Every kid needs time to be a kid. To say whatever you want to say, do whatever you want to do, be whoever you want to be. When I was growing up, this came in the form of play-dates, then sleepovers, then parties. It was a time when you learned how to handle social situations without your mother/father directing you how to play with someone else. You needed to navigate friendship independently. You needed to learn your limits socially and emotionally with friends and relationships. It was a time of exploration of the self, in a small, semi-controlled way.
In high school, I was fortunate enough to have a car at age 16, my license 4 months after that, and a credit card to pay for gas as I needed it. This allowed me to go to friends' houses, go out to eat, and attend social gatherings when I felt like it. All of my friends had houses that had enough space to fit as many people as we wanted to hang out with, usually between 4-8, and the refrigerator was always stocked (if it wasn't, we made sure to go get food to stock it.) It didn't matter what we did, all that mattered was that we had a space just to ourselves, where we could be us and not worry about adults watching our every move.
Most of my after school students are 16 and older, but none of them have cars. In addition, they have food at home (for the most part), but it's not overflowing for all to come and gorge on. Lastly, their homes are not exactly like the ones my friends and I grew up in, and have limited space for guests. Other than the physical constraints of hanging out, the emotional issues are even worse. It seems as though my students have significantly shorter tempers than my friends did growing up, and they are much faster to resort to violence to resolve their anger in a given situation. Their social IQs are also in question. They have grown up around so many bad influences that it is hard to believe not a single bad influence is going to rub off on them. When the teen pregnancy rate at our school is through the roof and the amount of drug-use rivals that of OTC medicines, it's difficult to believe that kids can handle their free time appropriately.
With that said, I can't think of a group of students who need unstructured safe free time more than students at my school. They are not given the opportunity to utilize free space because no one will trust them. Their predecessors made sure that the current students couldn't be trusted. In addition, one bad apple easily ruins the bunch. We had an issue earlier in the year with security, and therefore no students can come unless it's during regular security hours. These students are not given a space to BE teenagers. They are either in structured time (classes, study hall, sports, clubs) or they are not to be in the building (home, streets, friends' houses). The problem is, there are not enough safe recreational sites for our students to utilize those spaces for teen-time. The school is a safe-zone: a place that requires you to clear metal detectors and x-ray machines to enter. This is the best place for our kids to be (with home being a possible exception to this rule). Why are we so quick to kick them out?
The need for a safe recreational center became clear the other night when the athletes came to my room after practice (around 6:00p). They asked if I could bring my work in the gym and sit there while they played some basketball. My work was portable so I brought it with me and set up camp on the bleachers. It started with 5 kids. Then grew to 8. Then 13. Then 18. Then 20. Within 5 minutes the gym had become a local rec center. Kids formed teams and split the court up. They stayed on one side (as I had asked), and I plugged in my headphones so I didn't have to listen to their conversation. They were the happiest bunch of kids I'd seen in a while. They had been trusted with more freedom than they had felt in a long time. I didn't interfere with their "play time" and they let me do my work.
I was happy for them. They were able to be "normal" teenagers, even if it was only for an hour. When I needed to leave I gave a 10 minute warning and no one complained. As we left, they collected their stuff, cleaned up the space, and then left the building in their little clicks, walking home to their various neighborhoods. After we left the gym, I was a little sad. The kids realize that they are never trusted to just be by themselves. They will always require adult supervision (and security) in our school building. While I understand there are some teenagers who do need that kind of attention, the majority of the kids should be (and can be) trusted with unstructured free time in a recreational setting. However, thanks to the few bad apples that need the constant supervision, the bunch does not get to enjoy such luxuries.
How would you feel if you were constantly reminded that no matter how well you do in school, how hard you try to get good grades, or how closely you follow the rules, you will never be trusted to be in a recreational place without adult supervision AND security? I imagine it takes a toll and makes you feel as though you should live up to the expectation that you're doing something that makes you untrustworthy...
Also, how are you going to learn to "play" independently if we never give you the chance? You probably won't... Don't worry, we'll get mad at you later when you don't know how to handle free-time appropriately and resort to negative behaviors you learned from your predecessors who also didn't know how to appropriately handle leisure time.
