Rush Hour

Any place where there are young people is inevitably going to involve some running - it should! It’s actually wildly unnatural to expect young people to sit in desks and calmly walk in straight lines. It makes many adults feel like there’s order and safety when they see “tamed” children, but we don’t necessarily want to be breaking the wild horses inside of our kids - that’s not psychologically safe.

Of course there’s a need for some boundaries - few people enjoy being plowed into at full speed by a person of any age, but there also needs to be space for movement.

At Sudbury schools, we want the power inside of young people to have space to grow and develop - including their physical power. Our students are free to move around, inside or outside of our building (just staying within our locked gates). Even during community meetings, there’s literally some “wiggle room” for those who need to squirm or fidget, maybe lay on the floor, or quietly walk around the sidelines of the group. We know that at various stages of development and various times of life kids need that space and shouldn’t feel constantly reprimanded for simply being a young person whose body needs to move.

We have an agreement at school that running should be done outside or in the indoor gym. The reality, of course, is that games of tag and hide and go seek often migrate inside. Getting from the indoor gym to, well, anywhere else, is often done at speed without a lot of thought - meaning there’s no malice intended, it’s just the most expedient route and velocity!

Again, we have an agreement about inside running to protect people from being run into and to allow for a quieter inside environment (those wild hearts do indeed often sound like a herd of wild horses). Every year there are older students who bring younger students to our RJC (Restorative Justice Committee) for breaking the indoor running agreement. Sometimes it goes to School Meeting so more folks can weigh in on the issue. Over the years there have been creative ideas for how to help slow people down inside: asking the runners to take “baby steps,” wear only one shoe, walk like a ninja, post “No running” signs on walls and doorframes… most recently some yellow A-frame “Wet floor” signs were placed in the middle of the Community Room as reminders and physical barriers requiring a slower speed.

This week I was really interested in a new approach that was proposed by students at School Meeting. Two teens brought up that we need to find a compromise - of course we want to maintain safety in the building, but the nature of young kids is to run, so how can the various needs of our mixed-age community coexist?

Discussion evolved to a proposal for an hour each day that the downstairs would be open for more noise and running and those who didn’t want to be around that could go upstairs for quiet. They argued that it’s really hot outside and that we should find a way to let the younger students run around more inside. Another teen at the meeting said he would approve it if we called it “Rush Hour” - which we all liked a lot.

Will “Rush Hour” solve the problem of conflicting desires for speed and sound? We’ll see! It’s rather inevitable that it will be brought back up at School Meeting for review in the near future. All of our agreements and policies are living, breathing things that need time for trial and error - like real life.

“Rush Hour” is of course nothing like “recess” in most schools. Many schools these days only have about 30 minutes for moving one’s body - and sometimes that’s micromanaged by adults or even taken away, often from the young people who need that movement the most! Our new 12-1pm Rush Hour is not the only time that students at The Miami Sudbury School can run and play. We make sure that most of the day is available for chosen activities, including precious and productive play. You can always run outside. Just now, you can also run INSIDE for an hour!

Young people are amazing. When they have the power to not only move but to also make moves to influence policy for their surroundings, they are empowered to think critically and compassionately. If more of us could remember how important movement was to our younger selves, we might fight harder to preserve times and places for young people today to run and enjoy some wild play in the safety of a community that appreciates them and their needs.