Edward Lear
You’re hearing part of Carly and Lucy Simon’s version of Edward Lear’s “The Owl and the Pussycat.”
Mental Hygiene Films
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Mental-Hygiene-Films.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 5/9/2000 Mental Hygiene Films Transcript I remember vividly to this day a spring morning in high school, back in the early 1960s, and being marched into the auditorium to be treated to a film called “Drug Addiction,” about the decline and fall Marty DeMalone, […]
Dr. Spock
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Dr-Spock.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 5/2/2000 Dr. Spock Transcript Dr. Benjamin Spock was born today in 1903, in New Haven, Connectict, into a solidly conservative New England family. An ironic beginning, perhaps, for a man who would be demonized during the 1960s and 70s, and blamed for having popularized […]
May Day
That’s the late, great, beat poet, Allen Ginsberg with friends singing a part of their 1969, slightly off-key version of one of William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence”–the “Echoing Green.”
Kindergarten Day
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Kindergarten-Day.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 4/21/2000 Kindergarten Day Transcript Today is Kindergarten Day, which is celebrated in honor of Friedrich Froebel who was born today in 1782 and who started the first Kindergarten in Germany in 1837. The school was built upon a series of innovative principles that used […]
Roman Vishniac
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Roman-Vishniac.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 4/19/2000 Roman Vishniac Transcript Perhaps it is the first warm day of spring, and the boys in the picture have pulled off their shirts and rolled up their trousers, forming themselves in a circle to to play a ball game–it could be dodge ball. […]
Poetry Collections
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Poetry-Collections.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 4/14/2000 Poetry Collections Transcript When kids get to pick out the poetry that they like, as you can imagine, they’ll usually go for something funny or gross or outrageous–something that pushes the envelope and makes us squeamish adults squirm a little in our chairs. […]
New Poetry Books
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Young-Peoples-Poetry-Week.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 4/13/2000 New Poetry Books Transcript Every household should have a nice, thick volume of poetry on its shelves, for reading aloud or pouring over silently, for inspiration or comfort, or for the sheer pleasure of hearing language beautifully crafted. One doesn’t need to explicate […]
National Week of the Young Child
What you’re hearing is a child making his first poems–squealing with delight at the sound of his own voice, rhyming sounds, endlessly repeating what he decides will be his choruses, singing his couplets with his whole little body.
Wordsworth’s Child
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Wordsworths-Child.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 4/7/2000 Wordsworth’s Child Transcript It’s the birthday today of William Wordsworth, who was born in 1770, and was one of the leading British Romantic poets. He wrote a poem called “The Rainbow” in 1802 that, in some respects, has shaped our thinking about childhood […]