“Recess” coaches may help classroom work
Raymundo Barreles, 7, and Osiel Cervantes, 8, students at Denver’s Swansea Elementary, settle a playground dispute amicably using the “rock, paper, scissors” method, taught to them by recess coach Eben Bowers.
Recess went better at Denver’s Swansea Elementary School last week than any week Principal Mary Sours can remember in the past ten years.
Kids were running instead of standing against the wall. Disputes were minimal. Energy was expended in a productive, healthy way that left youngsters ready for learning when they went back inside.
Oh, what a difference a week can make. And Sours and her teachers don’t ever want things to go back to the way they were.
“Teachers have now seen what recess can look like,” Sours said, “and they don’t want to give that up now.”
Swansea was one of seven DPS schools to get a trial “recess coach” for a week from Playworks, a California-based non-profit organization that operates programs in ten cities across the country with the goal of making recess more productive in low-income schools.
If funding can be arranged – and Sours is determined to find the $23,000 it will cost – then come fall, Swansea will hire a Playworks recess coach to permanently transform the recess ethos of the school, located in north-central Denver.
Give credit to Eben Bowers, the visiting Playworks coach, who last year ran a program in San Francisco,