What was your recess like when you were in school?

[Chino]

I went to a catholic school K-8. We had great recess up until I reached fifth grade. A student fell off the slide and broke his arm, and the family sued the school for over $100k. The playground and jungle gyms were removed, and running on the playground was no longer allowed. Doing so was an automatic detention. The only time running was acceptable was during gym class under the supervision of the gym instructor. Luckily, Pokemon cards had just came out. Those kept us busy for about a month until the school decided that they'd lead to a life of gambling addiction. They were banned almost immediately.

That brings me to an article I stumbled upon on my lunch break.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/playing-tag-ban-mercer-island_5605588ce4b0768126fd284e?cps=gravity_5059_3598730389403718634

A Washington state school district has banned the game of tag for kids at recess, citing student safety.

"[W]hile at play, especially during recess and unstructured time, students are expected to keep their hands to themselves. The rationale behind this is to ensure the physical and emotional safety of all students,"

We've become a nation of pussies.

[Kotowboy]

Pretty normal ?

One hour . From year 7 - 11 you weren't allowed to leave the premises without parental permission.

Year 12 ( basically college age ) onwards you were as long as you signed in and out.

During that hour you were pretty much unsupervised and there was a playing field or you could buy lunch from the canteen.

Year 12 onwards you could go to town or leave the premises if you had no lesson to go to.

[gmillerdrake]

Up until about fourth grade my recesses were spent hiding inside these large tires that were half buried in the ground. I was a VERY small kid and was picked on constantly. So....I'd either hide in those tires or slip off into  the creek that ran along side the school and catch snakes, frogs...etc.

In 4th grade I started playing baseball...made some friends and started literally fighting back against the 'big' kids who were picking on me and after I kicked the sh%t out of a couple of them despite being half their size....amazingly I stopped getting picked on.

Our elementary school had a large asphalt surface that had multiple four square areas, basketball hoops, tetherball and a kickball area for the 'yellow' light days. 'Green' light days opened everything, the playground with just about every type of monstrocity of a jungle gym to play on, swings, a large field for baseball, football and soccer and TAG....plus there was an area where the gym teachers would supervise us climbing up a rope to ring a bell. At the time I'd have thought it was a 50 foot rope, now looking back I'm sure it was only 20-25 foot or so.

'Red' light days were spent inside in the class playing board games or drawing or doing whatever else you could do trapped in a room while it was raining outside.

You're right though Brian, our kids are a bunch of sissy's. I didn't whine to my parents about being picked on....sure I might have ran from it and hid from it for a few years until I mustered the strength and know how to realize one I popped one of those a$$ hats in the nose they'd stop. Nothing ever happened to me for doing that and nothing happened to them either.....if the teachers were aware at least they were of the thinking that one way or the other it'd work itself out. Nowadays, there'd be lawsuites....therapy....all sorts of unnecessary crap for something that kids need to deal with. Mommy and Daddy can't fix it all.

[TioJorge]

Damn...pussies indeed. Let's just eat honey buns and sit down, that's safe.

My recess was awesome and we had some supremely fun jungle gyms and even had this little 'ride' where you'd sit down on a miniature looking rollar coaster thing except it just moved in a half-circle and pushed the cart up once and would let the force do the rest, so it was safe but still fun for a little kid. That, we had to have adult supervision to use but the adults were still safe but not overbearing. I can't recall any major accidents happening, but of course there were scrapes, bruises, etc. Y'know, usual shit that happens when you're active, which is healthy...which...America is against.  I'm not saying "Yeah! Go out and LITERALLY break a leg", but holy hell, getting roughed up a bit promotes a lot of good things health wise, even within your own body, but also mentally. Same concept with the immunity system (I regretted bringing that up the second I stopped typing and will not say any more and will ask others to not elaborate...no one wants that shit  ).

I knew I was getting into the young-old-fogey status the other day when I went on a tirade about how the NFL has become a bunch of fucking twats that won't let the guys play the game the way it was meant to be played, and now I'm about to go on a tirade about this. Shit. I have become old at the age of 26. But yeah my recess was great and when I went to pick up my lil 5 year-old buddy the other day early, they were at recess and it looked like a miniature prison in which the inmates have their time outisde. Teachers everywhere not just 'watching' and making sure they're safe...like, literally crowding the kids and one quick movement by the kids or one jump too big and they got yelled at. I get it, no one wants a lawsuit and people (and parents especially) are cunts. But then we wonder why we're all dying of clogged arteries and why kids don't play outside anymore... It's pretty awesome. 'Murica. K I''m done.   

[Stadler]

Holy mackerel are we a bunch of pussies sorry, sissies.

We used to play Kickball every recess and it was awesome, but there were similar "incidents".  A kid fell off the top of the jungle gym (it was a big dome about 15 feet high at its peak) once, and I actually fell off a slide and lost three teeth (baby teeth) but that was a time when people weren't litigious.  Rather than sue, my parents called me a dumb ass for falling.   

What's the point of recess if you're going to sit and play cards?   I said in another thread here that I offered to go play wiffle ball with my seven year old step son, and he laughed at me like I was a freak and went back to his xBox.   I don't get it.  We used to play outside until it was dark.   I would have the entire Yankees lineup memorized (even the subs) and would even hit like they hit (lefty or righty).   Now you program that into a video game.   

[Stadler]

More importantly, what happened to childhood being the time you learned where your limits and limitations were?  Where you learned what you like and what you are good at?   Everything is so homogenized and dumbed down, we're all going to be good at.. mediocrity.

[Phoenix87x]

Kindergarten through 3rd grade, this was my playground



Had the time of my life playing tag, tackle foot ball and climbing on top of the towers. No pussies allowed 

Grades 4-6 it was just a field behind the school, but pretty much anything went. No real restrictions

Grade 7- recess stopped

[j]

Had it K-6, I think like 30 minutes on most days.  Like others have said, loosely supervised with a couple teachers outside sitting up by the school watching a ton of kids doing various different stuff in different places.  We'd play tackle football and soccer, play on the playground, race each other, play tag, etc.  An essential part of the day; I bet we'd see productivity increases and the like if we instituted it in the adult workday.

-J

[Ben_Jamin]

Like any school, fun in the sun. Until the bees took over the jungle gym area.

When kids would fall, or get hurt. They'd go to the nurse, next day arrive with a cast saying he can't play cause he fell. Hahaha, their parents would be concerned but wouldn't blame the school.  They'd tell their kid to be careful next time, and may even have gotten grounded based on how they Got injured.

The swings are what I always tried to get.

[hefdaddy42]

We had monkey bars, and see-saws (I loved see-saws; I once launched another kid over a fence!).  And fields for kickball (I ruled that shit), and outdoor basketball court on asphalt.  We also had chain-link swing sets.  That was awesome, we would get some wicked air jumping out of them.

We also played a version of "Tag" that could never be allowed now called "Smear the Queer."  Some less erudite chaps called it "Tag the Fag."  It was basically a mix between "Tag" and tackle football.

We also played a version of dodgeball, but up against a wall.  It was called Murderball.  Only one team at a time was on "offense" and the other team lined up against the wall, and either got hit or slid along the wall out of the way before getting hit.

It was a church school.  Lutherans FTW!

[Podaar]

Hot, nervous, smelly, energetic, sticky, frequently violent yet seldom bloody.

Great fun, actually.

We also played a version of dodgeball, but up against a wall.  It was called Murderball.  Only one team at a time was on "offense" and the other team lined up against the wall, and either got hit or slid along the wall out of the way before getting hit.

I remember murder ball. One "team" would line up with their backs against the loading docks to the kitchen store room while the other team would take turns pelting them with the ball. If I remember correctly, extra points were awarded for dribbling the back of the victims head off the loading dock. 

[El Barto]

Kindergarten through 3rd grade, this was my playground



Had the time of my life playing tag, tackle foot ball and climbing on top of the towers. No pussies allowed 

That's kick ass. We didn't start to see playgrounds like that til I was well into high school (and they were great then too, but for different reasons). At my elementary school we had 1 set of swings, 1 set of chin-up bars, 1 slide and a whole bunch of grass. That was it. Obviously the 6 swings were in high demand and rarely made it through the year in working order.

[Kotowboy]

Kindergarten through 3rd grade, this was my playground



Had the time of my life playing tag, tackle foot ball and climbing on top of the towers. No pussies allowed 

Grades 4-6 it was just a field behind the school, but pretty much anything went. No real restrictions

Grade 7- recess stopped

I had something like that when I went to primary school in Dubai

( I don't know what you call Primary School in America )

[jasc15]

The OP reminds me of this article:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/04/hey-parents-leave-those-kids-alone/358631/

My recess was pretty unrestrained.  About the only thing we got yelled at for was jumping off the swings into the sand pit, but we were always able to do it a few times before then.  Mostly it was a game of touch football with the fat kid playing QB for both teams because he didn't want to run.  Note I said the fat kid, and not the fat kids.  It seems like there was only one or 2 fat kids in each grade then.

[Calvin6s]

Kindergarten through 3rd grade, this was my playground

What the what?  That's insane.  That doesn't look like a playground.  That's a visit to an amusement park (or at least a Chuck E. Cheese in it's prime).

K-6: we had monkey bars, swings, see saws, pull up bars.  The asphalt area had 3 basketball courts, 1 hand ball wall (we used both sides at once), about 3 tether ball poles.  The basketball courts could be converted to volleyball courts.
Despite those options, we mostly just used the flat grass area to play soccer, baseball and flag/touch football.  Lunch had organized sports leagues.  We'd have actual teams instead of picking a team every recess.  The school kept track of wins and losses and it all led up to the finals/superbowl/world series/world cup of the school.  We even had a seasonal all stars game.  We were actually quite a physically active K-6 school.

7-8: basketball courts, two tennis courts that weren't open full time, a soccer field, the 440 yard track, and probably a couple other things I forgot.  Despite all this, this is where cliques started forming and even though basketball games and the like happened, most of it was people picking an area to hang out.  It was pretty boring.

High school: it was all over the place.  We could leave campus at lunch, so that seemed like a new freedom that became boring quickly.  We'd mostly just hang out around school.  If I wanted to have some actual physical fun, it was more about what official sports team you were on and challenging other sports teams to a neutral sport.

I do recall certain activities becoming taboo that weren't previously and the "just let us play.  We don't want to be pussies" happening even back then.  But it was nothing compared to what I'm hearing now.  In fact, I can't even recall what was off limits because it was usually a temporary overreaction that eventually returned to normal. 

Also recall that there was enough to do at the schools that meeting there to play during non-school hours was pretty common.

[Calvin6s]

I didn't whine to my parents about being picked on....sure I might have ran from it and hid from it for a few years until I mustered the strength and know how to realize one I popped one of those a$$ hats in the nose they'd stop. Nothing ever happened to me for doing that and nothing happened to them either.....if the teachers were aware at least they were of the thinking that one way or the other it'd work itself out.

Murphy's law seemed to be bullies got to be bullies for way too long before the school stepped in.  But the amazing part was when a kid fought back, suddenly the school was all up in it.

The message the school seemed to be sending out was a one sided bully fight was ignored, but a two sided fight had to be put down and punishments doled out.  And not just "a school" but every school.  I had extremely varied confrontation scenarios.
1. Ignored bully - worked out well
2. Ignored bully - just kept going
3. became bully - school stepped in quickly
4. eventually fought back bully - school stepped in quickly
5. immediately fought back bully - just slowly escalated to bigger and bigger confrontations

Did we have a bully thread?  I think we did.

[Dr. DTVT]

We've become a nation of pussies.

So much this.  We don't allow kids to fail on their own anymore.  The second adversity raises its head, parents and administrators are their to ensure the child is never challenged, especially if it is a hard or even nearly impossible challenge.  I took a job at an "elite" private school because the money is as good as what tenured profs make at the schools I was at.  Most of these kids are going to be complete screw-ups in life.  One-third of the class basically quit because they got less than 50% on a homework assignment.  Not a test or big project...a simple first chapter assignment.  And who is getting shit for popping their precious inflated egos?  Me.  They treat class like social hour and don't pay attention, get poor scores...yet I'm the one hearing from administration.  Parents think that just because they pay stupid sums of money to send their kids there that they can't possibly do poor.  I caught a group of students cheating in an open and shut case, and one parent demanded a meeting and was defiant her kid did not cheat.  Needless to say, I'm looking at what jobs are popping up nationally.

[Calvin6s]

They already divide the classes up between honors and "general".  To be honest, honors really isn't honors. It is more like "these are the kids that have a chance" and the rest are the "we give up" kids.  For one semester, I decided I was going to take it a bit easier and declined the next honors equivalent class.  The teacher/counselor's speech was more or less "No no no no no ... you don't want to do that.... OMG, just trust me.  This is a mistake."  But I insisted and the change was dramatic.  It was a complete joke.  To the point where I was testing how far I could push "literature".  My friend and I did an assignment on Iron Maiden's Rime of the Ancient Mariner.  The class literally had to listen to our tape for 14 minutes and the teacher decided it was worth discussing.

This isn't to put down the song.  But I mean ... come on.  The next assignment we had was to memorize a poem and then rewrite it in class as the test.  We didn't have to analyze it.  Just prove we could remember X amount of words.  I chose Metallica's Sanitarium.  I mean .. come on.

