An illustration of the internal conflict of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team:
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Bullyproofing the Playground
The playground is a hot spot for bullying in schools. Often lightly supervised, recess takes place outside the structures and expectations of the classroom. It's a time when children try out mean behaviors such as teasing, exclusion, and intimidation, and as I've said before, when small acts of meanness goes unnoticed or unstopped, they can quickly becomegateways to bullying.
So how can we prevent gateway behaviors and bullying at recess? One common sense answer—by providing more supervision and structured activities on the playground—apparently goes against many educators' ideas about what recess is for. This spring I was surprised by the results of a survey I read about in the ASCD SmartBrief. Educators were asked how they thought children should spend recess and given a set of responses to choose among. Although I was relieved to see that most of the respondents didn't think that recess should be done away with in favor of test prep (1%) or used as a reward for the well behaved (2%), I was struck by the fact that the largest group, over 70%, chose the option that described recess as a time for "unstructured play." Less than 17% chose "structured play with a coach who organizes inclusive games and activities."
Children need fresh air and exercise on a daily basis. Some children benefit from the downtime that an unstructured recess provides, but some do not. They aren't sure how to join in a game, cooperate with classmates, or make positive connections with others. For such children, adult-supervised playground games and on-the-spot coaching about how to get along on the playground can be an effective way to learn the skills needed for safe and inclusive play.
I recently spent some time on Playworks' website. Playworks offers training for school recess staffers in leading inclusive whole group games and teaching children simple conflict resolution skills. Under some circumstances, they also provide recess coaches who spend a year in residence at a school, working with children on the playground. Their website includes "before" and "after" footage of playgrounds where they have worked. It was saddening and yet uncomfortably familiar to watch "before Playworks" scenes of children racing around the playground hitting each other, pulling on each other, and destroying playground materials. Fast forward to the same children working with their "coach," happily playing games, resolving conflicts with "rock, paper, scissors" and learning play skills that they will be able to carry over to independent use. Not surprisingly, a recent study has shown that children whose schools use Playworks experience less bullying and more readiness for learning than control schools.
In How to Bullyproof Your Classroom I describe how some schools survey children to discover "hot spots" where children feel unsafe in school. In schools where the playground is identified as a hot spot, the adults at school can all get involved in addressing the problem. Staffing on the playground might need to be increased or improved, but the whole staff could also start working on consistently responding to small mean behaviors when they see them. Classroom teachers, physical education teachers, and playground supervisors can all teach children how to be safe, kind, and inclusive during outdoor play. It's all of our jobs to stop bullying on the playground.
Here's the option I would have voted for, had it been a choice, on the ASCD survey. I would have voted for playgrounds where teachers prepare children for safe and inclusive play. These playgrounds would have adequate staffing, with adults who share strategies for encouraging emotional and physical safety and for stopping those small mean "gateway" behaviors. Furthermore, I would vote for a daily organized game option so that all children can be a part of the fun. Do you agree?
Forget Goofing Around: Recess Has a New Boss
Richard Perry/The New York Times
Children at the Broadway Elementary School in Newark played one of Coach Brandi Parker’s games during recess.
By WINNIE HU
Published: March 14, 2010
NEWARK — At Broadway Elementary Schoolhere, there is no more sitting around after lunch. No more goofing off with friends. No more doing nothing.
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Instead there is Brandi Parker, a $14-an-hour recess coach with a whistle around her neck, corralling children behind bright orange cones to play organized games. There she was the other day, breaking up a renegade game of hopscotch and overruling stragglers’ lame excuses.
They were bored. They had tired feet. They were no good at running.
“I don’t like to play,” protested Esmeilyn Almendarez, 11.
“Why do I have to go through this every day with you?” replied Ms. Parker, waving her back in line. “There’s no choice.”
Broadway Elementary brought in Ms. Parker in January out of exasperation with students who, left to their own devices, used to run into one another, squabble over balls and jump-ropes or monopolize the blacktop while exiling their classmates to the sidelines. Since she started, disciplinary referrals at recess have dropped by three-quarters, to an average of three a week. And injuries are no longer a daily occurrence.
“Before, I was seeing nosebleeds, busted lips, and students being a danger to themselves and others,” said Alejandro Echevarria, the principal. “Now, Coach Brandi does miracles with 20 cones and three handballs.”
The school is one of a growing number across the country that are reining in recess to curb bullying and behavior problems, foster social skills and address concerns over obesity. They also hope to show children that there is good old-fashioned fun to be had without iPods and video games.
Playworks, a California-based nonprofit organization that hired Ms. Parker to run the recess program at Broadway Elementary, began a major expansion in 2008 with an $18 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It has placed recess coaches in 170 schools in low-income areas of nine cities, including Boston, Washington and Los Angeles, and of Silicon Valley.
