All thoughts of post-graduate school aside, many of us are getting dangerously close to the end of our several years of formal education.

Our training to become productive members of society is nearly complete. Our lives will soon be ours to live.

But what we lost along the way may be equal to what we gained.

My first step down the path of higher education began on a sunny August day in 1978. I remember very clearly my first day of kindergarten. As we all wandered into our new classroom, we were instructed to sit cross-legged around an orange circle that was painted on the floor. We learned about the alphabet, and we drew pictures with shiny new crayons. And a short while later we were introduced to one of the greatest concepts ever invented: Recess.

Keep in mind that recess was a privilege that we gained full access to when we were five years old — a privilege that was intended to be slowly taken from us as we grew older. As kindergartners, half of the day was spent on the playground. By the time we were in fourth grade, that time was whittled down to a couple of 20-minute increments. And once we entered junior high, what little recess we had left in our lives was erased forever.

I remember when my sixth grade class went through junior high orientation and learned that our days would now be filled with extra classes and study halls. Only one person had the courage to ask what happened to our recess time.

We were told that if we ate fast enough, we would have a few minutes of free time during our lunch period.

Apparently satisfied, no one else spoke out, and our days on the playground were over.

And it really was too bad, considering all that we learned from recess.

Probably most, if not all of our basic concepts of human interaction, originated on the playground. When we built snow forts we learned about architecture. We learned about military science when we had to defend those snow forts from older students.

We memorized poetry and chanted it in unison while we skipped rope. We learned team management and leadership skills when we divided up to play red rover or freeze tag. We learned how to deal with conflict as we avoided the dreaded playground bully. And we learned political maneuvering when we picked all our friends to be on our team for kickball.

The list goes on and on.

But maybe most importantly, we used our imaginations. Many Lego empires rose and fell during recess. And with action figures in hand, the plot to Star Wars was rewritten in intricate detail hundreds of times.

On the playground we danced in faraway magical places of our minds’ creation. We dreamed of the future, and we believed in that future.

When recess disappeared, those places somehow became harder to reach as well.

In our younger elementary days, recess was always followed by nap time — another brilliant concept that has been snatched from us.

I remember lying on my thin, foam rubber mat, surrounded by classmates on colorful mats of their own. We all remained silent and still on the cool tile floor. The lights were off, the blinds were pulled, and for a few moments, we could relax, even sleep. For a few moments we had a little time to ourselves.

Nap time was taken from us long before recess was. It ended before we had a chance to fully appreciate it. Its demise was inevitable. The corporate world we are about to enter wouldn’t be very happy if every afternoon, everybody decided to stop working for 20 minutes, shut the lights off and take a nap. And it’s a shame, because I think we all need it.

Along with nap time, milk time was also a staple of our early educational lives. Every afternoon, a cart was wheeled around with chocolate milk on it. It was nutritional. It tasted good. And it was something to look forward to.

Unlike recess and nap time, milk time hasn’t completely disappeared from our lives. The adult equivalent is coffee and smoking breaks. But somehow it isn’t quite the same. There was more of an innocent wholesomeness associated with milk time. Coffee and cigarettes are a poor substitute.

So while many of us are nearly ready to begin our professional lives and what will hopefully be long and productive careers, we should take a minute to remember what’s really important in life.

As for me, I can’t help but hear the faint sound of a recess bell in the back of my mind. I could also use a nap and a tall glass of chocolate milk. And while I’m thinking about it, whatever happened to show and tell?

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Troy McCullough is a senior in journalism mass communication from Pleasantville. He is the Daily’s editor-in-chief.