And I don't blame the teacher.  It was her first full time teaching job.  She wasn't a bad teacher though.  She was just trying to find ways to get the class involved.  That wasn't a hurdle in the honors program.  Besides those two things, the only thing I remember about that experience was this was the hottest, right out of college teacher in my high school years.  That probably made the problems with the class 10x worse.  After class, we'd talk about how hot she was.  She was so hot that if she turned out to be a DT fan and recognizes I'm talking about her, PM me.  Let's hook up.

[Phoenix87x]

They already divide the classes up between honors and "general".  To be honest, honors really isn't honors. It is more like "these are the kids that have a chance" and the rest are the "we give up" kids.

This is so true

In my high school there were 4 levels:

1.AP (advanced placements)- "Technically" a college course where you could take the AP test at the end of the year and get college credit. These were the first classes that I actually sat down and opened a book and actually studied. And that's not saying that I'm smart, that's saying that the school system was so piss poor at teaching or challenging its students to actually learn anything.

2. Honors- standard high school class

3. CP (College Prep)- pretty much the "we give up" kids. I knew one kid in there and I looked at some of there homework. It was like a shakespeare word find like this: and this was 11th grade





4. Traditional- I don't know much about this level, but I think it was more vocational, like they learned how to run a register or cook things. Ultimately I never knew anybody in that level so I really can't comment too much.




Regardless of the level, In no way did K-12 prepare me for life in anyway, besides learning how to do social interaction.

Never did we have a class on how to balance a check book, open a bank account and manage money, how to use a credit card and its pitfalls, how to maintain credit. How mortgages work, how to use and be cautious with loans, how to avoid picking college majors which don't really have any jobs waiting after graduation. How to avoid $40,000+ of student loans by doing in-state college, preferable at community college for the first two years and transferring to a university to finish a degree.

[Stadler]

But let's not lose too much focus.  One, it's not "private schools". it's the parents at private schools.  Because of my work, I've moved A LOT, to the point that up until this current "run", my daughter never did more than two years in the same school, and that only once.   So we've had her in private schools the whole time.    The last one in Philly was exactly like Calvin described; the teacher did anything, a parent complained that her little Britney or Cameron or whatever f*****g made up name they use these days wasn't getting a fair shot, and things changed.   The school she's in now is not like that (I would've pulled her in a heartbeat) and she has blossomed in terms of her thinking capacity and sharpness. 

I too wish she would learn basic "life skills" too, like in Phoenix87x's last paragraph, but to some degree, great (not good, not average) teachers are teaching kids not specific little facts, but how to think critically and how to assess unknowns and incorporate new information in real time.  My job as a parent is, therefore, to teach her those life skills, to teach her that she WILL fail at some point, and how to handle it with grace and humility in the short term, and to use it as a lesson and a stepping stone to be better and stronger in the long term. 

I'm old school; I don't believe my job is to pave the way for awards and recognition at the high school level.  My job is to build an adult that can navigate the waters of life as best she can for as long as she can.   We'll see which way is right (though I'm already seeing some results one way or the other). 

[Calvin6s]

I'm old school; I don't believe my job is to pave the way for awards and recognition at the high school level. 

Maybe I'm not understanding (I went to public school), but I'm gonna have to say it is all about awards and recognition.  High School is like a Boy Scout sash.  Your goal is to fill it up with as many merit badges as possible.  Whether or not you get anything from those merit badges is unimportant.  A merit badge that takes you a lifetime to earn holds the same value as the "attendance" merit badge.

[Calvin6s]

In my high school there were 4 levels:
1.AP (advanced placements)
2. Honors- standard high school class

Those were more or less one in the same at my HS.  Not all honors classes were AP, but the AP students were those from the honors program.  I don't know how much AP has changed since my time, but you basically spend a semester or two and all that matters is one 2 to 4 hour test at the end (like SAT testing conditions).

Regardless of the level, In no way did K-12 prepare me for life in anyway, besides learning how to do social interaction.

Never did we have a class on how to balance a check book, open a bank account and manage money, how to use a credit card and its pitfalls, how to maintain credit. How mortgages work, how to use and be cautious with loans, how to avoid picking college majors which don't really have any jobs waiting after graduation. How to avoid $40,000+ of student loans by doing in-state college, preferable at community college for the first two years and transferring to a university to finish a degree.

We did have some type of Finance elective.  I don't think it was *finance*, but some other more generalized life class.  But it was an elective.  And they tried to cover just about everything in a quarter and the big thing was the "fake" stock market play.  But it was horribly done.  The insurance section, for instance, was something like "you will need some insurance.  Here are some insurance types."  And that was it.  Basically the equivalent to a wikipedia search, although wikipedia has links.  I couldn't click on my textbook where it said "term life insurance."

