To P.E. or Not to Be

I co-teach physical education to grade 1 and 2. When I started two years ago we had two footballs and three basketballs. Back then, we were not allowed to use the big open field in front of school. The director had just spent a large sum of money having new grass planted, and he wasn’t about to have it used by the students.

We were fairly creative in those days so we found other places to conduct our activities. Places like the school auditorium or the outdoor basketball court which had no hoops and had been converted into a storage area for old tables and chairs. In times of desperation we used the access roads for relays, stopping the race for the occasional truck or car.

Two years later and we are down to one football, and as of today it’s missing. The field in front of school is barren of grass along the edges and the last bastion of yellowish grass is making a heroic stand against a merciless sun. Only Ajarn Franco is creative with his activities, and even he can’t be asked most of the time, and as for Ajarn Carlsberg and me, well, we’ve played football for the entire year.