Race Results from the Run for Recess!

I apologize for the weird formatting.  It looked fine in word.  Let me know if you have any suggestions to improve on the race for next year in the comments section.  Congratulations to all of our finishers.

Place                     Name                                    Time                     

1                              Levi Pace                             0:18:02                 

2                              Lauri  Shea                          0:18:45                 

3                              Keven Yeh                          0:19:23                 

4                              Brianna McKall                  0:19:44                 

5                              Kenn Despain                    0:20:26                 

6                              Rayl Smith                           0:20:48                 

7                              Clay Rockwood                 0:20:58                 

8                              Rich Otterstrom                  0:21:11                 

9                              Ryan Smith                         0:21:31                 

10                           Kevin  Grimes                    0:21:52                 

11                           Aria Rockwood                  0:22:17                 

12                           Jen  Gustavson                   0:22:29                 

13                           Scott  Sunderman                0:22:43                 

14                           Cohen Summers                  0:23:35                 

15                           Corey King                          0:24:00                 

16                           Laura  Tatham                    0:24:02                 

17                           Tom Luthy                           0:24:03                 

18                           Kirk  Probasco                    0:24:05                 

19                           Jennifer Stuhan                    0:24:06                 

20                           Laura  Wight                       0:24:09                 

21                           Phillip Carron                     0:24:17                 

22                           Taylor Negus                      0:24:38                 

23                           Molly Person                     0:24:48        
         
24                           Daphne Dee                       0:24:55 

25                           Jamie Rankin                      0:25:17                 

26                           Celeste Simmons             0:25:48                 

27                           Carlos Hernandez            0:25:53                 

28                           Marile Dauydara               0:26:05                 

29                           Emily Spackman                0:26:15                 

30                           Eric Jansen                          0:26:21                 

31                           Nick Johnson                     0:26:32                 

32                           Laura  Strate-Madsen    0:26:47                 

33                           Stephen Williams             0:26:49                 

34                           Tammy Turner                  0:26:52                 

35                           Rhonda Black                     0:26:54                 

36                           Nick Estrada                       0:27:35                 

37                           Colin Olsen                         0:27:43                 

38                           Victoria Alimov                  0:27:46                 

39                           Ronald  Peterson             0:27:57                 

40                           LaQuitta Probasco           0:28:13                 

41                           Jason Burt                           0:28:22                 

42                           Jeanette Saffir                  0:28:36                 

43                           Lauralee Lavender           0:28:38                 

44                           Christina Hales                  0:28:43                 

45                           Annika Jones                     0:28:46                 

46                           Clayton Rather                  0:28:49                 

47                           Jennifer Gygi                     0:28:51                 

48                           Brayden Lund                    0:29:04        

    

