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.