By Ezekiel Buchheit
Arizona Daily Wildcat
April 13, 1998

Just my luck, no recess

How many of us remember elementary school? I mean, can you actually remember sitting through any of your classes? Do you have any nostalgic memories of learning your ABCs or fractions or vocabulary? Probably not.

We all know that the best part of elementary school was recess. I lived for recess. Sure, I would suffer through math and reading and all the other bull, but I was there for one thing: recess. Recess rocked. Forty-five minutes of imagination and creativity. Forty-five minutes to run, scream, jump, bash bugs, play on the swings, avoid the "kissy girls," run from the bullies, toss a ball around, tell your friend he's got cooties, save the planet from alien attacks, argue whether Duke or Sergeant Slaughter is cooler and generally screw off.

Recess was the most educational part of elementary school. I learned very quickly that big people could make life annoying, some people will always be ignorant, girls rock, swings rock, slides can be scary and the basics of quantum physics.

I can't imagine elementary school without recess. But I'm going to try. You see, an elementary school in Atlanta, Georgia has removed recess from its schedule. That's right, no more recess for any grade level.

Yeah, I know what your reaction is: "What the f*ck!" My sentiments exactly.

But for the sake of the school, we'll look at their points, give them their ample space here in this article, and then show how ludicrously stupid this decision was.

The school believes that the purpose of going to school is education. Recess is simply mindless play and has no ties whatsoever in the process of gaining knowledge. You see, this school is run by adults who were never children. Adults born at the age 35, with a job, a family and children already graduating college.

Developmental psychologists have been arguing against the abolishment of recess. Children need unsupervised learning. Recess teaches valuable social skills and it aids in imagination and creativity. And it was just so cool. Hell, labor laws provide an hour break for every certain amount of hours worked. Jails give the inmates time to walk around the yard and buy drugs from the corrupt guards. These kids don't even get to play on their lunch break. When they have finished eating, they must sit quietly at their table until they are excused and get to go back to class.

I would have failed out of school along time ago if I had to suffer through this. Most kids hate school the way it is now. Not enough play time. I mean, school was barely sufferable with recess, but strip recess from it and you've got something worse than boarding school going on. Heck, I still go out and play. Sure the toys have changed a little bit, but it's still the greatest part of the day. At least they are being honest with the children. These kids are learning real fast how much life sucks, what happens when the idiots get into a position of power, and the value of time.

And they still have after school to go hang out with their friends.

Well, not really. More and more parents are sending their kids to after school programs like soccer practice, or piano lessons, or electrical engineering courses. These kids have no lives outside of work. We're going to have one young group of alcoholics coming around soon.

That's all I really have to say on this point. I think the ignorance of the decision to remove recess speaks for itself. Anyway, I've been working far to long and my friends are all out on the big toy. And so are the kissy girls. I think I'll go and kiss them back. Hee hee.

Ezekiel Buchheit is a freshman majoring in English. His column, "I Like Biscuits," appears every Monday.