from Playborhood Berkeley

Recess, The Final Frontier

Posted: 05/28/08 10:51 AM

[This post is the third and last in a series by Mark Powell. In the first two posts Mark described the incredible fort play phenomenon he observed while working at Lexington Montessori School in Massachusetts. Read them here and here. All three posts are edited extracts from Mark Powell’s thesis “The Hidden Curriculum of Recess”.]

Recess beckons well before it actually arrives. Its allure can be heard in children’s lunchtime conversations as they discuss imaginary roles, plans, alliances and teams with an appetite as hungry for play and its unbounded possibility as for food. For some children, recess provides the most important reason to come to school.

Although watched over by the protective, though generally unobtrusive, gaze of supervising teachers, children at recess interact with their environments and with each other almost completely as they choose—a freedom denied them at all other times while at school—and increasingly also in their homes and neighborhoods.

Continued on Playborhood Berkeley…

by Mark Powell

• 0 comments
• Email