Recess
Recess rocks. Um, I use the word "rocks" way too much, but oh well. We need play places and spaces, places to experiment with new identities. We need to make choices: swings or dodgeball, poem or memoir. I don't want to romanticize recess because there were generally some bad moments each year: falling out with friends, dealing with tattletales, missing recess because a teacher didn't approve of my in-class behavior. Still, the concept of recess . . . I want it back.
Nowadays, I don't always spend an hour outside every day, chasing people around, swinging, kicking balls. The past few years my family has been playing kickball after eating Thanksgiving lunch. I have a big family; my grandmother's descendants and some of Grandmother's siblings and their family gather at Aunt Carolyn's house around lunch--probably around fifty people. We gorge ourselves on turkey, fried chicken, okra, brown rice, pole beans, butterbeans, hoecakes, broccoli casserole, Aunt Carolyn's eighteen-layer cake--the counters nearly sag under the weight of all that food. So do we. Being good Southerners, though, we make a healthy dent into the provisions.
Eventually, we head outside, pick teams, and organize a game for the kids. Wes usually takes pictures because there are too many good photo ops to miss, but he longs to play. Often, I watch and laugh, but last year Izzy, my cousin's daughter, wanted to play and picked me to help her. So I stood beside her while she kicked the ball, then grabbed her hand and ran the bases with her. Our huge, loud family probably overwhelmed her a bit.
Last year, my nephew Levi kicked the ball, first pitch, first kick of the game. It soared into the air and banged into a five-year-old's face. It was a good kick, but she didn't think so. The game paused for medical care, and she retreated inside. Bless her heart. (I couldn't resist since we hard that phrase in the hallway, and I called it a "true Southern moment.") After that, we assigned an adult to each wee one. We blocked balls for the kids, sacrificing our bodies for their sakes.
My brother heads up the game every year despite wrenching his knee a few years ago during a game. The kickball games remind me of summers spent at Grandmother's house. My cousins would come over, and we would play outside for hours. We jumped off barn roofs, played in the barn loft, mowed her grass using her riding Snapper (the ultimate luxury, it seemed to me), played Fruitbasket Turnover in the living room, and raked leaves into blueprints of houses. I loved those summers.
I want recess back. Maybe SGWP/BWP should host a picnic one day?
Okay, maybe not, but how do we extend the community? How do we create a community that plays together as well as works together? We have the working together part down. We've been working hard this summer. I can't imagine how the people do it who are taking a class in addition to the Summer Institute. I have maybe two hours of free time a day. Other than that, I'm checking email, reading articles, drafting texts, working on invitations, fretting about something, checking the blog and the e-anthology, and worrying about not working on my article for publication. Stress drips from me most days. Whine, whine, whine. That's not where I wanted to go with this topic.
Here's the real question: How do we get the community formed this summer to meet up with other "classes" of SGWP/BWP? How do we form a larger community of Fellows? Is that a plausible goal? I don't know how to make that happen. Perhaps through the blog. Another way is through having past participants coach new fellows for their teaching demo. I wonder how that went this year. But I'd like to form new communities, based upon mutual areas of interest.
Perhaps we can support a writing group after the Summer Institute ends and open it to all past participants? Or perhaps we can form a teacher research group? I'd like to start with one goal, one group, something that will support teacher development in tangible ways. I'm open to ideas. Let me hear from you about what you think might work. This is your place. Let's make good things happen in it.
Nowadays, I don't always spend an hour outside every day, chasing people around, swinging, kicking balls. The past few years my family has been playing kickball after eating Thanksgiving lunch. I have a big family; my grandmother's descendants and some of Grandmother's siblings and their family gather at Aunt Carolyn's house around lunch--probably around fifty people. We gorge ourselves on turkey, fried chicken, okra, brown rice, pole beans, butterbeans, hoecakes, broccoli casserole, Aunt Carolyn's eighteen-layer cake--the counters nearly sag under the weight of all that food. So do we. Being good Southerners, though, we make a healthy dent into the provisions.
Eventually, we head outside, pick teams, and organize a game for the kids. Wes usually takes pictures because there are too many good photo ops to miss, but he longs to play. Often, I watch and laugh, but last year Izzy, my cousin's daughter, wanted to play and picked me to help her. So I stood beside her while she kicked the ball, then grabbed her hand and ran the bases with her. Our huge, loud family probably overwhelmed her a bit.
Last year, my nephew Levi kicked the ball, first pitch, first kick of the game. It soared into the air and banged into a five-year-old's face. It was a good kick, but she didn't think so. The game paused for medical care, and she retreated inside. Bless her heart. (I couldn't resist since we hard that phrase in the hallway, and I called it a "true Southern moment.") After that, we assigned an adult to each wee one. We blocked balls for the kids, sacrificing our bodies for their sakes.
My brother heads up the game every year despite wrenching his knee a few years ago during a game. The kickball games remind me of summers spent at Grandmother's house. My cousins would come over, and we would play outside for hours. We jumped off barn roofs, played in the barn loft, mowed her grass using her riding Snapper (the ultimate luxury, it seemed to me), played Fruitbasket Turnover in the living room, and raked leaves into blueprints of houses. I loved those summers.
I want recess back. Maybe SGWP/BWP should host a picnic one day?
Okay, maybe not, but how do we extend the community? How do we create a community that plays together as well as works together? We have the working together part down. We've been working hard this summer. I can't imagine how the people do it who are taking a class in addition to the Summer Institute. I have maybe two hours of free time a day. Other than that, I'm checking email, reading articles, drafting texts, working on invitations, fretting about something, checking the blog and the e-anthology, and worrying about not working on my article for publication. Stress drips from me most days. Whine, whine, whine. That's not where I wanted to go with this topic.
Here's the real question: How do we get the community formed this summer to meet up with other "classes" of SGWP/BWP? How do we form a larger community of Fellows? Is that a plausible goal? I don't know how to make that happen. Perhaps through the blog. Another way is through having past participants coach new fellows for their teaching demo. I wonder how that went this year. But I'd like to form new communities, based upon mutual areas of interest.
Perhaps we can support a writing group after the Summer Institute ends and open it to all past participants? Or perhaps we can form a teacher research group? I'd like to start with one goal, one group, something that will support teacher development in tangible ways. I'm open to ideas. Let me hear from you about what you think might work. This is your place. Let's make good things happen in it.
posted by Donna Sewell at
9:06 AM
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