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.

Why Criminals Are At a Disadvantage in the Winter

A kindergartener came running up to me at recess on Tuesday. "Ms. Djerf, Ms. Djerf, guess what! I go to Manhandle Class!"

This was a new one. "You do, Cory? What's that?"

The question he was hoping for, of course. "It's where we learn how to handle...I mean, man-handle bad people, like robbers and killers!"

"Oh. Wow." That was all I could muster.

"And in the winter," he continued, "we can do something special. We grab their hoods and choke them!" This was accompanied by vivid gestures which assured me that man-handle class involved hands-on practice.

I'm hoping we can keep the manhandling down out at recess (I think we're OK; although we have mutant gerbils and invisible zombies, we don't have any robbers or killers that I know of), but this I know: if I ever need just one kindergartener to walk with me through dark alleys, this guy will be my pick.

My Invisible Zombie Can Beat Up Your Invisible Zombie

I love recess duty.

Today, I observed a small group as they ran screaming from snowbank to snowbank, being pursued by an invisible zombie.  A particularly imaginative kindergartener dictated the storyline of the game, demonstrating what zombies sound and act like, and then throwing the rest into a panic with sudden shouts: "There he is!!"

The rest of the group obediently took off in delighted terror each time. "AAAhhhhhhh!!!!!"

One smaller boy played along for a little while, and then boldly decided that HE could sense the approach of the zombie, too. Before this, they had punctuated their endless escape by throwing themselves, panting, onto snowbanks (safety tip for future reference: invisible zombies can't catch OR bite you when you're on a pile of snow). But now, these time-outs grew shorter and shorter as the two competed to be the first one to yell, "There he is!" and hurtle headlong in the opposite direction.

The next time they paused near me, I overheard this same student take his bid for power one step further, as he attempted to explain to his comrades that "some zombies are actually good, and this one IS good, because he's in a cage..."

That's all the further he got, however. (When your enemy is invisible, and you're not the only person controlling its appearance, stopping to hypothesize about it is fruitless.)  Because the next second, someone else screamed, "There he is!"

And they were off.

What Do You Get When You Cross the WWF with Overgrown Rodents? Recess, Naturally

Stepped back as a stream of heavily insulated children thumped past me, all in pursuit of one fourth grade boy.  Snagged one I know to be a storyteller, inquiring, "What on earth are you guys playing?"

 

He cheerfully brushed snow from his face. "It's a fun game. We all chase Bart, and then we pile drive him!"

 

I was obligated to create a new rule. "Hey, no pile driving at recess."

 

"I know," he responded, "but if we don't, then HE touches US, and he turns us into mutant gerbils, just like he is!"

 

Which made the pile driving entirely acceptable, of course.  Can't have a bunch of mutant gerbils running around at recess.