and dangers as they play out the school year in Vivian Paley's classroom. Their play is filled with warnings. They invent chaos in order to show that everything...