Roberto Germán [00:00:01]:
Welcome to Our Classroom. In this space, we talk about education, which is inclusive of but not limited to what happens in schools. Education is taking place whenever and wherever we are willing to learn. I am your host, Roberto Germán, and Our Classroom is officially in session. Welcome back to Our Classroom. Hey. Today we have Samuel Broaden and Kisa Marx. Yes, that’s right, folks.
Roberto Germán [00:00:38]:
Special guests—double the trouble, double the fun. Samuel is an early childhood advocate and author who believes in the power of childhood and showing children the power they have within themselves. So important for children to recognize the power they have within themselves. And he’s worked in early education for about 20 years—from teacher to administration to quality coach, and now author and speaker. Kisa Marx, author, anti-racist curriculum developer, child advocate, and champion for early educators. Two decades in the field, so she’s got the experience. Spent the past 15 years running self-affirming play and nature-focused family home childcare in Oak Park, Illinois.
Roberto Germán [00:01:31]:
Recently switched to a nonprofit model to offer high-quality childcare because we know how expensive childcare is for families who would otherwise be denied access. That is so essential. So thank you both for being here. Thank you, folks, for being here. Greatly appreciate it. Y’all have a book out that we’re gonna get into because you’re talking about some things, you talk about some things when it comes to weapon play in early childhood. And that’s interesting because even as I look at my own children, I’m like, yo, you know, like, is this just like in your nature, or is it our nature as a society?
Kisa Marx [00:02:14]:
Right, let’s talk about that.
Roberto Germán [00:02:16]:
Hey, I live in Florida. I live in Florida. You know, when I drive on the road, I see they got billboards for the gun shows and whatnot.
Kisa Marx [00:02:22]:
Yeah.
Roberto Germán [00:02:23]:
All right. So, you know, it’s a different vibe out here where we’re at, but we know it’s not just Florida. It’s, you know, across the country. There’s a lot going on that relates to this particular topic, which I found extremely interesting. And so I am curious to hear from you, to learn from you. And I know y’all got the book out too. So let’s first, thank you for being here. I’m talking a lot, but I’m talking a lot because this topic of rethinking weapon play, you know, it got my attention.
Roberto Germán [00:03:00]:
So thank you both for being here.
Kisa Marx [00:03:03]:
Thank you for having me.
Samuel Broaden [00:03:05]:
Yeah, thank you so much for having us. We’re excited—always excited to talk about this topic. So yeah, thanks so much.
Roberto Germán [00:03:12]:
Well then, let’s talk about it.
Kisa Marx [00:03:13]:
Let’s get into it.
Samuel Broaden [00:03:14]:
Let’s do it.
Roberto Germán [00:03:16]:
Listen. All right, I’m coming in hot.
Kisa Marx [00:03:18]:
Okay.
Roberto Germán [00:03:20]:
How does weapon play in early childhood serve as a tool for children to process complex emotions and social dynamics? Like, what’s this stuff y’all talking about when it comes to rethinking weapon play? Because, you know, some people ain’t gonna ride with you on this.
Samuel Broaden [00:03:44]:
Yeah. I mean, we already know that play is the best way that children learn. It’s honestly, like, I feel like it’s the best way that all of us learn, right? But so often, as adults, we kind of forget about play. But play is the way that children learn. And there are so many things that they’re working through that they’re seeing, that they’re hearing, that they don’t really understand. And so they use play as a way to act things out, to get their feelings out, to really just navigate the world around them.
Samuel Broaden [00:04:15]:
And this idea of weapon play is no different, right? It’s a type of play that we’ve all engaged in when we were kids. It’s a type of play that is just really, really natural. And so they’re able to use that play to think about different dynamics in their own life, to think about different dynamics of how they fit into their community around them, how they communicate with each other. And so just like any other kind of play, it’s really just how they make sense of the world and what they’re seeing around them.
