The playground ecosystem

At recess, I have time on my hands to people watch.  Granted, the people are all little ones but they are still interesting and have lessons to teach.

Soccer is popular and so are the swings.  Athletic boys kick a soccer ball and dive and argue and finally defer to the tallest boy who settles all disagreements.

(You know how lots of CEOs are tall?  That starts in elementary school apparently.)

Boys and girls race to the swings and arc their bodies to get higher and higher and then they jump recklessly from the swings and sometimes land flat on their backs in the forgiving bark.  Then they jump up and try again.

More timid kids walk the perimeter of the playground or toss a ball half-heartedly at the basketball hoop.  Some of the girls swing on the monkey bars and gossip.

A few girls cluster around the soccer game, watching the boys and shoving each other forward and then running away embarrassed and the boys are completely oblivious of their admirers.

Some of the sort of weird kids walk around alone, talking to themselves.  Occasionally they will intersect but usually if someone talks to them, they look startled because they are so deeply engrossed in their own inner lives.  They come across as quirky, but I think those kids are probably the most interesting if you could just crack the code of what they're imagining.

Hardly a recess goes by when someone doesn't get hurt and cry.   If a girl gets hurt, she almost always wants a hug and words of comfort.  Her friends run to alert me, then gather around and wrap arms around her and kind of enjoy the drama.  If a boy gets hurt, especially one of the soccer players, they try desperately not to cry and their friends stand around awkwardly and look to me for guidance.  I usually cross the soccer field and pick the hurt boy up and say, "Are you all right?  Want to sit out for awhile?"

They almost always quickly swipe away their tears with the backs of their hands and say, "No.  I'm OK."

Yesterday a group was playing four square.  One of the boys was wearing sunglasses and was hit in the face with the ball.  He started to cry.  Immediately a small crowd surrounded him.  It is sort of exciting when someone's hurt.  Are they bleeding?!?  The other teacher on recess duty was closer to the action and headed that way.  I noticed a boy named Blake across the playground.  He saw what was happening and that someone was crying and sprinted over.  I've never noticed these two boys being particularly friendly.  They're in two different third grade classes.  But Blake hurried to his side.  He put a hand on the hurt boy's shoulder and spoke something to him.  The teacher checked in and the crowd dispersed because the excitement was over.

But it wasn't.

The boy who was hurt went over to sit on a bench and Blake went with him.  They sat side by side, talking a little bit, but not really.  Blake was just sitting with him.  After awhile they got up and ran over to the slide and started climbing together.

Just a recess with nothing too earth shattering, but don't you just love Blake?  Sometimes all we need is someone to sit by us, you know?  Sometimes we need someone who is there not because of the drama or duty, but just because we are in distress.

I want to be like Blake.