Recess Differs Around the World

As seen by photographer, James Mollison, in his new book, Playground, how students play, learn, and live is very different around the world.

     In Tokyo, Japan, children in clean shirts and shorts play in a gym with plenty of space under a roof that opens and closes. At school in Hull, UK, young men in uniforms of white shirts with navy sweaters and pants fool around in a brick courtyard. Recess in Africa is quite different. Hundreds of students in drab uniforms stand around in the dirt in front of their ramshackle school in Nairobi, Kenya. In Freetown, Sierra Leone, students in blue shirts and dark shorts share their recess with pigs in a stream.

     Sitting at outdoor ping pong and chess tables, students in Tel Aviv, Israel, wear military uniforms, while the dress code on the students standing around outdoors in a cement lot in Bethlehem, West Bank, is blue shirts and dark pants.

     Outdoors in Karvag, Averoy, Norway, active students in sweaters spend their recesses climbing trees in a wooded lot. Some African children also like to climb trees in their free time.