Tu Salud! The Case for Free Play
Ah recess! My earliest memories of school include hours of sweaty playground fun—dodge ball, monkey bars, "boys chase the girls", sitting under a tree talking or digging up worms, learning lessons about complex social structures, communication, how to handle bullies and scraped knees. Looking back I likely learned at least as much about how to manage people and life on the playground as I did in the classroom.
The days of recess are numbered, however, and finished in many cases. Strange ideas about how kids learn and retain information (test prep mania) and fear of letting kids make their own decisions or, worse yet have an "unsupervised" conversation or fall and scrape a knee, has led to the abolition of recess and free play in most public schools in this area.
With the disappearance of recess in many elementary schools, kids are losing valuable social and problem solving skills they used to develop during their free time on the playground.
Afterschool outdoor play time is diminishing as well, with longer school days, more homework and more kids involved in structured activities. Increased sedentary behavior from less time at play in school coupled with kids’ unlimited access to video games and TV at home, has directly contributed to rising rates of childhood obesity.
Kids more than ever need all the opportunity to exercise they can get. While more time in physical education would be great, some studies have shown that kids actually get more exercise during free play situations than in a more structured PE class.
Taking outdoor, unstructured play away from children is not without consequences.
"The social, cognitive and academic benefits of regular outdoor free play are numerous. If improving grades and test scores is the goal of educators, restricting kids’ outdoor breaks is absolutely a mistake. Recess helps kids focus, practice problem solving skills and in many cases creates an environment where kids with attention deficit disorder improve function and focus," sand Dr. John Sutterby, Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education at the University of Texas, Brownsville.
"Not to mention the socialization benefits. In the classroom or indoor setting, the interactions between the kids are supervised, structured and restricted. When you let them outside for free play, choice becomes an important practice. Furthermore, just like you and I need breaks from work to help us return more focused, kids have the same needs."
Dr. Sutterby shares that in some early childhood education circles there is even the notion that our current school environment breaks child labor laws. The idea of incentivizing teachers and schools for improved test scores creates an environment in which the students are the workers, their product is a test score, and teachers and administrators will push them to work to the limit, often without breaks, in order to improve the scores. The irony is that this doesn’t work.
Studies show that kids who have recess score as well or better academically than those who don’t, and the additional benefits including increased physical activity, independence, confidence, imagination, problem solving skill development, and improved ability to interact with people and nature, are too numerous to mention here.
A teacher at an elementary school recently told me the 5-8 minutes of free time the kids had before the first bell rings in the morning was taken away. It wasn’t even recess, rather a time when kids could stand outside near the classroom and socialize before that long (almost 8 hour) school day began.
These 8 year olds savored this time to chat with whomever they pleased about whatever they pleased. The school’s administrator decided that these few minutes in the morning were "wasted TAKS prep time" and instituted a TAKS drill for the kids who had to walk straight to their desks without a sound and get to work on the handout.
I’ve been told there are even "TAKS behavior lessons" for first and second graders to teach them to sit still and be quiet so they are ready in third grade for the grueling days of silence during testing season when they aren’t allowed out of the classroom all day.
Are there dedicated teachers and administrators who find ways to allow kids healthy breaks and don’t only "teach to the test"—of course there are! Do I blame the schools entirely for these somewhat inhumane practices that go against all known child development methods and truths? Not entirely.
We as a community, a nation, parents and future employers need to play a more active role in bringing back not only recess, but teaching and learning that develops the whole child and will ultimately improve not only standardized test scores, but the physical, mental health and well-being of our future adults and leaders, because Tu Salud ¡Si Cuenta! (Your Health Matters!)