Kisa Marx [00:04:49]:
Yeah, and I’ll piggyback off that and just say that, you know, in our title, it’s about how to encourage imagination, kindness, and consent. And all of that happens through this play that’s often seen as taboo, specifically in weapon play, because you learn consent. You learn what people like, what they don’t like. You learn how to treat people, how to be kind to people. You learn how to navigate the human experience, power dynamics, and all these bigger issues through just pretending your stick is a gun or pretending that you have some bazookas. When children are processing the world around them through play, particularly weapon play, they learn all of those things in that one aspect of play. So it’s a powerful tool—no pun intended, I guess—because, yeah, it’s a very powerful tool for children to learn.
Roberto Germán [00:05:53]:
Well, in the book, you say that the goal of this book is to help support educators in thinking differently and more deeply about the work they do.
Kisa Marx [00:06:07]:
Yeah.
Roberto Germán [00:06:08]:
Right. So, and the reasons why they do and say things and what it all means. How has rethinking weapon play challenged your own beliefs and practices? Has it made you see certain things differently, things that, when you were younger, you were like, “Yeah, I never thought about it like that,” or “Maybe I never thought about it at all”?
Kisa Marx [00:06:31]:
Yeah. I think for me in particular, as educators—and I think Samuel can attest to this as well—we do a lot of things because we’ve always done them. And as parents, we do a lot of things because we’ve always done them. It’s just mindless. We don’t think about it. We don’t put any reflection into the things we do and say.
Kisa Marx [00:06:54]:
And the “no’s” that just come straight out of our mouths, you know, involuntarily. This has challenged everything within me. I grew up in a no-gun household. We didn’t play guns. But I also grew up on the South Side of Chicago with guns in the house. So it was like this very confusing combination. Like, you couldn’t say it, you couldn’t talk about it, you couldn’t play about it, but it was always there around you. There were drive-bys on my corner weekly, but nobody could talk about it around you.
Kisa Marx [00:07:35]:
And so I just grew up with this immediate “no” to it. And then I let my children play. I have three male-identifying children. Okay, I have three male-identifying children. And it was a “yes” for them until Tamir Rice got killed because they grew up in the same time. And then it was like an immediate “no” because I was fearful for them. So once I started to reflect on it and think about how powerful this type of play was and how necessary it was, it challenged everything within me.
Roberto Germán [00:08:12]:
Can we back up a moment, Kisa? Can we back up?
Kisa Marx [00:08:15]:
Yep.
Roberto Germán [00:08:15]:
You had mentioned growing up in your household. It was a “no” in terms of, and what I’m understanding is that y’all couldn’t talk about it or you couldn’t play it. We couldn’t play or whatever. Can you explain why it was a “no”? Right. So there was that it was present in the house, but y’all couldn’t talk about it. You couldn’t, you know, do the imaginary play.
Roberto Germán [00:08:34]:
Explain why? Because I want to suspend assumptions here. I don’t want to assume that the listener is just gonna fully understand, like, that tension that existed there.
Kisa Marx [00:08:46]:
Yeah. Okay. So I grew up in the ’80s and ’90s on the South Side of Chicago in the middle of the crack war, the AIDS epidemic, the gang violence—all the things, right? And so I have two older brothers, and gangs and guns were a means of survival right at that time for them. And my grandfather was from the South, and so he kept a rifle behind his chair in our room. But we could not play guns.
Kisa Marx [00:09:20]:
We could not say “gun.” We could not do any of those things. So there was this extreme confusion about guns because they were literally everywhere. We had a drop ceiling you could push up, and there were literally guns up there. And so they were under beds and stashed in places, like we were in Belly or something. Like, it was just everywhere.
Kisa Marx [00:09:45]:
But we could not talk about it, and we couldn’t even acknowledge the fact that they were there. And so, yeah, it was very, very confusing and hard to grow up not really knowing if there was something wrong with it, not knowing whether this is a safety thing, not knowing how to use it, and just being scared of what it was doing around the people around us.
Roberto Germán [00:10:06]:
That’s real. That’s real. And you’re really showing the era you’re from breaking out the Belly reference. Samuel, I’m wondering, Samuel, how, just listening to Kisa, how your experience was either similar or different to Kisa’s.
