SPECIMEN #2025-J: Recess Therapy and the Radical Wisdom of Children

• In Event: Digital Ecologies of Hope: A Natural History of Emerging Media Futures

Abstract

This study analyzes how "Recess Therapy" TikTok content reframes children as wisdom holders through adult-child interviews in public spaces. Research reveals intergenerational knowledge exchange that challenges adult-centric assumptions about insight and learning. Children's unscripted responses to philosophical questions demonstrate clarity that disrupts adult cynicism and over-complication. The practice creates public experiments in listening to young people with reverence rather than entertainment, recognizing joy and play as legitimate knowledge forms. Viral responses indicate adult audiences seeking alternative perspectives, with children's casual authority providing frameworks for reconsidering fundamental questions. Comments reveal viewers experiencing paradigm shifts about childhood wisdom and social priorities. This digital format enables widespread distribution of child perspectives typically confined to private interactions. The research contributes to understanding how platforms can amplify marginalized voices, revealing children's capacity for transformational knowledge adults often overlook, suggesting more democratic educational approaches.

Author

• Julio Intriago Izquierdo, Teachers College, Columbia University