• Welcome to the new Internet Infidels Discussion Board, formerly Talk Freethought.

Kids with more recess perform better

The fact that this finding isn't intuitive is a pretty good sign that people's understanding of their own bodies is pretty bad.
 
So true, rousseau. I'm lucky that my kids went to an elementary school that "got" this. Even through middle school, they had a thing called "short recess" in the morning that provided a 10-minute run-around.

Contrast that to the kindergarten my son went to (before we moved him to the Montessori) and when he misbehaved they "took away his recess." And I said, "WHY?! Why are you (teacher) doing that to yourself? Don't take away his recess, make him take extra gym classes! Are you nuts, taking away his movement time?"

The Montessori also had the (IMHO) wisdom to not assign homework. Go play and be. And do your school work in school.
 
10,000 years and we still don't know the "right" way to raise kids. It is almost like children aren't robots and require different things from child to child. Recess definitely feels like an obvious thing and maybe adults need more of it too.
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
10,000 years and we still don't know the "right" way to raise kids. It is almost like children aren't robots and require different things from child to child. Recess definitely feels like an obvious thing and maybe adults need more of it too.
Click to expand...

I don't think it's so much that we don't know the 'right' way, but rather the more people as a species know in general, the more potential we have to raise them well. That's not to mention that 'raising them well' also depends on the environment they're being brought into.

When it comes to things like recess a lot of people are out to conserve energy without really thinking about it. Our brains having developed during millions and millions of years of scarcity we're naturally going to be inclined to do less and consume more. So most people, even if sub-consciously, avoid movement and generally view more of it as bad.

Then we realize we're living in a period of energy abundance, and less need for movement, and have to move the opposite way by giving ourselves enough outlet to balance our consumption.

The ironic thing about all of it, is that giving yourself more of an outlet likely improves productivity in the long run.
 
The idea of less recess comes from the idea that we're not working our kids hard enough. In turn, that means we need to have less recess so our kids can learn gooder.

We'd have better math scores if we pushed them harder.
Or maybe a lot of people just aren't that talented at math.

"It's how it's taught that makes it hard and uninteresting."

No it's just hard and uninteresting to many people anyway. Not that math is bad. But I think the notion that we can't force people to be good at things they're not capable of being good at has earned its day in court.

Anyway, I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.
 
I think this is a good idea.

I know, personally, that I get more done in 15 minute chunks with a break in between, then I do if I worked at it for an hour.

Kids NEED that social interaction to become better members of a community.

At the school I am working at at the moment they do 'brain break', 'snack attack' or something similar. After being in class for nearly an hour, they stop, go outside and eat something healthy. It can be vege sticks, fruit, fruit yoghurt or half a sandwich. It cannot be sweets, chocolate or junk food. It gets the kids refocused and ready for learning again for the second hour of the session. This makes sense as it can sometimes be 3 - 4 hours between breakfast and lunch for these kids.

The class I was teaching for a full day on a Friday would have movement break half way through the second session as they need the short break. It's only 10 minutes where they run around, but it helps them focus.

Having seen the improvements in this class with ADD and ASD kids in it, I think it's a great idea.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom