Playground Rules

This story is about the rules we learn early in our life through our games on playgrounds that eventually become the divisions in the wider society we live in as adults. Here is an excerpt: Elementary playgrounds are not as innocent as they are often imagined to be. It was there among the multi-colored slides and merry-go-rounds that I learned how to accept, judge, compare, stereotype, forgive and even fear other human beings. It was at recess, twice a day, that I experienced human behavior at its absolute best. It was also there, running back and forth on the blacktop, that I discovered the worst of what we can be when we allow our differences to drive us apart. Things we learn in elementary school are often the most lasting because they occur long before we perceive we are making choices about who we are or who we are going to be. Our understandings of the rules of the wider society seep deep into our consciousness in the midst of play and therefore, sidestep our normal internal alarms and suspicions. These ways of, and rules for, treating other people don’t seem so important or serious because they are just part of playing a game.