Playground Diplomacy

I worked in a kindergarten classroom last week and monitored the kids while they were out on the playground. I was amazed once again to see all the energy, the imagination, the sheer wildness of kids on the playground. Then too, there were the hurt feelings, the tales of names being called and unfairness at the (pint sized) basketball hoop.

So, I was delighted to see that when we got back from the playground, the teacher sat the kids down and asked them to talk about what happened out there. "Did anyone play a different game today?" A couple of kids raised their hands and said they had tried jump rope.

"Did anyone play with someone different today?" A couple of hands shot in the air and the teacher served as judge. "You've played with Amy before though right Adam?" she told one boy. "Oh, you played with David and you've really never played together before? Good for you!"

Then she asked them to talk about any negative experiences. "Was anyone sad or upset by anything on the playground?" One little boy raised his hand. "Billy punched me in the face in the cafeteria," he told the teacher.

"Billy, what do you have to say for yourself?" she demanded. "I didn't punch him. I put my fist on his face and it didn't hurt," the little boy responded. "That's no excuse. You never put your hands on someone else," she told him sternly. "What do you have to say for yourself." "Sorry," he mumbled to the other boy.

I told the teacher how great it was that she asks the kids to talk about what goes on on the playground since so much of their interactions take place out there. "I don't want anything to go underground," she told me. "So it's worth it to me to take 20 minutes every day and talk through what happens out there."

These little people are saving themselves years of therapy bills or at least learning a skill that it takes many people well into adulthood to learn (and that some never learn). I wish other teachers in upper grades, where there's really a lot of playground politics, some of it not so pretty, would follow this smart teacher's example.