THE RECESS STORY by Dylan

R ecess. Those magical twenty minutes when you get to get away from all the work. You just get to run around free with your friends. No teachers get to boss you around, except maybe the recess manager(s). Isn’t it great? Or was it? Because of the lack of adults controlling you all the time, it’s the prime time for other kids to pick on you. This is a story about how stereotypes affected recess time one day. To see how, let’s look at the experience of four kids in the courtyard.

O ur first kid is a boy. He’s in 1 st grade. And one day, he comes to school all like, “Hey, guys! I watched the last episode of Ben 10 last night, and it was so awesome!” and the other kids are like “I know, right?!” So when he goes to recess, he has a lot of fun talking about Ben 10 with his friends during recess.

B ut then we have our second kid. He’s also a boy in 1 st grade. But when he comes to school, before morning meeting starts, he comes to school, and he takes a risk. He comes to his friends and says, “Hey guys! Last night I watched the last episode of My Little Pony! I had no idea they would do that, I was so surprised!” This kid’s recess has just become a living nightmare. I think you can guess why.

T hen there’s our third kid. She’s a girl. She probably isn’t even in 1 st grade, she’s more likely in 2 nd or 3 rd grade, maybe even 4 th. She waits until recess time to tell her friends what she watched last night. Surprisingly, she watched Ben 10! But the other girls don’t make fun of her. They are interested. One of them even says, “What’s it like? You know, like what goes on on the show? Maybe I should check it out, if you like it.” I’m just throwing this out there. Maybe we’ll discuss how the girls didn’t make fun on a later date.

B efore recess is over, we have our fourth kid. He’s a boy, in 1 st grade. And I think his story is the most interesting. When he comes to class, during recess, he decides to take a risk. He goes to his classmates and says, “I just got a new doll. It looks so good in my dollhouse; do you have any dolls?” The reaction he received was similar to the reaction that the other kid who liked My Little Pony got, but then multiply that by 3. That’s the reaction he got. N ow recess is over, and all the kids go back to their classes for a few more hours, and then dismissal comes. Now, we’re only going to focus on the fourth kid. He looks for his parents, and then he sees them. He goes over to them, they hug him, he hugs them. And then they ask him how his day was. Do you know what he said?

“I think it’s time to put away the dollhouse.”

T hat kid will probably not return to playing dolls for at least 15–20 years, if ever. Now he will have much less experience with dolls, and will care less for small things. He won’t know how to comfort his daughter when her dolls break… all because of Recess.

Even if these four kids decided not to tell their friends what they liked, but wore a shirt with a logo on it, the same thing would have happened. In fact, if you have a shirt for something, it broadcasts that you like that thing to everyone around you because they look at you and they see your shirt and they think, “[He/She] has a shirt for [a TV show]. [He/She] must like it a lot.” Even if it’s not a shirt, it could be a backpack, helmet, etc. And when adults say to kids, “When another kid is bothering you, walk away.” What good does walking away do when the other kid(s) just follow you? Besides, the point of having kids walk away is to show the bullies that it’s not working. Instead, just the contrary happens. When the bullies see the kids walking away, they might think to themselves, “Ooh, [he/she]’s walking away. They must not like what I’m doing, so I’ll do it some more.” What’s more is that when kids like the 2 nd and the 4 th kids were bullied, the reason why they don’t tell the teacher is because (or so they’ve been told) being a tattletale makes you as bad as the bullies!

Believe it or not, lots of bullying takes place in front of adults, who want to let kids “work things out on their own”. Seems to be be working well… not! Unless this is a life-preparatory school, many adults are guilty of being bystanders! Before you go, think about this story. Think about how the 4 th kid wasn’t brave enough to tell the recess manager, or more importantly, stand up for himself. Think about how the 1 st and 3 rd kids were encouraged. Even the 2 nd kid made contributions to recess time that day. So, how about you? What contributions will you make today?

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