Document text
- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels September 21, 2004 Our View When schools prioritize play, all is well Three cheers for Ashland Middle School and its principal, Dale Rooklyn, whose commitment to engaging kids at the critical juncture of their development is going to pay long-term dividends. On the surface, the school's willingness to get past the legal mumbo jumbo and allow skateboarders to build a mini-skate park on the basketball court is certainly worthy of praise. But the deep-water issues around this decision is the stuff of genuine excellence. First, Rooklyn and his crew recognized that middle school kids are changing. Monkey bars won't do it for them any longer. While this seems obvious to any parent of a pre-pubescent teen, it is not readily obvious on school playgrounds that are geared to younger audiences. Second, where so many schools across the country are limiting outside time and noisy time and kids having fun time, Ashland Middle School invited the kids to participate in what they wanted to do to improve break time, rather than reduce it. Some elementary schools have recesses and lunch times so heavily structured that kids are virtually expected to stop being kids the moment they enter the school grounds. Happily, the value of play time is celebrated by Ashland Middle School, rather than restricted. Third, the kids were given a wonderful rite of passage to adulthood, by being included into the decision-making process. Finally, by including skateboarding with a mix of other activities like bocce ball and sand volleyball, the principal modeled to kids that stigmas and stereotypes of any kind are destructive and inaccurate, even those that say all kids on a skateboard must be up to trouble. For example, kids from Ashland may not connect with a lecture on, let's say, the stereotypes of people who suffer from depression, they feel firsthand the typecasting of being a skateboarder. Talk all you want, but these kids learn acceptance and validation every time they ride a rail in a way that no lecture or movie or special speaker can convey. Nobody likes to admit that fear is often a prime mover in the decisions we make. Too often, administrators - and business leaders for that matter - hide behind concern over liability or the pretext of hypothetical what-ifs that merely hide the fact that we don't want change. We are afraid of it. It seems like small stuff, but embracing skateboarders and bringing it into the school rather than running from what it may represent, is forgetting the what-ifs and focusing on the what could-bes. Simply put, that's the best of education. DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2004 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Click Here Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams