re: Putting play back in Playground

Friend, and fellow Recess Advocate Amy Lux writes:

Hi Bernie,

Someone else send me info on this program last year, and I think is absolutely necessary for so many kids. I get this, "at recess, the kids sit around and play with dirt and grass", go figure its kids who never had any experience with the spirit of play. So many kids in bad areas dont get to a play lot til they get to SCHOOL... so tragic. Someone said "half the kids go at it, but there will always be a group that just stands there". A large advocacy group in Chicago was asked to look at our recess legislation, and wouldn't support it unless it defined recess as unstructured, non- instructional. I think you have to be flexible, it never hurts to have someone out there, a recess coach (MY SCHOOL HAS AN UNOFFICIAL ONE HURRAY), to organize a different area each day, which is so so so helpful. We have a huge field, and if someone wasn't out there to say, today we are going to do "this", the in crowd jock boys would take over the field each and every day to play football. hey, why not co-ed soccer or kickball, or co-ed football. It helped so much, because some of the boys just never even tried to be included, and finally felt comfortable asking to play. Thankfully, my guys were never in that group, but it can be so hard on kids.

So I am totally in favor of having a recess helper, play program. It's not like they can organize all 80 kids anyway. Some kids just need guidance.

She continues:

You are absolutely right about it being too sports oriented, but I think many of these not for profit programs are funded by the big sports clubs, PE orgs, which are overly staffed with coaches. YOUR work, the fun quirky kind of play, is more important, and would be EXACTLY what kids who don't hang with the sports crowd would gravitate to.

You said you're a grandfather!! Your grandkids have got to be the luckiest kids in town. "My grandfather's job is to make fun". My dad, 72, still plays with my kids like he were 10. It is such a riot. He still thinks he's a track running football star. I guess we, me and my brothers were so lucky that he was so fun spirited. So many kids don't have that, or have a father figure at all, just "head of household"-filling moms.

from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith