We learned a lot in elementary school. Mrs. Wogen and Miss White taught us to read and to add and subtract. Mrs. Wendlendt taught us to love good stories and Miss Blaine taught us to write complete sentences. Miss Lubbock taught some of us to stand tall and smile and try to blend in because we could not carry a tune. And Miss Phillips taught us that respect is earned. We were taught well, and we learned many academic lessons in the early grades, but our elementary schooling was more than what our teachers taught. It also was what we learned from each other.
Grade school for kids is time in the classroom and time on the playground. Ask any third-grade boy about his day at school and you are more likely to hear a story from recess than what happened in his reading group. The classroom and playground are essential for a childhood; they create a balance in a kid’s life, if we let them. That balance is achieved because teachers make up and enforce rules in their classrooms while on the playground, kids make up and enforce the rules for recess. With unspoken agreement, kids set the standards of how to play and how not to play, who wins and who loses, and how to treat each other. In hindsight, recess rules ruled us when we were young, and they became unwritten, indelible rules for our entire life.
These are ten recess rules I learned and have practiced for more than half a century. They applied to me and my friends when we were running and playing across the playground, and they applied to me in my career and in raising a family. You may have rules from your youth that have served you well. Consider these and remember your own.
- There are my guys and there is everybody else. The law of magnetism says likes repel and opposites attract but those rules do not apply on the playground where likes attract other likes. We were 300 children spilling out the school doors for recess when we grouped ourselves in “likes”. Generally, boys grouped with boys and girls with girls and the dozen or so boys I found myself with were those who loved any game with a ball that required movement, throwing, and catching. Also, we all lived within a radius of several blocks from each other, so games on the playground became games after school and then Cub Scouts and summer swimming classes. Other kids on the playground found their “guys”. Guys back then was not a gender thing. We referred to other boys and girls as “you guys”. There were more than 100 children at my grade level and I knew everyone by name and face and considered them all to be my friends. The guys, my special friends, were spread across the three classrooms in our grade level. When the bell sounded recess time, we rushed down the stairs from our separate classrooms and gathered at the place where asphalt became a field of grass. That is where the recess games began. A real game for guys back then was football or softball or keep away. The games that mattered were my guys against any other group of guys.
- Things happen with, for, and against. Even then, I could categorize what happened at recess in three ways. I played with the guys. I did all I could for the guys. Together, the guys and I played hard against the other guys. Those prepositions were involved in every story we told about recess. Later, the same words applied to our junior and high school sports. I played with my teammates. I did all I could for my teammates. Together, we competed against other teams. And, later still, with and for applied to how I approached my work life.
- Be on time and be ready. When recess started, the games began. If you dawdled in the hallways or restroom, no one waited. In fact, the guys sized up who was ready to play and started almost before the ringing bell stopped echoing. Joining a game in progress was not easy. If you were not on time and ready, you were a spectator until the next recess. When you were late or not ready, you knew who to blame – yourself.
- Don’t knock down a girl. It was easier then; boys wore pants and girls wore dresses. You never ran into, threw a ball at, or knocked down someone in a dress. This is not to say that guys didn’t get carried away and sometimes a game crossed into where girls played. It happened and there was hell to pay if you were the one who knocked down a girl. There were phone calls that night between parents and when parents got into talking about recess, that was a bad thing. You could get sidelined for nothing more than mud on a dress.
- Fast is fast; you can’t get faster, but you can get better. Among our guys, I was not the fastest runner. It used to pain me that, try as I might, I could not pick up and lay down my feet any faster than I did. I was not slow; just not fast. Early on it was clear that if I could not improve my foot speed, I needed to find things I could improve. I worked on three ways to be better than faster: catch the ball and keep the ball, look for the smart next move, and, if someone runs into you, make that person feel the pain. Learning how to improve upon what genetics provided proved a good lesson for recess and good for high school sports and life in general, even the idea of physical collisions.
- Know your role. Somedays you lead and somedays you follow. Every recess you have a place and role in what is happening. The games gave each of the guys chances to step up and step aside. Of course, being young boys, we sometimes did not do either gracefully or needed one of the guys to tell us. Knowing when and how to lead and how to follow was part of being with the guys and we had plenty of opportunities to learn to be a role-player.
- Leave it on the playground. Because you win some and you lose some, it was important to leave the games of recess on the playground. Miss Blaine did not care which guys won a softball game during the lunch recess when she called on kids to talk about the plot of a story in afternoon language arts class. By the same token, the kid who put the hurt in your bruised shoulder sat two rows to your right and neither you nor he wanted anyone in class to know why he smiled, and you frowned. It was best for everyone when what happened on the playground did not enter the classroom. And there will be a recess tomorrow, Bruce!
- Competition breeds respect and respect builds new friendships. Some of the other guys lived in distant neighborhoods. We did not see each other except at school. Some lived in bigger and some in smaller houses than mine; that was a way of knowing something about a guy. Bigger house guys had newer Chuck Taylor Converse shoes with good tread and the gym shoe tread for guys from smaller houses usually was worn off. Tread mattered back then. Recess, though, gave every group of guys an equal chance to shine. While I wasn’t fast, I admired guys in other groups who were. Some had better hands or better throwing arms. After a while, I knew which of the other guys hit the ball harder or ran faster. I also knew what I had to do to beat them, if I could, and when we each tried to do our best, I wanted to know them better. They weren’t one of my guys, but they became some of my good friends.
- Games are games not life; know the difference. Miss Phillips, our principal, watched us at play. Although she looked like someone’s grandmother, she had a quick eye that twinkled when she talked with me. “Nice catch”, she would say. Nothing more; just enough to let me know that she was watching. More importantly, she also said, “I saw your ITBS scores, and you did very well” and “Miss Knapp told me you held the door open for her when she had her hands full. Being a good student and well-mannered won’t score runs but they win the games that matter”.
- Memories of the playground live forever. It is not surprising that the first people I look for at our high school class reunions are the guys. After elementary school, we went to the same junior high and high school. After high school, we split and went separate ways. Some to college, others into the military, and some into adult life. Years passed and life happened. Yet, when the Class of XXXX gets together, that old oppositional magnetism works again. We find each other and talk always wanders back to the playground. “Do you remember ….?, starts our first and last conversation.
My elementary school has closed. Across the city, school enrollments decreased over the years and the economics of public education regrouped fewer children into fewer school buildings. My elementary school stands empty, windows dark and doors locked, but the four acres of playground are filled every good weather day with youth football, soccer, and softball. Younger children climb the jungle gyms and gather for rope jumping on the asphalt. A playground calls children to play and children will always answer that call.
As I watch, I see children still are learning some of life’s essential rules on the playgrounds and I wish them well.