Flash forward to today, schools are starting to remove recess from the school day in order to cram in all the required academics. A friend recently mentioned recess being abolished in her local elementary school even for kindergartners. On what planet does it make sense to keep 25-30 five year olds cooped up in a classroom for an entire day?We have, luckily, not encountered such a strict or sweeping removal of free time from the school day at our school. But winter is a continual struggle. If the weather is too cold, muddy or slippery the kids have inside recess (remember that?). What that has meant is every child in that grade level gathering in the common area to watch a video! Recess is supposed to be a release of energy, a break in the "sit down and stay quiet" environment. But with indoor recess the kids are required to do that even more. I just love it when I hear my son has had indoor recess and then is in trouble for talking or not paying attention in the afternoon. The teachers are sure to get an email cced to the principal for that one!
Since I think this is basic common sense, I was not surprised to read a New York Times Article reporting research that supports the need for recess. The research stresses that downtime is as important to success as active learning time. Read the entire article here. It is, of course, comforting to get some academic muscle back up on what I've been saying as an educator and parent for a while now.
How is recess handled with your kids? How does recess time or lack of it impact your child's day?
4 comments:
I think it is a shame. My kids have recess two times a day - our school recognizes the importance....but even so my son was once kept in from recess in first grade as a punishment for fooling around in class. It happened once and never again because 1, the teacher figured out pretty quickly that the boys she kept in needed to blow off steam in order to sit still at all and 2... I made a point of calling and asking that it never happen again. I agree my child needed a consequence but taking recess is counterproductive.
We still have recess but I think it's only for about 15 minutes after lunch. When I was a kid my school had a full-blown playground with swings, bars (the kind you did swinging tricks on), and lots of fun metal things to climb on. My son gets recess on hardtop, and he brings his own ball so he can play with one with his friends. My mom used to teach fifth grade and she said recess was necessary for boys especially - they needed time to get energy out, and that was before kids were diasgnosed with ADD. Sadly J's teacher doesn't even let them have INDOOR recess - they work through it so they "get more done" - but that's a function of his teacher. Same thing with her composition punishments - occasionally he has to write a paper while the other kids have recess, something I am not happy about. But that's once again a function of his teacher. Last year for indoor recess his teacher let the kids play board games, build with legos, draw, etc. I would rather have kids do that then have them watch a video en masse!
My kids have half an hour of recess. They have complained sometimes about kids being too rough during outdoor recess and the adult aides not being useful about that (my second grader had to go to the nurse yesterday because she got hit in the head accidentally (I hope) by another student). When they have indoor recess, they play board games or watch videos. One of my friends once talked about teaching kids yoga when they have indoor recess, which seems like a great idea.
Thanks for posting about recess. I've calmed down now after my twitter outburst. From what I'm gathering is that parents don't care or mind their kids missing recess. Well that's the message we give when we don't speak up about how valuable we think it is.. Just asking the question; Do you ( the school) have daily recess?is something we all should know the answer to and if the answer is no- why?
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