What is it about sunshine which brings out the best in most of us?! Today was one of those days. During the first long break there I was in the thick of it on school yard duty, met almost immediately by a horde of my grade 7 French students speaking English to me for the first time. They had a basketball in their possession and were determined to dominate the hoop where we stood. It had been taken over by big kids, probably grade 12, at least twice the size of the little ones and it was a sort of stand-off, but no one was actually confrontational. I was most hesitant to say or do anything, mostly I was just sizing up the situation. The grade 7 pupils claimed they had been there first. The older group was suggesting the little ones move to another hoop across the way. But the little ones were holding their ground. Meanwhile another adult who was listening in on the bits of English took the older players off to the mobile hoop (on wheels) and they all pushed it out of the area where soccer was seriously underway. It happened all so smoothly that I was surprised when my pupils thanked me for what I had done, which actually was nothing. Meanwhile I turned my attention to the jump rope at my other side. There were my really big, grown-up grade 9 pupils having the time of their lives. Various kids were taking turns turning the extra-long rope while grade 9 kids (boys and girls alike) were running into the center and giving it a try. This was most entertaining. These were the kids I had begun the year with, fresh out of grade 8, still looking so young, who had matured physically in more ways than one so that I felt as if I were watching young adults jumping with glee. Sometimes a group would get going and find themselves in perfect coordination for several synchronous jumps, then some other kids would jump in and trip it up. Still others would deftly dash through. Perhaps most daring were the little grade five girls trying to roll their hula hoops through the swinging rope. I finally suggested to them that elsewhere might be better. Some of these grade 9 kids were so tall, you could wonder how the rope managed to miss them. As I watched these happily jumping kids, relaxing at random, I kept thinking of those 11 subjects they juggle each week, of those who take three foreign languages, biology and physics, history and geography and so on. On the other side of the play yard, the grade 5 and 6 boys play ping pong around a circular table, in a continuous running circle. No one is actually left out, as far as I could tell. These are permanent outdoor concrete table tennis tables. Just beyond them there are the hardcore smokers banished to a position a meter off of campus, just one meter from the old assigned smoking area for upper level pupils. I am so happy my duty assignment was changed from the bicycle cellar cum smoking area end of the courtyard to the middle of the sports area. Waving smokers from under the overhang to the off-campus walk-way was no pleasure for me. I always found it deeply depressing thinking of what those very bright, promising young people were doing to their bodies. And of course there were often a couple of teachers standing there with them since even teacher smokers have been banished from the campus since January 1 of this year. My plan is to bring a camera next week when my duty slot comes up again but I wonder if I will actually be able to capture that same moment in the sunshine.
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