Meet Playworks SLC

I talk about these people all the time.  It’s time I introduced my readers to Playworks Salt Lake City staff.  Here’s a little video I took during our staff training.  Now you’ll be able to put faces to the names of our coaches.  As you can see, we have a lot of fun at work!

What makes a difference on the playground?

Playworks coaches have a unique perspective on a student’s day. Children’s true personalities, often through stories and questions, are particularly present during play at recess. When we ask ourselves, how can we tell we are making a difference? We usually end up with standard measurements (surveys, etc.), but it’s the little things--moments with students on the playground that we have a harder time quantifying--that make every day meaningful.

How readily does a student smiles. How quick she is to join a game, how open or guarded he is while talking to peers or adults.  These cues often tell us more than measures of academic success or how much improvement a particular student shows at a certain game.  They are subtle indicators of kids states of mind, which are influenced by innumerable factors.  Home environment, bullying, relationships with friends and family, how much sleep he/she got last night.  These impacts are not measureable, but we do notice, as educators, the subtle signs that mean our kids have other things than school on their minds.  For the most part, teachers are limited in how they can manage subtle changes in kids behavior.  Teachers have material they must teach, other kids who need their attention, and a schedule to keep.  

The time Playworks coaches spend with kids everyday at recess becomes that much more important in this context.  Recess provides more freedom than time in the classroom, which means that students have time to talk with their peers, to open up if they need to, to decompress, and to relax. Though we have games set up to play with students and we hope all students are engaged in some way, coaches are also available to listen to students who simply need an adult to talk to on their own terms.  

Coaches, while still authority figures in a lot of ways, are often viewed by students as available and fun.  With the playful nature of coach’s role, students feel safe expressing themselves in ways they may not normally do so around other adults with whom they have a more formal relationship.  

Most of the time, this is incredibly positive.  Kids can run and scream and express excitement.  They tell us how much fun it is to play, or how they can't contain themselves at the thought of whatever exciting event may be happening at home, a birthday party, or a trip to grandma's house.

Other times, coaches are confronted with distress, an incident of bullying they can't tell their teacher about, or something happening at home.  These types of communication are important, too, because they allow us to see problems kids might otherwise keep to themselves.  Once problems are out in the open, we can help kids find the resources they need to address those problems.

That role, and the unique relationships our coaches form with students is one of the intangible things about Playworks that makes having our program at a school so valuable, and immeasurably important.

Good Enough

2012 is upon us and I hope everyone has resolved to have a playful year.  We're halfway through the school year and our coaches are about to start new truly amazing programs with the students in their schools.  Each year at this time, Playworks starts up a girls basketball league.  Later, our coaches will facilitate a co-ed volleyball team. There are a lot of leagues available for both boys and girls, so you might be asking yourself what's so special about our leagues?  To answer that question, I need to relate a story.  

I started playing basketball in the third grade on a team sponsored by my elementary school.  Actually, there were three teams sponsored by my school that year because there were so many who wanted to play.  My team, the Columbus Clippers, was about as bad at basketball as possible.  I remember a game in which we scored only 4 points, and all of them were from free throws.  We were psyched because we'd finally scored in only the third game of the season!  I was responsible for two of those points and got taken out for ice cream after the game for being our top scorer.

The Columbus Clippers was a co-ed team, and our coaches philosophy was that everybody played.  We learned to dribble, pass, shoot and play defense, and as the season progressed, we got better.  I played basketball in a league like that all through elementary school, and by the end of sixth grade, I thought I was good enough to try out for the junior high team.  

When I got there, I realized this was nothing like the team I'd played on.  There was a varsity team and a JV team.  About a hundred people tried out.  One of them was a six-foot-tall seventh grader who could almost dunk.  I didn't make either team.  Though I'd learned a lot about basketball in the three years since I'd started playing, I couldn't hack it in such a competitive setting.  After that, I never played basketball on a team again.

I was lucky.  I got to play for three years before someone told me I was no good, and even after that, I played soccer and ran track.  There were opportunities for me to remain athletic and be part of a team, and I think I've benefited immensely from those experiences.  Playing sports taught me how to learn a skill, how to cooperate with people, how to celebrate the victories of others.  These are lessons I don't think a person can learn anywhere else.

Sometimes I wonder how it would have been if I'd never played basketball or any other sport.  Would I have worked as hard at school without the lessons I learned from playing basketball?  Would I be able to make friends as easily as I do if I hadn't had the experience of being on a team?  Would I think of myself as a failure because I'd been cut?

Playworks partner schools have a large low-income community.  We only operate in schools at which 50% or more of the students receive free or reduced price lunch.  We operate almost exclusively in urban settings.  Our populations tend to contain high proportions of minority students.  Each of these factors means that the opportunity for our students to be engaged in organized sports is very limited.  Playworks leagues might be the only leagues in which many of our students ever have the chance to play.

Our core values of inclusion, respect, healthy community, and healthy play mean that we never cut students from our teams.  We concentrate on helping everyone who wants to learn develop the skills necessary to improve at basketball, volleyball, and all the other sports we teach.  Our students learn how to play as a team and how to win and lose graciously.  They learn to celebrate each others successes, and to support one another, not just in the leagues, but in school, and in every aspect of their lives.  It's exciting stuff, and these leagues are about to begin.

I'd like to invite you to come out to our league nights this winter and spring, and help us celebrate the learning taking place there.  If you live in or around Salt Lake City, our games will take place from 6-8 p.m. in the Lincoln Elementary school gym every Tuesday beginning January 17th.  If you live in another Playworks city, check our website to find out how you can support your own city's leagues.  Not a Playworks city?  Click here to find out how to get Playworks in hour school district, and come cheer our remarkable students on!