Hopefully we can break this cycle and provide some unstructured safe free time; we should be good as long as I have a master key!
In high school, I was fortunate enough to have a car at age 16, my license 4 months after that, and a credit card to pay for gas as I needed it. This allowed me to go to friends' houses, go out to eat, and attend social gatherings when I felt like it. All of my friends had houses that had enough space to fit as many people as we wanted to hang out with, usually between 4-8, and the refrigerator was always stocked (if it wasn't, we made sure to go get food to stock it.) It didn't matter what we did, all that mattered was that we had a space just to ourselves, where we could be us and not worry about adults watching our every move.
Most of my after school students are 16 and older, but none of them have cars. In addition, they have food at home (for the most part), but it's not overflowing for all to come and gorge on. Lastly, their homes are not exactly like the ones my friends and I grew up in, and have limited space for guests. Other than the physical constraints of hanging out, the emotional issues are even worse. It seems as though my students have significantly shorter tempers than my friends did growing up, and they are much faster to resort to violence to resolve their anger in a given situation. Their social IQs are also in question. They have grown up around so many bad influences that it is hard to believe not a single bad influence is going to rub off on them. When the teen pregnancy rate at our school is through the roof and the amount of drug-use rivals that of OTC medicines, it's difficult to believe that kids can handle their free time appropriately.
With that said, I can't think of a group of students who need unstructured safe free time more than students at my school. They are not given the opportunity to utilize free space because no one will trust them. Their predecessors made sure that the current students couldn't be trusted. In addition, one bad apple easily ruins the bunch. We had an issue earlier in the year with security, and therefore no students can come unless it's during regular security hours. These students are not given a space to BE teenagers. They are either in structured time (classes, study hall, sports, clubs) or they are not to be in the building (home, streets, friends' houses). The problem is, there are not enough safe recreational sites for our students to utilize those spaces for teen-time. The school is a safe-zone: a place that requires you to clear metal detectors and x-ray machines to enter. This is the best place for our kids to be (with home being a possible exception to this rule). Why are we so quick to kick them out?
The need for a safe recreational center became clear the other night when the athletes came to my room after practice (around 6:00p). They asked if I could bring my work in the gym and sit there while they played some basketball. My work was portable so I brought it with me and set up camp on the bleachers. It started with 5 kids. Then grew to 8. Then 13. Then 18. Then 20. Within 5 minutes the gym had become a local rec center. Kids formed teams and split the court up. They stayed on one side (as I had asked), and I plugged in my headphones so I didn't have to listen to their conversation. They were the happiest bunch of kids I'd seen in a while. They had been trusted with more freedom than they had felt in a long time. I didn't interfere with their "play time" and they let me do my work.
I was happy for them. They were able to be "normal" teenagers, even if it was only for an hour. When I needed to leave I gave a 10 minute warning and no one complained. As we left, they collected their stuff, cleaned up the space, and then left the building in their little clicks, walking home to their various neighborhoods. After we left the gym, I was a little sad. The kids realize that they are never trusted to just be by themselves. They will always require adult supervision (and security) in our school building. While I understand there are some teenagers who do need that kind of attention, the majority of the kids should be (and can be) trusted with unstructured free time in a recreational setting. However, thanks to the few bad apples that need the constant supervision, the bunch does not get to enjoy such luxuries.
How would you feel if you were constantly reminded that no matter how well you do in school, how hard you try to get good grades, or how closely you follow the rules, you will never be trusted to be in a recreational place without adult supervision AND security? I imagine it takes a toll and makes you feel as though you should live up to the expectation that you're doing something that makes you untrustworthy...
Also, how are you going to learn to "play" independently if we never give you the chance? You probably won't... Don't worry, we'll get mad at you later when you don't know how to handle free-time appropriately and resort to negative behaviors you learned from your predecessors who also didn't know how to appropriately handle leisure time.
Hopefully we can break this cycle and provide some unstructured safe free time; we should be good as long as I have a master key!
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