Hello Reader, New from CMK Press: Tinkering Time Buy on Amazon Young children are natural tinkerers. Give them interesting materials, a good question and room to experiment, and watch what happens. We're delighted to announce Tinkering Time: 30 Creative Classroom Projects for Young Engineers, Artists, and Inventors by Alice Baggett, a joyful, practical guide to bringing hands-on tinkering into preschool and PreK classrooms. Alice has taught young children for more than three decades and is...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Happy Back-to-School, Reader! Back-to-School is an exhausting, exciting time of year filled with possibility, renewed energy, and for some, perhaps even a little dread. We salute all you do each day the make the world a better place for kids. Rest assured that we have your back. While we can’t “clear your list,” we decided to share some thoughts that may “clear your mind” and perhaps, even inspire you to lean into your courage and creativity. Here are some of words of wisdom and witty tales...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Hello Reader, Hope you are enjoying a peaceful and refreshing summer. Whether you are still chillaxing or kicking off another school year, we wish you and your students all the best! Right on the heels of our institute in Reggio Emilia, we embarked on six weeks of 24/7 extreme grandparenting, and would not have it any other way. Bravissimo Reggio! CMK in Reggio 2026 participants Our second Language of Computation - Constructing Modern Knowledge in Reggio Emilia institute was a triumph. Over...
3 months ago • 2 min read
Hello Reader, A nearly 60-year-old paper highly skeptical of artificial intelligence is going viral on social media. Written in 1965 by MIT philosopher Hubert Dreyfus, Alchemy and Artificial Intelligence argued that the entire AI enterprise was built on a false assumption about how human minds work — and that no computer, no matter how powerful, would ever be able to replicate what makes human intelligence genuinely human. Dreyfus paid a steep professional price for saying so. According to...
5 months ago • 1 min read
Hello Reader, In between leading a lecture/workshop on computational making at Italy’s University of Padova and a forthcoming lecture at The University of Bologna, Gary and I have been hard at work planning for our institute, The Language of Computation – Constructing Modern Knowledge in Reggio Emilia (June 15-19, 2026). It is not too late to join us! Gary being introduced by Professor Emanuele Menegatti Who else is in Reggio Emilia? Do you know who else is excited to be learning about...
5 months ago • 2 min read
We're thrilled to announce a new book from CMK Press: History in Their Hands: Teaching Inquiry-Based United States History Through the Lens of Black Agency by Beth Krasemann. This book is wholly consistent with the CMK Press philosophy — trust students, empower teachers, expand opportunities for knowledge construction. The learning-by-making here just happens to be in U.S. history. Students are armed with primary sources — text, visuals, audio, and video — and challenged to socially construct...
6 months ago • 1 min read
Hello Reader, We both began programming computers around fifty years ago. What has recently become possible blows our minds. We are sharing two new pieces from Gary — an essay and a working paper — to inspire deeper computational making by learners of all ages, and by the educators who teach them. GARY'S NEW ESSAY AI Fuels My Imagination Forty years ago, Brian Silverman wrote a small Apple II program called The Phantom Fishtank that let learners explore cellular automata through play. Gary...
6 months ago • 3 min read
Hello Reader, There are few more occasions for celebration than the publication of a new book by civil rights activist, educator, and National Book Award-winning author Johnathan Kozol — We Shall Not Bow Down: Children of Color Under Siege: An Invocation to Resist. For six decades, Kozol has given voice to children, particularly those deprived of the benefits, dignity, and opportunity society lavishes on the affluent. Everyone needs to read Kozol, regardless of where you live or your...
7 months ago • 2 min read
New White Paper - Computation and the Reggio Emilia Approach Gary Stager's new white paper, Computation and the Reggio Emilia Approach, makes the case that computation is a powerful medium for children's expression and knowledge construction — one that deepens and extends the values already at the heart of Reggio practice. Not all technology meets this goal. There is a distinction that matters enormously in practice: digital projects use computers to produce documents, images, and...
7 months ago • 1 min read