Recess is the Most Important Period of the Day

Kids are fat. Study after study suggests kids are staggeringly obese to the point where this generation may be the first to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. We know kids are fat. We see them on the street, on the news and on TV shows. We have even re-defined fat: I realized that kids who when I was in school would have been considered "chubby" are considered normal now.

Kids are dumb too. If you watch the news or listen to adults speak, kids score lower on test scores compared to many nations in the world. We are a nation of dumb, fat kids. Adults like to blame kids' dumbness and fatness on kids. However, adults are to blame in many ways.

Adults do not know what is good and what is bad for children. We raise our kids based on the myths perpetuated by pop culture and evening news programs, not actual facts or research. What school has time to research its policies before implementing them when a sensationalist television show provides all the answers? If our kids are dumb, and TV tells us they are, they need more time in school: that's the answer. If six hours a day in the classroom is ineffective, seven hours is the solution. To add another hour of classroom time, we eliminate the unimportant classes and the wasted time: recess, PE, art, music and other extra programs.

These "frivolous" classes and wasted time are not extras to be disregarded to make room for more important activities. In fact, many of our kids are dumb and fat because they do not get enough recess, PE, art and music. Recess, of course, is wasted time that is easy to eliminate. However, research suggests recess is a far more powerful time than administrators believe.

Recess contributes significantly to the physical, social, emotional, and cognitive (intellectual) development of the young child. Recess is one of the few places and times during the day when all these developmental domains are utilized in a context that children view as meaningful.

Social Development:A wide range of social competencies - cooperation, sharing, language, conflict resolution - can be actively practiced, interpreted, and learned in a meaningful context during recess. Through active, free play and peer interaction, children can: develop a respect for rules, gain self-discipline, and construct an appreciation for other people's cultures and beliefs.

Emotional Development: Recess may act as an outlet for reducing anxiety and serve as a means by which children learn to manage stress and gain self-control. During recess play, children also learn the art of expressing themselves to others, and begin rehearsing behaviors and practicing skills. Children learn about their own abilities, perseverance, self-direction, responsibility, and self-acceptance.

Physical Development: Recess provides young children with opportunities to move and participate in physical activities....Through active play, young children learn about their bodies' capabilities and how to control their bodies. One of the most apparent benefits of recess is the opportunity for sheer physical activity and the practice of physical skills, such as running, climbing, jumping, chasing, traveling, batting, kicking, catching, balancing, hanging, swinging, stretching, pushing, and pulling.

Cognitive Development: There are volumes of recent research substantiating the link between play and cognitive gains. Children learn through play. Children develop intellectual constructs and cognitive understandings through the hands-on, manipulative, exploratory behavior that occurs during play episodes and play opportunities. Play context provides the most appropriate support or scaffolding for children as they develop skills. "Children can remember more, focus better, and regulate their own behavior better in play than in any other context" (Guddemi et al., p. 5). After children practice skills in play, they become ready to utilize these skills in other contexts (Bodrova & Leong, 1999).

Not only does play have its own inherent benefits, but these benefits carry over to the classroom environment. Pediatricians recognize the benefits of unstructured, child-directed play. Three-fourths (75%) of pediatricians surveyed report that the amount of time their young patients spend on unstructured play has decreased in the past 5 years. Reasons for this decline include the availability of organized sports or activities (75%), that parents are not aware of the benefits of unstructured play (57%), lack of quality play spaces within walking distance to home (50%), and reduction in school-based recess time (44%). The majority of the pediatricians believe that unstructured play helps build children's social skills and confidence (96%), helps kids from becoming overweight (89%), and helps kids improve problem-solving skills (82%).

Is there another subject that offers as many benefits as recess? Is it possible that recess is not just a frivolous waste of time, but actually the most important time of day for a child's development?

The problem extends beyond the classroom and school day. As schools eliminate recess, parents fail to replace the loss of activity with unstructured play outside the school day. Because parents are busier than ever, they use video games to satiate their children while they do household chores. Many view the streets as too dangerous, so kids are not allowed to roam the neighborhood looking for games. When I was a child, I played basketball in my front yard almost every day, sometimes by myself and sometimes with my neighbor. Some days, some other boys and I played bike tag in our neighborhood. Other times, a friend and I would ride skateboards around the neighborhood or skate to the nearby construction sites and take some discarded pieces of wood to make little ramps. Today, in the same neighborhood, I never see kids running around, riding their bikes, skateboarding or playing basketball. There are no touch football games in the street or games of whiffle ball. Kids are either too busy with their structured, adult-initiated activities or they are not allowed to play outside because of lurking dangers.

While adult-initiated activities like organized sports and play dates have value, child-initiated play offers valuable experiences for a child's development which adult-initiated activities often fail to introduce. According to the Alliance for Childhood: "Child-initiated play lays a foundation for learning and academic success. Through play, children learn to interact with others, develop language skills, recognize and solve problems, and discover their human potential. In short, play helps children make sense of and find their place in the world."

Many well-meaning parents are quick to interfere and find an activity for their son or daughter. They are scared the child will be bored, so they enter their child in a summer camp or other structured activity. Richard Louv, senior editor of the Washington, D.C.-based group Connect for Kids, adds that "children need adults in their lives who understand the relationship between boredom and creativity -- and are willing to set the stage so that kids can create the play...Constructively bored kids eventually turn to a book, or build a fort, or pull out the paints ... and create, or come home sweaty from a game of neighborhood basketball. But kids need the guidance of parents or other adults if their boredom is to be constructive, and lead to creativity," Louv said.

How do we raise kids who are not dumb and fat, as most people around the world characterize American children? We need to encourage play. We need to use playful activities to inspire a love of movement and recreation to fight obesity. We need play to inspire an interest in the way things work or how to build things or how to solve puzzles to interest kids in learning. In my experience, kids love to learn. Unfortunately, the school day fails to provide the type of learning experiences kids enjoy. Many adults characterize this as discipline and believe these activities have merit; however, when kids fail to learn at an astonishingly high rate, maybe the methods need to be examined. Maybe "that is how it is supposed to be done" or "that is how I was taught" do not justify a failing method. If more play time is used to engage students and their interests, rather than force feeding them information which is irrelevant to their existence and their values, kids might learn more and open their minds to additional learning.

Recess might not be the answer to all our problems, but eliminating recess and other potentially playful activities like PE, art and music certainly is not a move in the right direction. Parents, teachers and administrators need to value play as an important facet of a child's development.