It's Lord of the Flies all over again!

Hallo class! Today we're going to reflect on a few of the things we witnessed during today's play-yard observation but first some stuff about ME.

Registered for my Spring classes first thing this morning -- O.K. can I just say, sometimes I get the distinct impression that I (and my life) am a button attached to the end of a string. the string is mostly invisible and is always taut so usually I think it's just me (the button) hanging out, rolling along, doing all those adorably annoying things that somehow manage to both piss off and enchant the masses on a daily basis but then something like my school registration comes up and I realize that I have no control at all and in fact I am simply a button being pulled along by this string to all the places, people and situations, I need to interact with to have things continue to function in a way that will cause me some happiness and, at the very least, smaller amounts of heartache.

Case in point: I did not know I was supposed to be registering for classes today. I quite simply was not in any way aware that the reg period was fast approaching and that there would be a fine (200.00) if I missed the cut-off and registered late. Then, last night in class, Hottie Prof. has me chat with a girl who is very nice but whom I typically do not talk to about cross-registering at Berkley and during the course of our conversation she mentions that the reason she wants to cross-register is because the class she wants into is full prompting me to inquire how she knows it full to which she replied that (it being near the end of the registration period) you could go on-line and see what was left. (!!)

So, all of a sudden I'm faced with needing to register for classes the next day. Which, co-incidentally enough is the day I have off from work anyway. So I move some things around time-wise and arange to be at the school right at 9:00 when the center opens. Upon arriving i recognize a classmate of mine from last semester and (again in the midst of a casual conversation) she tells me she's registering for this policy class taught by this great teacher who usually doesn't teach evening classes and that it's open to grad students (!!) As I'm standing in line figuring out what to take...! Is that not just bizzarre?? I dunno. "Co-incidences"/Luck like this happens to me all the time but sometimes i swear it's just too calculated to be random... Anyway, I'm happy. I'm taking "Public Policy: Issues that affect Women and children" and "Quantitative analysis" (whoo hoo! You gotta love you some number crunching!) Anyway, I jsut thought it was eerie... Moving on then, back to the play-yard...

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So, some of the things I noticed about the 1st graders at my kid's school while they were at recess:

There's one girl who seems to prefer playing with the boys. (I originally wrote "always plays with the boys" but my brain is in "objective assessment" mode so I had to qualify it.) It's interesting because although she is included as a member of their pack she is not treated the same. All the decision making about what is going to be played next, what the rules of the current game are, who gets to tackle who should someone have both the football and the tetherball and be unwilling to give one up... are made by the boys. The boys throw the ball, catch the ball, kick the ball. On the one occassion I saw where the girl got the ball it was because a wild kick sent it off under the bench and she got to it first. Once she had it the boys treated her like they would any other boy - screaming for her to alternately throw it to them/at someone else but once she did throw it they stopped paying attention to her again. And it's not like she was being shy or "letting" them ignore her; she was right there, yelling , dodging, suggestiong, etc. They were just, as a group, not seeing her as someone who should influence them.

The boys tended to play in big groups while most of the girls played in groups of three or four. Also the girls were all over each other - pulling each other around, picking each other up, hugging, pouncing, etc. The boys didn't really touch each other while they were playing although they did touch each other when they stopped playing. There were lots of pushes and backpats and pokes when everybody lined up but when they were actually engaged in a game it seemed to be more about how far they could stay away from each other.

Secrets are bad. This was announced to me during one of the frequent demands for my council wherein a group of about four girls (quickly joined by four others) came marching over to inform me that C wanted to speak with Boo privately but that that wasn't fair because you're not supposed to have secrets and anyway it made A feel bad that she wasn't included. For the record i told them that "speaking privately" was not the same as "telling secrets" unless it was done in order to make someone feel bad and that Boo was the one who got to decide whether or not she felt like being "spoken privately" to... which I gather was somewhat unorthodox because everyone looked a little surprised. As they were walking away one of the little girls whispered to another little girl that "Boo got to pick because her mom's here..."

The concept of "Being popular" seems to hang on a child differently based on whether you're a boy or a girl. Boo seems to be very popular with her little group in that there was much tussling over who got to play with her and much discussion over who she "liked better" yet it was patently clear that this type of "popularity" was not making her particularly happy. In fact, it was making her worried-looking and a little stessed. on more than one occassion she just walked away from the squabbling group and ran across the playground to come lay on my lap and relax for a minute before one of the other girls came to collect her. By contrast the most obviously popular boy (him being the one who was most obviously orchestrating the larger games and whose opinion was sought out by the others in the group should there be a need for a ruling vis a vis some interaction) was loud and confident and clearly comfortable with his position. Then too, for him popularity seemed to mean he got to order people around. For Boo it seemed as though she got ordered around more.

There was one little girl who the other children just don't play with and I cannot for the life of me figure out why. She's small, tinier than Boo even, quiet, polite, loves to get hugged.... It's strange. She seems to crave attention - my first day observing she came running up and threw her arms around my leg, smiling happily before asking who exactly I was... And I've seen her give the other children hugs (she's always hugging Boo) and when I mentioned to Boo that maybe she'd like to play, Miss Boo shrugged and went over and invited her to follow them in their game but kids just didn't seek her out to play with. I'm going to see if Boo can tell me when next I get a chance to talk to my kid because it was just so not obvious to me why she'd be an outcast.

Kids play be their own rules. If you don't have something to bring to the table, you are not interesting to them. It doesn't seem to matter what it is though, just that you can do something interesting. A number of times I saw kids just stop what they were doing to watch some other kid do something interesting for a bit before running back off to play. And kids who noone was playing with, if they managed to get a hold of a ball or suddenly got very interested in their shoelace, would suddenly find themselves part of a group who would swirl around them until they became uninteresting again then they would disperse. The thing is none of it felt mean-spirited, really. Everyone was basically polite -- it was just very clear that these kids had to have a reason to notice you. In other words empathy didn't seem to be the prime motivator out there on the schoolyard this morning!

Whew! Anyway, those were ust some of the things I found to be interesting this mornign whilst out watching my kid interact with the other kids. Man, I'm kind of glad i'm a grown-up (kind of. I'd forgotten how fun teatherball can be!) Anyway... my lunch is finished and now I'm just avoiding real work so i'm off...

I hope everyone has the very best Thanksgiving ever! Ciao, for now!