Playworks schools are not the only ones with organized recess games. In Florida, Broward County’s 140 elementary schools swapped recess for 30 minutes of teacher-supervised physical activities in 2007. Last year in Kearney, Neb., the district had a university professor and five students teach recess games and draw in students who tended to stand against the fence.
Although many school officials and parents like the organized activity, its critics say it takes away the only time that children have to unwind.
In Wyckoff, N.J., an upper-middle-class township in Bergen County with a population of 17,000, hundreds of people signed a petition in protest after the district replaced recess in 2007 with a “midday fitness” program.
“I just can’t imagine going through the entire day without a break, whether you’re an adult or a child,” said Maria Costa, a Wyckoff mother of three who said that every day her daughter came home feeling stress after rushing through lunch to run laps. “It’s just not natural.”
Recess has since been restored in Wyckoff’s middle school, and on alternating days in elementary schools.
Dr. Romina M. Barros, an assistant clinical professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx who was an author of a widely cited study on the benefits of recess, published last year in the journal Pediatrics, says that children still benefit most from recess when they are let alone to daydream, solve problems, use their imagination to invent their own games and “be free to do what they choose to do.”
Structured recess, Dr. Barros said, simply transplants the rules of the classroom to the playground.
“You still have to pay attention,” she said. “You still have to follow rules. You don’t have that time for your brain to relax.”
Adeola Whitney, executive director for Playworks in the Newark area, said that the recess coaches used a playbook with hundreds of games and gave students a say in what they do.
“It’s not rigid in any way, and it certainly allows for their creativity,” Ms. Whitney said. “In some cases, we’re teaching children how to play if they can’t go to the park because it’s drug-infested, or their parents can’t afford to send them to activities.”
Each school pays Playworks $23,500 a year to run a recess program — Broadway Elementary is using a grant from Covanta Energy, which owns a waste-to-energy plant in Newark — and the rest of the expenses for training, equipment, after-school activities and field trips are covered through the nonprofit’s grants and donations.
It is not just about fun and games. At University Heights Charter School in Newark, another of New Jersey’s eight Playworks programs, students have learned to settle petty disputes, like who had the ball first or who pushed whom, not with fists but with the tried and truerock-paper-scissors.
“Recess used to end with bad feelings that would continue to play out in the first 20 minutes of class,” said Misha Simmonds, the charter school’s executive director. “Instead of recess being a refreshing time, it took away from readiness to learn.”
Ms. Parker, 28, the coach at Broadway Elementary, had worked as a counselor for troubled teenagers in a group home in Burlington, N.C. Besides her work at recess, she visits each class once a week to play games that teach lessons about cooperation, sportsmanship and respect.
“These are the things that matter in life: who you are as a human being at the core,” she said.
Broadway Elementary, with 367 students in kindergarten to fourth grade, rises above a rough-hewn industrial neighborhood in the North Ward. Nearly all the students are black or Hispanic, and poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.
There are three 15-minute recesses, with more than 100 children at a time packed into a fenced-in basketball court equipped with nothing more than a pair of netless hoops.
On a chilly morning, Ms. Parker shoveled snow off the blacktop so that the students could go outside after being cooped up in the cafeteria during recess in the previous week. She drew squares in blue and green chalk for a game called switch, a fast-paced version of musical chairs — without the chairs. (She goes through a box of chalk a week.)
Ms. Parker, who greets students with hugs and a cheerful “hello-hello,” keeps the rules simple so that they can focus on playing rather than on following directions. “We’re trying to get them to exert energy, to get it all out,” she said. “They can be as loud as they want. I never tell them to be quiet unless I’m telling them something.”
Jose Salcedo, a fourth grader, volunteers as a junior coach, though he said that he and his friends sometimes missed the old recess, because “nobody would tell us what to do.”
Others, like Khizeeq Murphy, 10, say they look forward to playing different games every day. Before, Khizeeq said, he used to just run and dribble a basketball.
Kazmir Payne, a second grader, wishes he could have his free time back, but his mother, Kizzy, appreciates the more regimented recess.
“It’s better this way because that’s how other kids get hurt, when you’re horse-playing,” she said. “I think the more supervision, the better.”
Simple Games Bring Structured Recess Games Bring New Fun
October 2008
By Dave Aeikens
St Cloud Times – St.Cloud, MN
St Cloud Times – St.Cloud, MN
Students join in a structured recess game and can move around to other activities.
All the paint on the sidewalks and basketball court at Westwood Elementary School is serving to provide a more structured recess setting.
In one spot, children are playing the classic game hopscotch while nearby others play a passing game called step back and a group stands on a painted circle for a game called helicopter.
Westwood bought the Peaceful Playground kit for about $1,000. It comes with about 100 templates for games for a structure recess. The physical education teachers painted the required patterns on the concrete and asphalt surfaces at the playground. They taught the children one set of rules for each game to limit disagreements.