Samuel Broaden [00:10:29]:
Yeah, so I have a very different lived experience than Kisa. And in the same way that, you know, growing up, that type of play wasn’t just—it wasn’t something that adults encouraged us to do. It was never really something that I was specifically told not to do. When I grew up, I was in a small, rural, mountain-y kind of place. And so there was a lot of independent play—we were out in the woods, we were out just by ourselves. And so it was never something that was encouraged, but it was never really something that was explicitly told, “No.”
Samuel Broaden [00:11:03]:
But when I got into education, you know, the things that we’re taught as we’re learning to be educators are those automatic “no’s” without any sort of reflection. And so even five, six years ago, I was the teacher who said “no” to a lot of things. I was the teacher who said “no guns at school.” I was the teacher who said “no” to all those kinds of things. And it wasn’t until a few years ago that I really was like, “Okay, I’m continuing to say the same thing over and over and over again, and what I’m wanting isn’t happening.” So there’s some sort of disconnect between me continually just saying “no” and the children continuing this play.
Samuel Broaden [00:12:19]:
And so I really just got to the point where I was like, “I need to figure this out.” You know, I tell the story in the book about just having the conversation with the children in the moment and being like, “I need to try to understand what’s going on because I’m saying these things. It’s not clicking.” We had a huge conversation about what this type of play meant to them, and that’s really what opened my eyes to how much of our “no” is our own perception of what the play is and not what the children are thinking as they’re doing it. Right?
Samuel Broaden [00:12:39]:
Because I had the conversation with them and they were like, “It’s fun. It’s this. We like doing it.” None of it was anything that was negative. None of it was anything that was violent. None of it was anything that had a bad intention. It was all just imaginative and fun. And so being able to just stop and kind of reflect and say, “Okay, I can’t just keep saying no just because that’s what I’ve been doing, just because that’s what I think I should be doing,” because nothing is getting resolved, nothing is getting fixed, nothing is working here by me just saying that. And so being able to get to that point of that mindset of being like, “Okay, I need to rethink this,” you know, that’s a journey in itself to get to that point.
Kisa Marx [00:13:24]:
And then fun fact, then he marries somebody who lived down the way from me.
Samuel Broaden [00:13:28]:
Yes, my husband grew up on the South Side of Chicago as well. And so he and Kisa have that connection. And so, you know, going through this process of writing this book, hearing Kisa’s lived experience and then obviously knowing my husband’s lived experience and talking with him through the things that I was writing, really kind of—I was able to round out all these different lived experiences and even be able to recognize my own privilege in talking about this topic that maybe I hadn’t really touched on before.
Kisa Marx [00:14:00]:
So that—I don’t want to derail us, but that was a thread that we had to kind of pull together, like Perry and I, because the story, how we got here, was through a story of a child in Samuel’s classroom.
Roberto Germán [00:14:21]:
Yeah, okay. Okay, that’s good context.
Kisa Marx [00:14:24]:
Yeah, that child happened to be Black, but he was the only Black child in an all-white classroom. And so Perry’s perspective and my perspective were totally different. When Samuel was like, “Hey, I’m Teacher of the Year. Everybody’s gonna start playing weapon play,” Perry was like, “Wait. How do you think that’s gonna go down with his parents?” And I was like, “If I was to come in that classroom and see a bunch of white children chasing my Black child, shooting at him—”
Roberto Germán [00:14:58]:
Come on.
Kisa Marx [00:14:58]:
There would be a different conversation. And so, yeah, we were able to really, really reflect on that and how that looks from different angles—Perry as a Black man, me as a Black woman and mother of male children, and then Samuel with his experience and his background and wanting to be a reflective teacher and how that all works for our children.
Roberto Germán [00:15:23]:
Wow. Yeah, I’m glad you mentioned that. The context matters, you know, like—oh, wait a second.
Kisa Marx [00:15:31]:
Yeah, it was really dynamic that we could get there. Like, wow.
Roberto Germán [00:15:36]:
Oh, okay. Now I see where this book comes from. I mean, and that’s critical, right? Because no matter how much people don’t want to talk about race and they want to act like it’s not real—
Kisa Marx [00:15:51]:
It always comes back to our—
Roberto Germán [00:15:53]:
We’re just human beings and whatnot.
