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jessicarizzo's picture

recess

I hated sports when I was a child.  I still hate sports.  I really hate sports.  I meet people who play sports and have to overcome a strong and deep-seated prejudice before coming to like or respect them. 

Just being honest.  I know this is wrong.  And I'm sorry.  I'm trying to change. 

That's the unconscious.  Now, during all those very unhappy recess hours spent playing kickball in fourth grade (it was mandatory.  they said it was important for the children to learn to play nicely with one another), my mind was working overtime to formulate theories to justify my contemptuous feelings towards my peers... mindless grins on their faces, gleefully trotting their unvarying path around the diamond... sometimes a few of the boys even got all piqued about it.  Red in the face, shouting at one another and stamping their feet because they disagreed over whether a ball was "foul." 

That ball was always foul to me. 

I did not understand this enterprise.  Still less did I understand the pity and terror it seemed to inpire.  If I got the third "out" and my team was no longer "up," we would retire to the outfield (where at least I might be left alone long enough to get a good daisy-chain started),  but inevitably the changing of the guard would come again.  I would be encouraged to "hustle" back to the infield.  Again, I would be led to homeplate, as Abraham led Isaac to the altar.  Again, the ball would roll towards me, (usually) make contact with my foot, and richochet off in a direction predictable only by principles of chaos theory we are still years from understanding. 

Then we would be "out" again.  The hellish cycle would only continue.  So, whence the pique? I wondered..  There seemed.. and yes, seems to be as little room for variation and engagement as in the "power teaching" classrooms.  A good way to train soldiers, not thinkers.. or people. 

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