49                           Emily Milam                        0:29:06 

50                           Kimberly Allfrey                 0:29:07                 

51                           David Martinez                     0:29:25                 

52                           Matthew Adamson               0:29:31                 

53                           Jennifer Pringle                    0:29:35                 

54                           Katelyn Hatch                    0:29:41                 

55                           Roseann Gibson                  0:29:48                 

56                           Hyo Bae                               0:29:49                 

57                           Bonnie McBroon                  0:29:52                 

58                           Becky Milam                      0:29:59                 

59                           Heather Brockbank              0:30:02                 

60                           Travis Carlton                     0:30:03                 

61                           Kim  Monti                          0:30:06                 

62                           Jenny Stout                           0:30:14                 

63                           Kathy Stout                         0:30:16                 

64                           Kathleen Ogrin                     0:30:41                 

65                           Kristy King                           0:30:52                 

66                           Helen Carlton                       0:30:56                 

67                           Camille Grimshaw               0:31:00                 

68                           Cindy Howard                    0:31:03                 

69                           sarah Huber                       0:31:16                 

70                           Gwen Nguyen                   0:31:24                 

71                           Wendy Penrod                 0:31:28                 

72                           Marianella Ojeola            0:31:35                 

73                           Heidi Dillier                     0:31:41                 

74                           Paul Simmons                    0:31:42                 

75                           Emily  Jensen                     0:31:46                 

76                           Jason Payne                       0:31:48                 

77                           Shannon Blood                 0:31:51                 

78                           Shelly Christensen           0:31:52                 

79                           Julie Bangerter                  0:32:07                 

80                           Lyndee Crawford             0:32:10                 

81                           Amity Waldecker             0:32:12                 

82                           Melanie Davis                    0:32:13                 

83                           Naava Rockwood             0:32:18                 

84                           David Tangren                   0:32:24                 

85                           Doug Tangren                    0:32:27                 

86                           Natalie Stevenson           0:32:34                 

87                           Abby Talbot                        0:32:37                 

88                           Joseph Allen                      0:32:46                 

89                           John LaVictove                  0:32:50                 

90                           Hannah McFall                  0:32:55                 

91                           Loralie Rafiti                       0:32:58                 

92                           Stephen Schutz                    0:33:09                 

93                           Jeffery  Jensen                 0:33:24                 

94                           Staci Doi                            0:33:27                 

95                           Terri Sawyer                       0:33:30                 

96                           Heather Jorgensen         0:33:38                 

97                           Raelyn Hazen                     0:34:00                 

98                           Michael Fortin                   0:34:03                 

99                           Danielle Hall                       0:34:33 

100                         Melissa Miller                    0:34:55                 

101                         Robin  Wheelright            0:34:57                 

102                         Colleen Densley                 0:35:00                 

103                         Celia Pawlowich                0:35:03                 

104                         Shawn Clay                         0:35:23                 

105                         Ronald Clay                         0:35:28                 

106                         Charla Buchanan              0:35:30                 

107                         Maria  Greene                   0:35:32                 

108                         Jimmy Greene                  0:35:35                 

109                         Cindy Vanklaveren          0:35:37                 

110                         Pam Weaver                      0:35:39                 

111                         Armin Nazarihia                 0:36:02                 

112                         Bethany Harry                   0:36:13                 

113                         Brian  Howard                    0:36:16                 

114                         Brandy Winward              0:36:19                 

115                         Eric  Miller                           0:36:31                 

116                         David Buchanan                0:36:35                 

117                         Shana Aposhian                0:36:50                 

118                         Natanya Fisher                  0:37:03                 

119                         Tammy Christensen        0:37:55                 

120                         Olivia Blood                        0:37:58                 

121                         Megan Nequs                   0:38:01                 

122                         Cyndi Tangren                   0:38:03                 

123                         Chris  Stayer                       0:38:21                 

124                         Angelee Luther                 0:39:02                 

125                         Emily Bushman                 0:39:03                 

126                         Rose McCain                      0:39:04                 

127                         Susan Fortin                       0:39:06                 

128                         Hesper Bath                       0:39:20                 

129                         Robert Sawyer                  0:39:51                 

130                         Candace Estrada               0:39:57                 

131                         Emily Thunberg                 0:40:37                 

132                         Rebekah-anne Gebler   0:40:38                 

133                         Gavin Smith-Knott           0:41:00                 

134                         Sandra Hundley                0:42:20                 

135                         Shannon Burnham          0:42:43                 

136                         Ernie Broderick                 0:43:40                 

137                         Thekla Houghes                 0:43:44                 

138                         Cydne Houghes                 0:44:01                 

139                         Troy Carlton                       0:44:16                 

140                         Anna MaricPezely            0:44:42                 

141                         Jon Pezly                             0:44:44                 

142                         Shannon Fallis                   0:45:28                 

143                         katie Craigo                        0:45:53                 

144                         Whitney Ward                   0:45:55                 

145                         Ariane Mardis                    0:46:38                 

146                         Mandi Oler                         0:47:08                 

147                         Heather Perez                   0:47:38                 

148                         katie Hardman                  0:47:40                 

149                         Judith Adams                     0:47:42                 

150                         Gale Antell                          0:47:43                 

151                         Beth  Mota                         0:47:59                 

152                         Inez Mota                           0:48:00                 

153                         Kathleen  Burke                  0:48:11                 

154                         Tim  Cromwell                   0:48:19                 

155                         Carla Kimmel                      0:48:48                 

156                         Kathy Porter                      0:49:47                 

157                         Danielle Downs                 0:49:57                 

158                         Shelley Downs                  0:50:01                 

159                         Courtney Miles                 0:50:04                 

160                         Jennifer Strieker              0:50:27                 

161                         Lora Poulsen                      0:50:57                 

162                         Holly Stevens                     0:51:02                 

163                         Yvonne Stayer                   0:52:58                 

164                         Cindy Holloway                 0:53:01                 

165                         Judwh Oki                           0:54:21                 

166                         Marianne Conover          0:54:56                 

167                         Jeanette Boyd                   0:55:03                 

168                         Holly Schack                       0:56:08                 

169                         Kira Kirner                           0:56:11                 

170                         Katherine Garduno         0:56:50                 

171                         Sierra Garduno Morgan       0:56:54                 

172                         Ryan Kunzler                      0:56:59                 

173                         Kelly Lund                           0:57:03                 

174                         Karin Holt                            0:57:05                 

175                         Amy Casper                        0:57:09                 

176                         Amy Boynton                    0:57:12                 

177                         Lee Stevens                       0:57:16                 

178                         Alaina Wilcock                   0:57:20                 

179                         Bethany Gates                  0:57:24                 

180                         Berta Alcazar                      0:57:37                 

181                         Jenna Woods                     0:57:39                 

182                         Pam Blackwell                   0:57:41                 

183                         Volker Teller                      0:57:42                 

184                         Kristin Teller                       0:58:43                 

185                         Sharon  Edwards              1:03:24                 

186                         Kirk  Conover                     1:04:50                 

187                         Becky Bissegger               1:07:12                 

188                         Corrine  Soriano                1:07:15                 

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!

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!