Yard Duty

My best friend and I used to play "Hot Lava" in the third grade. You know the one: don't you dare touch the tanbark, or you're "out." Of course, The Leader could specify a number of "safe" steps, in case the jaunt from one structure to the next was simply too wide to jump. Walking on the beams lining the playground and jumping onto the various bars, slides, or poles wasn't enough, though. The Leader would also take us across the monkey bars, explaining we'd have to skip every other bar, or other challenging move. It was tons of fun.

Inevitably, though, The Leader's requests would catch the eye of The Yard Duty.

Our Yard Duty was the same woman every year for our tenure at elementary school. Short, wide, dark-rimmed glasses, and seldom a smile. She had a shiny whistle around her neck, but nothing else about her was shiny. 

She was the killjoy. She told us we couldn't jump so far. We had to do the monkey bars without skipping. We couldn't leap from the top of the climbing structure to the middle of the next ramp. She was no fun.

Well, I have become The Yard Duty.

My first official day was Thursday. I put my little phone-cord-bracelet BART whistle around my wrist, read over - well, skimmed over - the pages upon pages of "rules" and crossed my fingers that I wouldn't seem like a complete idiot.

I checked in with The Playground Supervisor to see where I would be needed, but also caught the eye of a friend of mine who informed me that the monkey bars are always a hotbed of action. Wanting to have an obvious place, I chose the playground area with the bars, slides, and swings [the structure of which includes the swing on which I placed Evan's flowers.]

Later on in the recess, the same friend pointed towards a group of girls on the bars, remarking, "Those are special-needs kids, just so you know. So you have to really look them in the eye when you address them."

That moment was rather surreal, because her comment indicated that she didn't consider my son "special-needs" even though I would have given the same advice to anyone dealing with him or any other child on the spectrum. But the girls to whom she was referring are in a special-day class. Meanwhile, her own son has a version of "special needs" in that he has type one diabetes. Folks assume "special needs" relates to cognitive impairment, but my friend's constant vigilance in maintaining her son's blood sugar is quite "special."

One of the girls did a beautiful flip down from the rings. I was impressed, but I wasn't Yard Duty to cheer on gymnastics, so I jogged up to her. "You can't flip on the bars," I said almost too apologetically. In a small voice I said, "Even though that was cool." And then I regretted my compliment. I am here to be an authority, I told myself.

"I do it all the time at after-care," she said, confused.

"I know." I nodded. "But you can't do it during this recess. There are too many other kids who might try it, too. It isn't safe for them to do it. I'd hate for you to fall on your head, too." Too much explanation, I told myself, but I wanted to rationalize it because I had said essentially the same thing when I was her age. I told The Yard Duty that I was perfectly able to flip, tumble, jump, and spin. "I won't get hurt," I insisted over and over again.

I saw a girl splayed out at the bottom of the slide. I heard giggles, so didn't move right away. But as she stayed there longer, I sprinted over, "Are you okay?" The girl sprang to her feet and the cabal guffawed. I had been tricked. My friend later agreed that she's fallen victim to the same stunt.

Mere minutes later, I heard sobs from under the slide. Is this a joke? I wondered as I went over. I discovered a sad young man who upon seeing me started pointing at a very tall, very beautiful girl, accusing her of hitting, kicking, punching, and throwing tanbark. She started to scream back, but I put my hands up. "We've got to talk this out calmly," I said, but both kids' eyes were wet, their faces tense.

They spoke at the same time, pointing, angry. Finally the girl apologized with an eye-roll and ran away. My attempts to comfort the boy were unsuccessful. "I don't have any friends. I am so sad. She does this to me every time: punching, kicking, beating me."

He asked to be left alone. I complied, but hoped that The Playground Supervisor wouldn't see the crying boy and think I was ignoring him. I shouldn't have worried, for minutes later he was smiling, running with a group of boys.

I witnessed a lot of yelling, excluding, and lack of turn-taking. But I also observed as one girl very carefully assisted another [special needs] girl across the bars. "What a great friend you are!" I exclaimed, and then - as directed by our Yard Duty Rules - tied it into the Character Pillars: "Great citizenship!" The girl said, "She's my sister" as I mentioned "friend."

"Well, you are a fabulous sister," I told her with a smile. She smiled back.

I watched as various groups of kids worked together, including special-needs kids in their play.

In my day, we had that one Yard Duty. But when I assisted on the playground, there were oodles of aides, as well as the overall Playground Supervisor. I thought about what that meant, both with regard to the increase of special-needs kids overall, but also how our district is able to provide so much support staff.

I felt almost unnecessary as I watched over the kids, but I was glad to provide services as a splinter-remover for one exceptionally polite little girl. I tried to stay out of the way as much as I could, but definitely had to remind the kids not to go "up" the slide or otherwise use the equipment in ways that I know The Leader would have wanted us to do while playing "Hot Lava." But I understand now: I don't want any broken bones on my watch!

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Original Silicon Valley Moms Blog post, Kari also writes at The Karianna Spectrum.