The Salubriousness Of Recess
Now I have scientific backing should I need it to argue my case for decent recess-time allotment. Thus far, my kids’ schools allow my progeny to play outside a few times a day. If outside exercise time should be reduced, however, I’ll wave science or a doctor’s note in some administrative faces until my kids can go back outside. If that doesn’t work, I’ll sign them out for their daily dentist appointment and let them run laps around the block.
My kids are fortunate in that they live in Seattle, which isn’t as urban as some cities. Plus, they live in a mostly white, middle-class area of the city, which means their recess times will probably be maintained. According to a study released by The Center for Public Education, not only is NCLB affecting outside time, there’s also a “recess gap” for kids who attend school in the less-white, less-fortunate areas of town:
…the pressure on schools to find more instructional time is real, and it seems to be leading many districts to shave minutes from the recess time they provide. In addition, children who attend high-poverty, high-minority, or urban schools are far more likely than their peers in other locations to get no recess at all—a definite “recess gap” that commands our attention.
Kids are not medical residents, they aren’t grad students, and they aren’t studying for the Bar exam; it is okay for them to leave the classroom a few times a day and get their blood pumping. Even adults are supposed to get up for five or ten minutes every hour and move around.
Exercise, especially the way kids do it—the full-on running and throwing themselves around on the playground equipment—is good for the human body on several levels. It’s good for the heart (cardio and all that), the muscles (stretches and strengthens), the bones (increased bone density), it decreases stress, and it makes for happier and more energetic beings. An article in New Scientist points out that exercise increases memory function and promotes new brain cell growth:
There’s another reason why your brain loves physical exercise: it promotes the growth of new brain cells. Until recently, received wisdom had it that we are born with a full complement of neurons and produce no new ones during our lifetime. Fred Gage from the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, busted that myth in 2000 when he showed that even adults can grow new brain cells. He also found that exercise is one of the best ways to achieve this.
Why are the people in charge so backward in their thinking? Making kids sit still for hours has never made them better learners. It makes them spazzy and cranky and unfocused and unhealthy and does absolutely nothing to up a school’s standardized test scores.
Further Backing (Scientific and Otherwise):
Recess Makes for Better Students
Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills
Taking Play Seriously
American Academy of Pediatrics: The Importance of Play…
Before Children Ask, ‘What’s Recess?’
The Virtue of Recess
Remembering to Play
International Play Association: Promoting the Child’s Right to Play
Posted by Alexa Harrington
photo credit: Hayne Palmour IV (NC Times)
I agree 10,000%.
It fascinates me that this case even needs to be made. No child wants to sit inside all day and learn. It doesn’t matter how excellent that instruction is or how much they like the subject matter.
Kids need to play. Adults need to play too, but it’s even more important for kids. For God’s sake, let them go run around a bit!
AMEN!
I can only hope that recess is preserved for my future children!
Fight the good fight!
Mixed bag. I agree that recess is necessary, the equivalent for children of the five minute break every hour wage slaves need to maintain productivity, the absence of which places shul teachers in the same level of Tartarus as supervisors who only let workers rest when blood flows.
The practice is not new. Back when I was in pre-college, for such is unfortunately how I see primary and elementary shul, back when television was monochrome and dinosaurs roamed the planet, teachers would conveniently forget recess. Or in winter they would maintain the Southron tradition of grovelling inside. Happily this also worked to advantage when recess did occur by their being too unindustrious to force we wee bairns to engage in pointless team athletics for too brief a time to permit any number of us to do more than be chained in space and time.
The benefit of this was the time permitted one’s mind to actually not be deluged with mediocrity of curriculum and recover. It is very difficult to pay attention to long division when one is learning algebra on one’s own.