“Our idea was to make structured recess a more valuable learning time and to give kids more options for productive play and hopefully reduce incidents,” Principal Janet Knoll said.
Students use the games during physical education classes, lunch and recess.
Third-grader Henry Smith likes to play four square, a game about returning a bouncing ball to your three opponents in a square divided into four parts.
“It’s fun. It gives you good strength in your hands. It’s just really, really fun for everybody,” Smith said as he waited his turn to play.
On a mild fall day, physical education teacher Dave Holder, wearing a T-shirt and shorts with a whistle around his neck, stands on the basketball court and assists the children as they play the games.
He points out when a student might not be following the rules and occasionally jumps in the circle of students to twirl the rope for the helicopter game, where students try to avoid getting hit by a ball attached to a jump rope.
“I see them getting involved in different activities that they haven’t been before,” Holder said.
In addition to keeping order, the games help the school meet its fitness goals.
Students who don’t want to play the structured recess games can follow a yellow line painted on the grass. The line is one-fifth of a mile and students keep track of the number of miles they walk, trying to make the 100-mile club.
On a nearby sidewalk, painted with colored circles, Carter Reiland and Reggie Deyak toss a football in a game of step back.
The game is designed to improve the fundamentals of throwing. The two boys start face to face and move back one circle each time they catch the ball.
“You have to throw it to the person and step back,” Reiland said.
Chris Conlon and Cole Jennings are playing the same game a few yards away with a round ball.
“Sometimes Chris will throw it high, and it’s hard for me to catch,” Jennings said.
Indiana parents upset over 'structured' recess
Comments 122
NEED TO KNOW
- Indiana school policy forces kids to participate in selected recess activities
- One mother started a petition to protest
- Superintendent: 'This is an opportunity for a structured process to make sure the kids are actively engaged'
Recess is a time for kids to run free -- unless they attend Fayette Central Elementary school in Connersville, Indiana.
CNN affiliate WTHR reports that parents are angry about the school's recess policy, which enforces a rule that an activity of choice be played at recess time. If the kids do not want to participate, they are sent to the principal's office.
Watch more: Girl sent home from school for "distracting" hair
One mother, Audrey Dice, made the decision to start an online petition to protest against the school's policy. Over a thousand people have signed the petition so far.
"Not every student wants to jump rope, play kick ball, basketball or whatever is the activity assigned," the petition reads. "They should have free choice of how to spend their recess time! No two children are the same and we have students that have special needs or handicaps and are concessions being made for those children."
Fayette County School Corporation Superintendent Dr. Russell Hodges told WTHR that the structure of Fayette Central Elementary's recess is designed to get kids moving.
Read more: Parents sue 4th grader over school bullying
"We could help kids understand better how to go along with others and make sure everybody was involved in the activities and that we teach kids the appropriate ways to handle free time," Hodges told the TV station. "We are all concerned about students' health and physical activity so this is an opportunity for a structured process to make sure the kids are actively engaged."
Administrators stated that a note will be sent home to parents this week explaining the new policy.
How would you feel if this policy was a part of your child's school?
CNN affiliate WTHR reports that parents are angry about the school's recess policy, which enforces a rule that an activity of choice be played at recess time. If the kids do not want to participate, they are sent to the principal's office.
Watch more: Girl sent home from school for "distracting" hair
One mother, Audrey Dice, made the decision to start an online petition to protest against the school's policy. Over a thousand people have signed the petition so far.
"Not every student wants to jump rope, play kick ball, basketball or whatever is the activity assigned," the petition reads. "They should have free choice of how to spend their recess time! No two children are the same and we have students that have special needs or handicaps and are concessions being made for those children."
Fayette County School Corporation Superintendent Dr. Russell Hodges told WTHR that the structure of Fayette Central Elementary's recess is designed to get kids moving.
Read more: Parents sue 4th grader over school bullying
"We could help kids understand better how to go along with others and make sure everybody was involved in the activities and that we teach kids the appropriate ways to handle free time," Hodges told the TV station. "We are all concerned about students' health and physical activity so this is an opportunity for a structured process to make sure the kids are actively engaged."
Administrators stated that a note will be sent home to parents this week explaining the new policy.
How would you feel if this policy was a part of your child's school?
Friday, February 6, 2015
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Reading assignment for 1/14/15- Illustration/Writeup
Your reading assignment is as follows:
Choose and Re-read
- Choose and re-read one important scene in your book to illustrate.
Draw
- Draw a detailed picture based on details from the book, as well as any inferences you make about the scene. Basic drawings are fine, as long as they include relevant details. You may include captions or speech bubbles if you need to. Be sure to list the book title, chapter and page number.
Write
- On a separate page, write a paragraph that describes and retells the scene. Your paragraph should also answer the question, "Why is this scene important in the story?" In other words, how does the author use this scene to develop the plot, theme, or other major element of the story?
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