What was your favorite subject in school? Mine was recess.
An hour of PE doesn't equal recess. Our kids need more unstructured time.
I assumed all elementary schools had recess. Turns out they don't, so the S.C. legislature is looking into a law that makes recess mandatory. They should also make a law that common sense is mandatory.
We all want our kids to be smarter, faster, jump higher, more successful and extremely happy, so we push push push. Just what is all that pushing bringing us?
Well, in Lily's case, it's brought really bad handwriting. She was in a very high-quality church dayschool and was taught to write when she was four. Trouble is, her motor skills weren't up to it. She couldn't form the letters properly. The teacher kept telling me to work with her, but I kept thinking, "She's in 4-K." I should have finished that thought with, "She's in 4-K. Maybe she's not ready to write."
Instead, in first grade it turns out that Lily can't write where you (or she) can read it, and the first grade teacher says she sees a lot of this from the children being taught to write too early. Lily is one of the worst cases. So the teacher tries to get the administration's permission to drop printing with Lily altogether and switch to cursive, since printing is a lost cause but perhaps Lily will be able to start fresh with cursive. The administration didn't agree.
I've always thought that content mattered more than handwriting, but I should have been paying more attention. Lily's handwriting, cursive or printing, is a mess. She's an honor roll student and gets good grades when the teacher can read her writing. Sometimes Lily can't even read her writing.
This is one of my regrets, and fortunately Lily will probably be able to send me typed birthday cards when she gets older so I can read what she has to say. As far as regrets go, bad handwriting is a problem but something we can all live with in the scheme of things.
But no recess! Somebody needs to pay attention to what we're doing to our kids. What do you think?


