Anti Time On the Line

"So what do you want us to do, run laps the whole time?"

Four third and fourth grade boys stood before me at the beginning of recess today, reporting for duty.

Yesterday's recess had culminated in a far-too-physical game of King of the Hill (which is illegal to begin with). The tears and tattles that straggled in with my little people alerted me to the problem, and I headed over to the third and fourth grade room for an impromptu come-to-Jesus meeting in the hallway. They quickly admitted their guilt, so I asked them what consequence they thought was appropriate for their disobedience and lack of self control. To my surprise, they all agreed: "We should probably lose our recess tomorrow."

So there they stood today, waiting to see what plan I'd cooked up. How painful could Ms. Djerf make these twenty-five minutes be? Laps aren't so bad when you're a boy with an excess of energy and your three best friends are in the penalty box with you.

I'd been thinking and praying, however. I've spent this winter working through Ephesians 4:22-32 with my middle schoolers. The entire passage reiterates a basic three-part theme: if you are a follower of Christ, put off behavior that hurts you and rejects God, be made new in the way that you think, and put on new behavior that is like God. As I've studied this, I've been challenged to adjust the way I view discipline and the process of change.

Kathy Koch of Celebrate Kids! (a ministry for which I have enormously high regard) teaches that change is EXCHANGE. Don't just put off the bad habit, but intentionally put on the opposite new one. The same principle applies to correcting and disciplining: after telling them what needs to stop, I need to clearly put forth what needs to start.

We don't just want our boys to draw back from the "too-far" line of physical aggression toward smaller students; we want them to see their role as leaders outside and direct their energy toward fun and healthy pursuits. And so I told them I had a secret mission for them: each one had to find younger students to help, encourage, or include for the entire recess period. They would report to me at the end.

It gave me such joy to watch one boy help some little girls work on their snow fort, while another built a snowman with first graders. A third (braver than the first two) chose to intervene in a conflict between kindergarteners, standing up for a tearful girl and then helping her rejoin the game. The fourth invited a wandering little boy to play hide and seek with him. For one recess period, they were shining leaders instead of wolves fighting for the alpha spot.

I don't expect that we permanently eradicated aggression or unkindness, but it sure was better than running laps.