Samuel Broaden [00:15:55]:
Obviously.
Kisa Marx [00:15:56]:
Yeah.
Roberto Germán [00:15:58]:
Folks, like, we live in a racialized society. So, you know—it’s unfortunate, right? It’s unfortunate that we have to think about this, have these types of conversations. And yet, I’m grateful that y’all came to this realization, that y’all were able to have the conversation, right? Able to come to the table—not like, “Oh, everybody got their defenses up” or “Everybody’s on attack mode.”
Roberto Germán [00:16:24]:
Because we’re not gonna get anywhere that way, right?
Kisa Marx [00:16:26]:
We ain’t getting anywhere.
Roberto Germán [00:16:27]:
But we have to be able to acknowledge these real tensions, these barriers, these situations that have or at least are influenced by the racial component. And yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And so thank you for sharing that story.
Roberto Germán [00:16:51]:
Thank you for having the courage to have the conversation, right? To share the different perspectives, to work through it, and then to work together, right? To collaborate, to be able to share your learnings.
Kisa Marx [00:17:06]:
Yeah.
Roberto Germán [00:17:08]:
And that was really—this is actually a good segue into my next question, which is: weapon play often triggers strong reactions from educators and parents alike. What are some common misconceptions about weapon play, and how can educators address this in a culturally responsive and developmentally appropriate way?
Samuel Broaden [00:17:36]:
Yeah, I think—I mean, you know, we kind of touched on it a little bit, this idea of the way that children think about play and the way that we think about it. And so I think that’s the biggest misconception: that it’s all about violence, that it’s all going to lead to violence. It’s all of this, right? That’s our own adult mind. That’s our own adult experiences based on everything that’s going on in the world right now. Those are the thoughts that we have, and we bring that into the play.
Samuel Broaden [00:18:13]:
And so that’s where we get that misconception—where if the children play this way, we’re encouraging them to be violent or unkind, and all of these things we don’t want to see. But in reality, by allowing children to play this way, by encouraging them to play this way, we’re able to teach them these super important skills that they’re going to need to create a life in a world that is kinder and gentler and more empathetic than the one we have now. Because we’re able to break through that idea that children don’t have the same thought process as us when it comes to their play. They’re not thinking about those things.
Samuel Broaden [00:18:50]:
Just like in that conversation I had, none of the children were saying, “I really like to be violent. I really like to be mean.” It was all about having fun. It was all about pretending. It was all about being strong and powerful, and those dynamics, like Kisa was saying before. And so, so often, that’s the misconception I’ve come across: that by allowing children to do this, we’re creating more people who are going to be violent, more people who are going to be unkind, and all these things we don’t want to see. But we have to recognize that our thoughts and our experiences are not the same as what the children are thinking.
Kisa Marx [00:19:41]:
Yeah, we come to the table in a classroom with societal norms. We come with our cultural norms. We come with our traumas and our lived experiences. But children, even children who come from adverse home environments with trauma, all of it’s emergent and brand new to them because they’ve only been on the earth a little while. And so they’re just not meeting us with the length and depth of lived experience that we have. We’re putting that on them.
Kisa Marx [00:20:12]:
And so we are seeing them, as they try to hash out, “What does power look like? What does control look like? What does it mean to save people? What does it mean to endanger people? What does it mean to live in an environment where people are shooting?” or things like that. They’re all just trying to piece that together. And we’re putting, “serial killer,” “hitman,” “grooming them for violence.” And we’re actually putting the judgment on them.
Kisa Marx [00:20:54]:
They’re not violent. They’re not doing these things. And so I think the biggest challenge is knowing how to step back and ask: What is it that you’re fearful of? And then being able to tell them what the children are actually doing. Because what you think they’re doing? That’s not what’s happening. That’s not how any of this works. So we have to know what they’re actually doing in order to be able to educate other people.
Kisa Marx [00:21:33]:
We all have trauma. We all have experienced something. And living in the U.S., of course, we have a lot of trauma around weapons. But that doesn’t mean that child who is using a stick or pretending it’s a sword is thinking the same thing. They just don’t know what we know.
