TEACHING JOURNAL

Field Day, June 11, 2009

 

     Today we held our annual end-of-the-year Field Day – a day of recreation – and it started me thinking about the meaning of that word. Recreation, based on the origin of the word, is a time of re-creation – an opportunity to start over, a chance to remake ourselves. When we relax in the enjoyment of harmless games, we are giving our lives a chance to feel the energies of youth again. Playing a silly game like the beanbag toss (which I supervised today) can be like a small rebirth. I was thinking of this as I watched the children taking pleasure in the happy activities of Field Day. It was like seeing hundreds of little people being rebuilt before my eyes. After 9 months of seriously hard labor in their classrooms, the students were taking their tense and tired lives apart and enthusiastically putting them back together. With every toss and jump and sprint, a little more freshness and newness came back to their lives on this day of spirited recreation.