As a young child I remember fondly the time spent on the playground at school. We had recess every morning, around lunch time, and then in the afternoon. It was this way until I hit sixth grade and moved on to middle school. We dreaded middle school for one reason. We only had lunch to play. How were we ever going to get enough playing in during just a lunch time. No recess, are we really going to survive.
Recently I found out just how much "recess" my daughter, a second grader, has. She told us she gets recess three times a day. When asked more about it she explained that the recesses she gets are: between the time the bus drops her off at school and school starting, lunch, and between school ending and the bus coming to get them. So really she gets recess once a day, during lunch. She is seven years old and only gets one break from school to get energy out! What are we thinking.
Lunch recess when I was growing up was the best. You could eat as fast as you could and then have plenty of time to go play. I'm sure the teachers dreaded the smell that would accompany that many sweaty kids coming back from lunch, but we didn't care. We were getting to play. We were learning to interact with others. My daughter is not allowed to leave the lunch room until their fifteen minutes in there is up. Then they get to go outside for fifteen minutes and then its back to class. So why would they be required to stay in the school? My daughter says that when she goes to lunch it is only the second graders in the lunch room and out on the playground. They are keeping them segregated according to age. Why, because older kids might pick on one of the younger ones is I'm sure part of their reasoning. Young kids are less apt to get hurt on the playground if the older kids aren't out there too, might be another part. Some of my best memories were having the older kids teach us games. I learned to play football out on the fields behind the school from one of the kids who was three years older than me. Sure I was also picked on by kids that age, but you learned to make some friends of the older kids and then you were much less apt to get picked on.
I would like to go back and address something further. The country is facing an obesity epidemic that starts in young children. So how do we fight this epidemic. We take away the time of the day in which they take a break from sitting and get to go play. We also force them to stay in the lunch room when they are done eating. I asked my daughter what they do during this time, she said they can go back to the lunch line and get more food! WHAT! Not only are you taking away my daughters play time, but you are replacing it with food. How is this going to help them not get fat. Oh wait a minute, it's not! Many of us try very hard to teach our kids to eat what they need, eat until they are satisfied, then they go to school are learn to eat because they are bored and have nothing else to do. What a great thing to teach this generation, food is the cure for boredom . That will help their health in the long run, I'm sure.
It seems that one of the other things teachers are complaining more and more about is children with trouble focusing in class. I have problems focusing in class too. Mine, as mentioned in an early post, has to do with falling asleep, but all it takes is being the parent of one of these children to get you to realize that they have nearly endless energy. So we take kids who have tons of energy, make them sit and never get a break. Gee this sounds like a disaster. Is it really any wonder we have kids being hyper in school.
We take away recess and then expect these kids to learn how to interact with each other. If you have ever spent any time around grade school kids you learn that they are a socially awkward mess. But with the fact that the world now revolves around smart phones, tablets and computers this not going to get any better. I know I am socially awkward, I always have been, but that I believe has something to do with the fact that I am a big introvert. I would rather keep to myself. If I open my mouth I may say something that draws attention to myself, or worse yet, make people think I'm dumb. So I have always been the quite kid in school. I could probably count on my two hands the number of times I have raised my hand to ask a question in school and I have been going to school at least part time for over twenty years. So there will always be the few kids who despite it all are a little backward, but not giving them time to go out on the play ground and work things out on their own just hinders their development. This is something we stress at home. When one of our kids comes to us saying "so and so did this" they usually get the response, "have you talked to them about it." We are trying to teach our kids that just running to an adult isn't the best way to deal with every problem. Sometimes it is exactly what you should do, but most of the time kids should be figuring it out on their own. By not allowing them to play, not allowing them to disagree we are not helping them deal with things later in life.
Now I should make it clear. Do I think that having more recess and less food will solve all the problems with obesity, hyperactivity and social awkwardness? Absolutely not. Some people have true medical problems that lead to these things. But I do think that maybe fixing a few of these problems could possibly lead to fewer kids being marked for life with a diagnosis they didn't really diserve, they just needed a little more recess? Yes I do.
Well that rant is over. I would love to hear your opinions, or experience with this subject. So if you take the time to read this, take a minute and comment.
