What can recess teach us about education?

I spend a lot of time on my blog talking about why recess is important and advocating for all of us to view it as a relevant and useful part of education.  A lot of the responses I get back seem to look fondly back on a time when recess was better, longer, more fun, and more free.  Even my own childhood seems somehow rosy with the glow of play.

When I was a kid, it seemed like recess lasted forever.  We played kickball or dodge-ball for what seemed like hours.  That was all that school seemed to be composed of in fact.  The rest of the time, Math, Science, Social Studies, English, and even Lunch, seemed to be but interruptions in my recess time rather than the other way around, but when I look back at it, I'm sure recess was only ten or fifteen minutes long at most.  

How did such a short time make such a huge impression on me?  I think it was because I loved it so much.  I really did cherish the time I got to be outside (I hated indoor recess) playing.  It's not that other things weren't important, or that I didn't learn anything except how many outs make an inning, I learned a lot in school and always got good grades, but recess was where I found joy.  It gave me a reason to focus on math and writing because they were part of it, part of the experience.  You couldn't have recess without math, and you couldn't have math without recess.  The very dailiness of it made it true.  

That's what education was for me, and I can't help thinking that's how it was intended, that reading, writing, research, work be coupled with catharsis, that they be intertwined.  Too often I hear about a school administrator taking recess away from a child because he didn't finish his math homework, and I think to myself that all of school is transmuted into punishment when adults make that decision.  

Learning is not something to get out of the way before we are allowed to play.  Learning and play are not separate things, just as joy and work are not separate.  They're inseparable, inextricable.  Learning cannot exist without play just as play cannot exist without learning.  They are two ends of the same meaningful endeavor.  To pretend that they are separate impoverishes both, renders them meaningless even.  

Most schools (especially in Salt Lake) realize this on some level.  After all, recess is still part of the school day, but we need to celebrate it, and bring adults in on this most basic and ancient secret.  I realize that teachers have far too little time for breaks, and that recess is usually one of those sacred times.  I'm not asking for educators to spend every recess with their kids, but we have district wide drop everything and read days.  Why not a drop everything and play day where everyone, even the adults participate?  After all, teachers deserve joy too, and it's part of what school is all about.

Run, Run As Fast As You Can

I'm a runner. I've been a runner for almost as long as I can remember. It started with my dad taking me out to the track at SIUE (Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville) and having me run a mile with him. It was a struggle. I was eight years old and four laps on a track seemed like a ridiculous distance to me. I remember struggling to get faster, working towards an eight minute mile, and when I finally broke through that barrier, I felt like the fastest kid on the planet. I've been a runner ever since.

Running requires a lot from a person. It requires strength and speed and endurance and stamina, but it also requires something else, an indefinable something related to discipline or will. I say related because those aren't exactly the right words.

When you think of discipline, you think of forcing yourself to keep moving even when you're out of energy, but running requires something else. It's almost a trick. You tell yourself that all you need to do is keep moving until that next tree or that next crack in the pavement, and when you get there, you convince yourself you can go just a bit further... to that shadow up there or that blue car or that stop sign, and you keep doing this over and over until you're at the end of your run. It's not will power precisely. It's more like the ability to believe what you're telling yourself even though you know it's a trick.

You may be wondering why such a skill would be important. In a world where people are constantly being told that crime is getting worse, jobs are becoming scarce, and money buys less, I think it's important to be able to tell yourself a different story and believe it.

I tell myself that most people have good intentions. I tell myself that things are bound to get better. I tell myself that the world is a good place to live. There are times when it's easy to believe this, and times when it's more difficult. When you fall down and skin your knee, or get laid off from your job, or have a fight with someone you care about, things can seem pretty bad, but you tell yourself that tomorrow you'll find something beautiful, that you'll laugh again, that you'll get by, that circumstances are bound to turn around.

I guess what I'm getting at is optimism. Running teaches you how to keep going through the hard stuff until you can reach your goals. It's good practice for life.

March 10^th, Playworks SLC is sponsoring a 5k and 1 mile fun run in Liberty Park. We'd like to invite you to come out and run with us. Not only will you be building your muscles and keeping fit, you'll also be training yourself in optimism and supporting play in public schools throughout the Salt Lake Valley. So sign up and start training. We'll see you there!