Teachers, Add This To Your List

We took a break from math and science today so I could ask my kids how they were doing, with all that’s been going on, with the news on Saturday that they couldn’t come back to campus for the rest of the year. Setting aside their mixed bag of “bummed not to see my friends” and “happy to spend more time with my family” and even “can’t spend another day inside with these people” responses, there were a handful of kids who reminded me of something I had overlooked, something so simple that it broke my heart, something that made them sad, and me.

You know what it was?

They miss recess. And not just recess. Soccer with the younger kids, they said. All year long, when the lunch door opened, the majority of our fifth graders would tear across the concrete to the open field, grab a ball and start a game with the majority of our school’s fourth graders. No referees. No real boundaries. No definitive rules aside from putting that ball in the other team’s goal, whichever side they had decided it was that day. Just kids being kids, together. Falling down and getting back up, together. Older vs younger.

And they miss that.

Turns out, so do I.