Playground Duty

Yesterday I was a substitute at West Park Elementary School in Moscow, Idaho on playground duty from 10:15 a.m. to 2:05 p.m. The classes took turns having morning and afternoon 15 minute recesses and 30 minute lunch breaks.

I helped serve lunch, my task being to put 2 baby carrots, a piece of cucumber, and three pieces of orange on each tray as the children filed past. Some asked to not get the cucumber. A woman working in the lunch room handed out hamburgers between buns (with a slice of cheese optional) and brownies.

The area in which the children could play outside included a playground area with swings, a thing to climb about on, a winding slide, monkey bars, and so on; a tennis court without nets, a paved area maybe 20 feet wide along the side of the school building, and a huge grassy field. Another man, a substitute like me, supervised the playground and tennis court area while I supervised the blacktop and grassy field area. Our task was to observe the children at play and deal with any problems, such as squabbles, injuries, or whatever, and to hand out passes, mostly for going inside to the bathroom. Usually one or more teacher was also outside.

I was astounded and pleased by how well and creatively those 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade children regulated themselves--making up games to play, resolving differences, and solving problems. There were 2 plastic bins of basketballs, soccer balls, light plastic balls with holes in them, child-size and smurf footballs, jump ropes, etc.

In one recess there was a baseball game with a total of 2 players and in another there was a baseball game with no bases, leading to a squabble over whether a player was safe or out. (The bases were later found still in the building.) The kids made up rules to suit their situation, such as if the plastic ball gets pitched behind you and then you go over to where it sits on the ground and swing the plastic bat at it and miss, that's a strike.

I observed lots of ways to jump rope, including the backpack, jumping with 5 ropes at a time, jumping while dashing in a race, and many more. A long jump rope could also become the reins for horse(s) and driver.

Far out in the field kids rough-housed or just loitered.

Incident: At the end of one of the recesses, the bell rang, and the children on their own lined up single file to go back in the building, while children for the next recess came outside. But no teacher came for the children who had formed a queue, and those children waited patiently for minutes. I watched to see what would happen. Then the boy at the front of the line commenced yelling, "Follow me! Everyone follow me!" as he led the line forward, toward a door to the building. The line had just about reached the door when a teacher finally came out.

Incident: A boy came up to me and said, "Mrs. ... said I have to stay on the blacktop and can't go over there in the playground." "Why?" "Because I tied up ." "How many days can't you go in the playground?" "I don't know." "Let's go see what we can find out." The boy and I strolled over to where the other playground supervisor was chatting with a couple of teachers. I told them the boy's situation, and one of the teachers said that at least for that day and till his teacher said otherwise the boy was to stay on the blacktop (pavement?), out of the playground, and out of the field, and was not to go near . The boy and I wandered back. A girl approached him, talked with him briefly, and asked him to jump rope with her. She got him to hold one end of a long jump rope and another girl to hold the other end and for both to turn it while she jumped rope. The boy was clumsy and kept turning the rope in the wrong direction or too slowly or too whatever but finally after much patient coaching got it right, and the girl jumped the rope lots of times.

Incident: A boy came up to me and said that another boy had kicked his butt 3 times--had just come up to him and kicked him for no reason. We walked across the field to where the boy in question was playing with some other boys. I waved him over to me and said as a matter of fact instruction, "Don't kick other people." He said in a tone of one agreeing to an instruction, "OK." I asked the boy who got kicked, "OK?" He nodded, satisfied. I walked back to the blacktop while the two boys resumed playing, one joining a game of catch and the other rejoining his pals.

Such incidents were rare. Mostly the children happily and creatively played.

My favorite quote: A girl, jumping by herself using a short jump rope, jumped 19 times before missing. Someone said, "You have 19 boyfriends." She replied, "I don't have 19 boyfriends. I only have 3 boyfriends."

Inside on the hallway wall just outside one of the classroom doors were posted sheets of paper with typed responses starting, "If I were the President..." As best I can recall, some examples were:
* I would give everyone enough food to live but not enough to dominate the world.
* I would tell everyone to eat healthy food and be nice.
* I would send out the army and the spies.
* I would make peace between the wars.
* I would attack if I was attacked and otherwise I wouldn't.
* I would go around the world making awesome speeches.
* I would invent a garbage picking up machine.
* I would make people eat healthy food and clean up the earth.
Healthy food and great speeches were frequently mentioned.

The day gave me much hope for the future.

There were lots of substitutes at the school yesterday because starting Monday is spring break week and some teachers and staffers started their break on Friday instead of Monday.