Roberto Germán [00:21:51]:
So we have to inquire about what it is they’re playing, why it is they’re playing that particular thing, and what the interests are. And then we also have to remain curious and be open to the fact that we have to deal with the tapes that are playing in our own heads.
Kisa Marx [00:22:12]:
Right. We have to honor that, but we can’t put it on them.
Samuel Broaden [00:22:19]:
And that’s sometimes the hardest thing to do, right? To get to that point where we recognize there are things we need to do differently. We recognize that there’s a way of thinking we need to change. Because again, as educators, a lot of times our experience in education and what we’re learning to be educators is so much rooted in this adult control or this adult idea of, like, “We know everything. We’re the ones who know it. They need to listen.”
Samuel Broaden [00:22:41]:
And so being able to get to the point where we’re like, “Okay, maybe there’s something I’m doing that needs to be corrected. Maybe there’s something I’m thinking that needs to be thought about in a different way.” That’s sometimes the biggest struggle for educators because we’ve been so conditioned in this idea of, “This is what we do. We know what we’re doing. This is what it is. Children don’t know. Children aren’t capable.” And that background is what we’re coming into it with. So getting to that point, I think, is sometimes the most difficult thing.
Roberto Germán [00:23:24]:
Yeah. We have to do a lot of self-reflection in order to rewire the way we think and act.
Kisa Marx [00:23:30]:
I like that. Rewire it. Yes, yes.
Roberto Germán [00:23:33]:
You know, and even as y’all are speaking, I’m feeling challenged in my own parenting.
Kisa Marx [00:23:39]:
Yeah.
Roberto Germán [00:23:39]:
In my own parenting and in my instruction with the groups that I lead, in my coaching with the kids that I coach. You know, I’m feeling like I need to—I really need to work on keeping this at the forefront of my mind.
Kisa Marx [00:23:54]:
And I think—was there like an experience that’s sitting there?
Roberto Germán [00:24:02]:
I just think that sometimes I might be quick to shut something down instead of really posing a series of questions and thinking about what’s being said and why they’re doing this thing—whatever that thing is—as it relates to weapons. I have my 9-year-old daughter, my 6-year-old son, and my 3-year-old daughter. My son’s the one I always have in mind when, you know, they’re playing games that are weapon-related, right?
Roberto Germán [00:24:39]:
So I don’t want to go to either extreme, right? I don’t want to go to either extreme. I think there’s a way that you can teach kids to not just play with weapons or whatever but to handle things responsibly. And yet—and yet I have to wrestle with the realization that I’m raising a Black boy in this world, in this society, and you know—we don’t have to get into all the stories and examples; there are too many, right? There are too many.
Roberto Germán [00:25:10]:
And so, you know, I have my own experience that plays in my head when I think about my son and things that I want to try to help him hopefully either avoid or be better prepared for. And then there are things that I may not have experienced, but people around me have experienced. And then there are things that have been experienced by people I don’t know but that I see, and I’m like, “They look like me.” And so all of those things come to mind for me when I’m observing my son and how he engages. Not that I’m not concerned about my daughters—
Kisa Marx [00:26:10]:
Well, it’s a different type of concern. Just like we’re talking about the duality. I get it.
Roberto Germán [00:26:14]:
Yes. And so I don’t want to shut down his spirit of engaging in these games because it might—it might be playing off of something he watched, like a superhero show or whatever, or some type of movie or show or even a book.
Kisa Marx [00:26:39]:
Comic book.
Roberto Germán [00:26:39]:
Or a book or whatever, you know. And they might have had a weapon, and they were using it for the good, to protect the people. But at the same time, I need to make sure I’m proactive and responsible in helping him navigate the society in which he’s a target.
Kisa Marx [00:26:53]:
Yeah. So this is—this is what I said.
Roberto Germán [00:26:55]:
Sorry. Sorry. He’s—he’s potentially a target.
Kisa Marx [00:26:59]:
Yeah, yeah. This is what I said. And I’m speaking from the heart as a mother of Black men now, but Black boys when they were children. I get that it’s never going to change. You’re always gonna feel that way—and as you should, because you live in this world, right?
