Grout Elementary School asks nonprofit to help make recess fun again

By Merry Mackinnon

The Bee, Nov 25, 2009

Merry MacKinnon / THE BEE

“Playworks”, a nonprofit, was hired by Grout Elementary School Principal Susan McElroy to teach children how to play games nicely during recess. Shown here from left, Principal McElroy, Playworks Coach Abby Rotwein, and Playworks Portland Executive Director Jonathan Blasher cooperate on turning recess into a playful learning experience for Grout students.

When Grout Elementary School Principal Susan McElroy suggests that children don’t know how to play anymore, her view is based on years of watching kids outside on playgrounds during recess.

McElroy has worked in education since 1983. “Over the years, it seems like kids have less of an idea about how to get games started,” McElroy told THE BEE from her office at 3119 S.E. Holgate Boulevard, in the Creston-Kenilworth neighborhood. “I'd see kids on the playground standing around and, maybe, doing a little bit of chasing.”

And, if conflicts arose amongst children, she says they often didn’t know how to solve them, and carried those resentments back into the classroom.

But, thanks to a national nonprofit program called Playworks, ever since school started this past September the children at Grout have been playing games during recess taught by Coach Abby, who also teaches them to settle disputes by using the age-old children’s mediation technique of “rock-paper-scissors”.

“We see a difference,” McElroy says. “The children love having an adult play with them.”

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