duke ellington school

I volunteered in Washington Heights today - so in a neighbourhood just north of Harlem. The school was P.S. 4 Duke Ellington and it was at the end of a residential street lined with brownstone houses. It was a hot day. The street was on a slight hill, so from the intersection with the main street, I couldn't tell that there were large groups of schoolkids playing on the street...but I could hear them.

Getting closer to the school I witnessed perhaps one of the most 'New York' scenes ever: children running around the street with their friends as two fire hydrants spurted water out across to the other sidewalk. The kids were laughing and chasing each other, supervised by teachers who were cheering them on. This must be some kind of school sports activity. I wondered straight away if this was because the school was co-located and they had limited playground space. But it was not, apparently the school occupies the entire building. The hallways looked like your typical American school, but significantly better thought out in terms of decoration and colour. It seemed the teachers had made some effort to add variety (such as creative seating) in the hallway.

The volunteers were gathered outside, and we were let into the school by very young teachers. We were led into a room of 3rd graders who greeted us with excitement and glee. I was paired with 2 students, one of them a tiny but chatty girl and the other a much more quiet and withdrawn boy. Both were around 8 years old. The task was to write about design and engineering and to encourage the students to think outside the box and begin to construct more complex sentences.

The young girl answered my question about the kids playing in the street, she said 'we have a playground in the school, it's nice just not very big.'