The idea that the parents should teach that is dangerous.  I can't think of a more important subject in high school than personal finance.  Especially because you are dealing with actual finance situations at that exact age.

The college major is a big thing as well.  I honestly don't recall a single day like the movies where parents came in for career day to talk about their careers.  Other than the obvious "doctor, lawyer, teacher, McDonald's", if I didn't see it, I didn't know the job existed.  At least the structure or job title.  I think it was like 5th grade when my friend told me "I think I want to be an engineer."  Racing through my visual dictionary "you want to be a train conductor?"

[Chino]

There should be an entire class in high school dedicated to applying to colleges and what the financial implications of each school will be.

[Calvin6s]

There should be an entire class in high school dedicated to applying to colleges and what the financial implications of that school will be.

[Phoenix87x]

There should be an entire class in high school dedicated to applying to colleges and what the financial implications of that school will be.

 

[Calvin6s]

What about a class on careers that happens young, middle school and freshman year of high school (as something that seemed obscure to you at age 8 might seem very appealing at age 14).

Go over as many careers as possible. 
What are starting, average, high salaries.
Qualifications / Requirements
Ability to advance.
What is the competition like.
Is it long term or is there a likelihood of phase out.
What classes should you take specifically for that career.
Benefits

Perhaps introduce careers in order of most to least promising (financially / security)

You could say this is all available online, but what isn't?  Not having a firm understanding of a career means everything else is pointless because you set the goal before you set the steps.

If I had to reduce some of the required classes, I'd probably be looking at history first.  Oddly enough, the way history is presented in school is boring and focuses too much on chronology.  My interest in history spiked much higher AFTER school.

[Anguyen92]

I recall me and a couple of good people used to play handball for a few years in grade school.  It worked out all right, even though there was a bit of a scare where one kid accidentally ran into the wall (simple as didn't know where he was while playing and he hit the wall and fell).  There was an ambulance out and stuff.  As a 8-9 year old kid, at the time, that was pretty scary stuff.  Thankfully, no, the parents did not sue the school and we all moved on and learned from that experience.

Afterwards, the only real break time I had in school, until college time, was just lunch and before and after school (until the bus came) and what I did during that time was talk with good people and have good conversations about anything.

[Stadler]

I'm thinking back to high school now, and my friend Jimmy and I would play "handball" with a GOLF BALL in a concrete stairwell landing.  So it's a concrete box about 20' by 10' and about 15 feet high, and we're humming a golf ball as hard as we can and catching it barehanded.   Thank god for reflexes!  That would've hurt in the teeth or in the balls. 

[hefdaddy42]

We used to take the Q-Tips with blue plastic shafts (not sure if they even still make those or not), cut them in half, and insert needles into them, pointy end sticking out of the shaft.  Then we would fire them at each other using straws from the lunchroom as blowguns.

The possibility of getting one of these home-made darts in the eye never occurred to us.

[JayOctavarium]

Recess?  K-3rd grade: don't remember much.. Just Pokémon cards.
4th-6th -  lots of tag.  I remember "accidently"  groping a girl I liked several times.  Lol.
7 grade lunch period was spent getting bullied to the point where I was suspended for fighting back.  Other times I hid in the library or counselors office during lunch.
8th grade: Four Square.  Fuck yea.  Best lunch periods ever. 

[Dr. DTVT]

When I was in grades 1-4, we would play kickball or even tackle football.  Scrapes, brush burns, skinned knees, and the occasional bloody nose was the norm.  This would have been 1985-88; when boys were allowed to grow up and be men.

[lonestar]

One of our main recess games was smear the queer, nuff said. Gotta love the seventies.



One of the comments to that post points out the clear difference between then and now. Who besides me remembers mom yelling at us cause we got blood on our good school clothes?

[Calvin6s]

We used to take the Q-Tips with blue plastic shafts (not sure if they even still make those or not), cut them in half, and insert needles into them

WTF.  Even if we did that, I'm sure that would have been too far for the teachers to overlook.

One of our main recess games was smear the queer, nuff said. Gotta love the seventies.

I know we played that in K-6, but it wasn't our favorite.  I also remember the "what's a queer?" question.  We had decided it was a geek.

But we actually played that a lot in high school, as the water polo team.  Now that was scary.  We were all so "fish-like" that being underwater with half the team pushing you under, that we'd reason we could take it much longer than the average person.  Today, I'd freak the F out if I got caught in that.