A Glimmer of Hope...From a Playground War Game???

Written by Miri Gindin

No way bro.  Snow in Vancouver ??? Not a little bit but like, a metre deep in some places!!!  Yessss!!!!  Time to build a forttttt !!!

Before leaving school this afternoon Z. insisted on showing off the fancy snow fort that he and (according to the story) 60 of his friends had made.  It was actually pretty big and cool.   On the way home he unpacked the logistics.  

Z: “36 of us were building and 25 of us were protecting the fort.”

Me: What were you protecting it from exactly?

Z: “Maybe the grade fives will declare a war.”

Me: But no-one has yet?

Z: “No, everyone’s on the same side.  Except Bree, Nico, Anjani and Kaleigh.” 

Me: They’re on the opposite side? 

Z: “No, It’s just they were busy having a funeral for Bree’s yellow pom pom that got caught in the vacuum cleaner.”  

Me: Oh.  Indeed.  

Z: “Michael got fired from the fort.  And Caden got fired twice.”

Me: What for?  

Z: “They couldn’t control themselves and threw snowballs at their own team.”

Me: They defected?  Huh.  

Z: “But then they got re-hired.”  

Me: How?  

Z: “They had to prove that they could build really good snowballs for the fort.”

Me: Cool.  Who was in charge of the hiring and firing?

Z: “All of us.”  

Me: So, what exactly was the point of building the fort if you don’t have any enemies?

Z: “Oh, it was to improve our skills and work as a team.”

Wait a minute.  At this point I realized the gravity of what this child was telling me.   A large group of seven and eight year olds got together to create a non-hierarchical, democratic, meritocratic, compassionate mini-society that existed in order to skill-build and practice teamwork????   

Amazeballs.  

My public school in the 1980’s behaved rather like a totalitarian regime.  We needed to bend to the fickle will of the playground bosses or we could guarantee a swift onslaught of public shame and humiliation, often lasting for days, weeks or longer.  

It’s a new day, I thought.  Humanity is evolving.  Social-emotional learning is working.   Children are figuring out how to create a bit of peace, and decency.

Of course this is one snapshot of one event from one school in one city, from one child’s point of view.  

But I keep track of the news and there are a lot of things going on in the world that are worrying indeed.  

The little glimmer of promise from this one recess...inside me arose a feeling of hopefulness, and even deep warmth,  on an otherwise cold January afternoon. 

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