Kisa Marx [00:27:33]:
But what I challenge you to do is think about every other way your child plays. When he’s Spider-Man, do you think he’s going to swing off of the building, climb outside, and go swinging off the roof?
Roberto Germán [00:27:39]:
He might. He might, if I let him.
Kisa Marx [00:27:46]:
If you’re cooking with him, do you think he’s going to set the house on fire?
Roberto Germán [00:27:45]:
No, no.
Kisa Marx [00:27:50]:
Do you stop him from cooking? Do you stop him from playing Spider-Man sometimes?
Roberto Germán [00:27:54]:
You know, like, it depends. Yeah. If he’s gonna burn the food, I gotta, you know, I intervene.
Kisa Marx [00:27:58]:
Yeah, but you’re not gonna stop him from—
Kisa Marx [00:28:00]:
You’re not gonna stop him from doing it altogether. You’re gonna teach him how to do it properly. You’re gonna teach him the skills he needs to cook. You’re gonna teach him to do it in a safe way. And that’s what weapon play is. It’s teaching them how to handle this type of play responsibly. It’s teaching them kindness. It’s teaching them consent. It’s teaching them imagination.
Kisa Marx [00:28:24]:
And you’re not shutting it down, just like you wouldn’t shut down anything else that’s part of his creative development. But I get it. I get it. Because it’s hard. It’s hard not to see our babies as targets. It’s hard not to fear for them every time they walk out the door.
Roberto Germán [00:28:44]:
Yeah, yeah. I appreciate that perspective. I’m gonna hold onto that. And you know, it’s funny, as you were saying that, I’m like, “Yeah, if I stop him from doing all these other things, I’m not allowing him to grow into himself.”
Kisa Marx [00:29:02]:
Exactly.
Samuel Broaden [00:29:03]:
And that’s what it’s about, right? It’s about allowing children to grow into themselves.
Roberto Germán [00:29:08]:
Yeah, yeah.
Samuel Broaden [00:29:09]:
And supporting them as they do it. It’s not about control. It’s about guidance and support.
Kisa Marx [00:29:14]:
Yeah.
Roberto Germán [00:29:15]:
I appreciate that. I appreciate that.
Kisa Marx [00:29:18]:
Absolutely.
Roberto Germán [00:29:20]:
So, before we wrap up, I want to ask: What’s the key takeaway you want educators and parents to leave with after reading your book?
Samuel Broaden [00:29:33]:
For me, it’s this idea of curiosity. It’s about being curious about what’s happening in the moment and being curious about why children are playing a certain way. And then also being curious about our own responses. Why are we responding this way? What’s making us uncomfortable? What’s making us fearful? So, curiosity is key for me.
Kisa Marx [00:29:57]:
Yeah, and for me, it’s reflection. Reflecting on where you are, where you’ve been, what you’ve learned, what you need to unlearn. I think that reflection is so important because we’re always evolving. And as we evolve, our children will evolve with us.
Roberto Germán [00:30:16]:
That’s powerful. I appreciate both of those points. And I think curiosity and reflection go hand in hand.
Kisa Marx [00:30:24]:
They really do.
Samuel Broaden [00:30:26]:
Absolutely.
Roberto Germán [00:30:28]:
So, how can folks connect with y’all and learn more about the book?
Samuel Broaden [00:30:34]:
You can find me on social media at @SamuelBroaden or visit my website, samuelbroaden.com.
Kisa Marx [00:30:42]:
And I’m @KisaMarx on Instagram and Twitter. You can also find more information about our book on our publisher’s website.
Roberto Germán [00:30:52]:
Perfect. Thank you both so much for joining me today. This has been such an insightful conversation. I know our listeners are going to take a lot away from this.
Kisa Marx [00:31:03]:
Thank you for having us.
Samuel Broaden [00:31:05]:
Yes, thank you so much.
Roberto Germán [00:31:08]:
And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning into Our Classroom. Be sure to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast, and stay curious. Until next time—peace and love.
