Playground Drama

This was a tough week for my students. I kept thinking, "It's not even May yet!" But after our Second Step Committee for Children lessons on preventing bullying, I had a student report that kids were making alliances during Four Square games to target specific individuals to "get out" as quickly as possible. It fit the definition of bullying presented in our curriculum to a T:

Bullying is aggressive behavior that is:

• usually repeated over time
• occurs when there is a power imbalance
• intended to cause harm/distress OR has a serious harmful/distressing impact

It was great that the lessons made an impact and that I had a student who felt comfortable reporting the problem to me. I alerted the recess staff, and in this COVID year, the principal has been a primary recess supervisor. He came into my room the following morning and attempted to bring down the hammer. He labeled the making of alliances and targeting kids as bullying after he got everyone to agree that the behavior was bad. He said that it had to stop, and if it did not the bullies would be invited to finish the school year learning from home. (Although my school is still offering a remote learning option for families, none of my students are currently using that option.)

First recess, which is only 15 minutes long, ran smoothly. Students reported that it was "weird" because "there were no fights." The student who made the initial report journaled about feeling a sense of relief. But, at the end of lunch recess, as the kids were lining up to have their hands sprayed with hand sanitizer, my principal pulled me aside to say, "Mrs. Conrow, I have shut down Four Square for the rest of the week for your class."

Since I was not outside when Four Square got shut down I had no way of knowing whether specific students would receive further consequences. I was not made aware of any, so I kept my response at the whole class level. We had discussions connecting our current class situation to the Second Step lessons about bystanders. The idea that bystanders who do nothing are part of the problem clearly hit some of my students like a ton of bricks. They looked like deer in headlights as they processed the fact that they could be named as contributors to bullying. 

    

    I wrote an email to parents informing them of the Four Square hiatus and the reasons behind it. In the email I added a list of questions for families to use in a discussion with their fourth graders about the bullying behavior. Then today, during asynchronous learning time, my students had an assignment to fill out a ten question Recess Reflection about the whole thing.

    On top of all of this, the first spring rumors of student crushes began to circulate on the playground this week. I was mildly surprised that this spring fixture of schools went down to the fourth grade level, but I had seen it in fifth grade, so it wasn't totally shocking. One of the recess supervisors had a chat about gossip with a few of my girls who are not Four Square players. I think one of my students had the takeaway that she could be seen as a "mean girl" by others. 

Given that our IB attribute for the month of April is reflective, my students had a lot to think about for our regular month end reflection assignments. I hope it wasn't too much for them. Reflecting on circumstances and past actions in order to improve was a constant message this past week. But rather than theoretical situations, most of my students were living through circumstances that could have easily been scenarios in our social emotional lessons. I found myself reminding them that even though it's been a frustrating week, they are all still wonderful individuals, that have all put a smile on my face more than once this year.

Here's to hoping that next week, when Four Square is reinstated, my students will make better choices based on all of the reflecting they were required to do this week. May is going to be a long month if we have to continue discussions and reflections about recess behavior.