I follow some eighth and ninth graders into the gym. I ask one of them where his class meets and he says downstairs, so I follow him and a few other boys to the basement, then to the end of the hall, and they disappear into the locker room. Oops! I backtrack to the gym, one floor up, and soon the students are trickling in, shorts and t-shirts, ready to go.
The teacher, Nicola, greets them as they come in. She’s seated in the first row of the bleachers. She has packets called “Workout Planners” spread out for them to pick up. Actually, for about half of them to pick up. These students have choices what they will work on: Food, Fun, and Fitness. The packets are for those who’ve chosen Fitness. It’s a workout log, more or less, that they complete themselves. The rest of them are working on Fun. This block no students have chosen Food, the nutrition option, but I’ve seen them in the past, in the cafe that overlooks the gym, making smoothies.
Pretty nice to be able to choose an option called Fun! Nicola tells me that they keep track of what they have done – and the goals they have set for themselves – on a Google spreadsheet. They complete the form at the end of each class. Just as she is going to share the spreadsheet with me, a student cries out and falls to the floor at the far end of the gym. Nicola has been here before, she hurries, but without looking hurried, to the student. The other students stand around the way we do when someone is injured and sprawled out on the ground. She takes her time with him, the other students unsure what to do, and after a bit he’s back up on his feet. It looks like his arm is sprained, he cradles it as the student teacher, who spotted the accident from the running track above the gym, guides him out the door, on the way to the school nurse.
More students have arrived. They kick a volleyball, hard, against the wall. Nicola tells them to take it easy. Then one of them swats the volleyball with a badminton racket. The ball bounces off Nicola’s laptop, she admonishes them once more and sends them to the weight lifting area, with their Fitness packets. The badminton racket is left in the bleachers, bent now like an old spoon. The second casualty of the morning.
Against a backdrop of soccer passes and the bounce of a basketball, Nicola counsels a young student who is unsure what to do. He is by far the shortest in the class, probably the youngest student here. He seems to have a plan, but after the conversation he takes a basketball to the other end of the gym and sits in the bleachers. I’m sensing he wants to shoot baskets, but that the other kid on the court is just SO TALL. Eventually he gets up and starts to dribble. He’s adjusting to boarding school, he’s finding his way, like we all must. I can tell Nicola has had her eyes on him, she knows he was waiting to get involved, she gave him space. And then with sudden inspiration he throws the basketball from midcourt. Hits the backboard. I wouldn’t have guessed he is so strong.
Upstairs around the running track are the exercise machines. I head up to that level and take a spot on the floor between an elliptical machine and a machine labeled shoulder press. Not ideal to sit here on the floor, but the computer’s battery is waning and there’s a place to plug it in here. Two boys close to me are sitting on arm and leg machines – the ones that have comfortable seats – and looking at their phones. Another is going from machine to machine doing a few reps, while one more comes by doing cartwheels. I didn’t expect that!
Nicola comes over to remind the boys how much time they have, that they need to log their progress in the packet or on the google form. They get busy looking busy while she is there, then when she leaves they strike up a new conversation. I’m a little disappointed that they are comparing their family’s wealth. Not taking an option to work out is pretty understandable to me. Trying to one up each other with talk about money is depressing.
The moral of the story: Getting young students to use their time wisely is not easy. We can force and coerce, we can use carrots and sticks, but then they aren’t really learning to use their time wisely. They’re acting within a compliance model, doing what the adult expects (extracts?) from them. So we can do like Nicola, we can give them lots of freedom and then watch as they squander some or much of the time they have. That’s an uncomfortable feeling as a teacher. But how else do you practice managing your own time other than managing your own time? And when you aren’t used to controlling your time and learning yourself, at least when school is in session, well, it’s going to take a while to learn.
As I pack up to leave a girl is showing a boy how to do crossovers when jumping rope. She demonstrates, making it look easy. He tries it with his rope and makes it look hard. They both laugh.
I think to myself: here are a bunch of kids enjoying the gym, doing their own thing, talking with others, trying things out. They are building good memories of being in the gym while they are performing a little litmus test, week by week, of their ability to self direct. This is exercise for the body and mind, because the teacher is brave enough to step back and let the students practice their own agency.