Page 24 - 2022-IdeasArg-SE-1e

Steve Rushin ■ Give the Kids a Break 97

Give the Kids a Break
our square and seven years ago we One is fear of injury. Willett Elementary 5 CLAIMS AND EVIDENCE
© Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Do not distribute.
F had recess: 20 minutes, twice a day, of School in Attleboro, Mass., has been roundly
Darwinian contests whose very names — ridiculed for banning tag and other so-called
king of the hill, capture the flag, keep-away, chase games. But similar bans were imposed
dodgeball — screamed survival of the fittest. long ago by many other schools in places
After all, monkey in the middle isn’t just a such as Spokane; Cheyenne, Wyo.; and sub-
playground game; it describes the chain of urban Charleston, S.C. Attleboro merely fell
human evolution. in line behind them. Trouble is, life is a chase
Most of these games were passed down like game. At my elementary school every recess
heirlooms. They crossed continents and cen- ended like Round 8 of a prizefight: with a bell,
turies with only small modifications, surviving the mending of cuts and at least two parties
into the modern age with names such as duck, forced to sit in a corner.
duck, goose; Mother, may I; and Miss Mary That kind of unsupervised play literally left
Mack. Ancient Greeks jumped rope, Caesar’s its mark on me. The scar on my forehead? I
subjects played a form of jacks, and blindman’s hit a pipe while playing tag in the basement.
bluff was played in the court of Henry VIII. Pity, My left front tooth? Knocked out by a thrown
then, that none of these games may survive the baseball as I daydreamed in the park. And
decade, and for one deeply depressing reason: those were just the accidents, independent of
Red rover, red rover, recess is over. the teenage Torquemadas who intentionally
Or it is for many children. According to the inflicted all manner of torture. There were
National PTA, nearly 40% of U.S. elementary no junior high Geneva Conventions, and so
schools “have either eliminated or are consid- almost everyone endured noogies, wedgies,
ering eliminating recess.” Twenty to 30 percent swirlies, snuggies, sudsies, melvins, wet wil-
of schools offer 15 or fewer minutes of daily lies, pink bellies, Indian burns, Russian hair-
recess. Lifers at Leavenworth get more time cuts and Hertz doughnuts — and a litany of
in the exercise yard. And the U.S. Department other poetic means of coercion.
of Education reports that 7% of all U.S. first- That was then, this is now. Last year a
and second-graders — and 13% of all sixth- 15-year-old boy in Gold Hill, Ore., was charged
graders — get no recess whatsoever. with offensive physical touching for giving a
How ever did this happen to the fabled 13-year-old boy a purple nurple. And therein
fourth R? For starters, increased preparation lie two other reasons that recess is receding:
for standardized tests mandated by No Child 1) playground bullies and 2) fear of lawsuits over
Left Behind leaves little time for recess. That injuries incurred on school grounds. In Maine
legislation was passed by Congress, which one school canceled recess for eighth-graders
through Sunday had spent 138 days in recess in an effort to end bullying, which is a little like
during this session, safe in the knowledge that scalping in an effort to end dandruff.
eight-year-olds can’t vote. In fairness to school It’s a jungle out there, but you’ll be hard
administrators, no one should have to choose pressed on most playgrounds to find a jun-
between childhood ignorance and childhood gle gym, or monkey bars, or stainless-steel
obesity. But there are lots of other reasons for slides that in the summer months sizzle like
the recess recession. a fajita skillet. Many seesaws are built with

03_williamideas1e_35663_ch02_084_159.indd 97 24/11/21 2:47 PM