Somewhere between the beginning of college and now, I have reverted to my childhood. I don't suck my thumb or play dress-up anymore. But I have found myself preoccupied with childhood recess games.
When I was in college at Furman, a group of friends and I started a Friday afternoon, campus-wide four-square game (if you don't know what four-square is.....well, you have been deprived). It would begin every Friday, right after lunch in the red-bricked breezeway outside of Johns Hall, and students would join in as their schedule would permit them, as did several of our professors -- gray hair, suit jackets, khakis, and all. It was really funny to watch the effect that a childhood game had on all of us, especially our professors. The age difference simply didn't matter. We were all elementary schoolers again, and this was an all-or-nothing game. I remember Dr. Siegel, my sociology professor with the quintessential red bowtie and spectacles, who joined us every week in between classes for a few minutes -- he has been known to actually physically dive for the red ball to save his place in the "king square" and he was expert at "cherry-bombing" the ball up against the side of the building, whooping in victory as he got another student out. It was truly entertaining to watch. We even considered starting an Intramural Four-Square League that year.
Well, now that I am a fully-grown, hard-working, responsible adult with a paying job, I have found that there is still a place for fun recess games today. High school students (and even adults) are not completely unlike elementary schoolers in many ways, but they are especially alike in their love of kickball. There's even a World Adult Kickball Association -- seriously. Grownups love kickball. (Don't believe me? http://www.kickball.com ) Anyway, one tradition that I have started in my classroom is playing kickball to review for tests. I ask them a question, and if they answer correctly, they get to kick for their team. Very simple really. My extra-kinesthetic students seem to really appreciate a form of learning that is not exactly orthodox. They get to run around, get stinky and sweaty, AND be reminded that "creation ex nihilo" refers to the idea that God created the earth out of nothing, first popularized in early church history by Mr. Theophilus of Antioch, and that yes, indeed, Justin Martyr WAS an actual martyr. It's a lot of fun, incredibly loud, and I almost always lose my voice, yelling at the boys who are trying to dunk the kickball in the basketball goal or the ones who are jumping on each other's backs to congratulate the momentary athlete for an amazing catch. It's funny to see 15 and 16-year old boys (and girls) dive into a base, sometimes even sliding on the wood floor (can you say OUCH?!?!?) to make a play, throw their entire body into a full-out stretch through the air to catch a ball to get an out. It's just kickball. Right? Oh no. It's more than kickball. At that moment, it's life at its most innocent. Play. Have fun. Run around like crazy. At that moment, it's totally okay to be a kid.
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