Recess Isn’t Fun Anymore

Recess is something most of us took for granted growing up. It was part of the school day. We had a chance to run and play and be with friends outside on school playground equipment, for the most part — which is considered too dangerous for our kids today. But it worked back then, and we were better off for it.

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Kids today are lucky to even have recess.

And Dr. Rosemary Stein, a pediatrician in Burlington, North Carolina, says she’s not sure that some of the new recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Society of Health and Physical Educators (SHAPE America) to help schools better “plan” recess are a good idea, either.

“You’re turning our children into systematic, measurable, scientific experiments,” said one pediatrician.

Two guidance documents, “Strategies for Recess in Schools” and “Recess Planning in Schools: A Guide to Putting Strategies for Recess Into Practice,” were released last week as a blueprint for schools to use in implementing successful recess programs. They include “19 evidence-based recommendations on making leadership decisions, communicating behavioral and safety expectations, creating a supportive environment, engaging the school community and gathering information.”

The recommendations include: developing a written recess plan, creating physical activity zones, providing planned activities or activity cards, providing a combination of recess strategies, and involving students in planning and leading recess. The recess plan comes as new federal requirements aim to hold districts accountable for monitoring implementation of local school wellness policies.

“Our children are not lab rats,” Stein told LifeZette. “That’s just terrible. You’re turning our children into systematic, measurable, scientific experiments. Recess should be about free time to make relationships, to run, learn how to skip and play hopscotch, and it shouldn’t be planned. It’s recess.”

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That recommended 20 minutes of free time during the school day should instead be like an “awake rest,” she added. It’s a time for kids to relax their muscles from being in a chair and their brains from having to think.

“They need a time where they’re not necessarily being told, ‘You have to do this, you have to do that.’ That’s the time where what they learn sinks into their little heads and they’re allowed to be free and be themselves before they get back to the work of learning again,” Stein said.

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“You can’t sit children down for six or seven hours in a row, expect them to learn that whole time, take a break for lunch, and then put them back in there. It’s no wonder they have such a high amount of ADHD or what we’re calling hyperactivity. We’re not adjusting ourselves to the development of children.”