Children need play time to thrive

As I just came in from pushing snow after our first measurable snowfall, I reflected on how late it was this year. And with further reflection, I remembered the summer activities that have long since passed: hikes in the woods with dogs, road trips across the Denali Highway, and salmon fishing on the Little Willow. Those, and many more leisurely activities of summer, reinforce how important play, and relaxation, are for my mental health. As a classroom teacher, I use summers as a down time, and more importantly, as an unstructured, free time to create, plan and develop activities and lessons for the next school year. I develop a new classroom theme every year with major ideas and supporting materials for an exciting and challenging year for the students and myself.

Last year during the school year, I started taking daily walks outside during my lunch break to get some fresh air, recharge my batteries and come in with a renewed frame of mind for the afternoon lessons. With that personal experience, I became very interested in research from the journal of Pediatrics that compared those students who have minimal or no recess and those who have free time during the day. It makes natural sense. The research demonstrated that children with free, unstructured, active play are less fidgety and more attentive after recess. Teachers rated the latter students with better classroom behavior, which also makes natural sense. The research continued to describe play as essential for intellectual and emotional development. But, play also promotes creativity, imagination and resilience.

The research found some very disturbing findings regarding the state of recess in our country. In short, recess has been cut back and, unfortunately, in some schools, recess is less than 15 minutes a day. This trend of less free play or unstructured time in school has been going on for the past number of years. The researchers theorize this trend was due to schools having to meet the demands of No Child Left Behind. This federally mandated law requires schools to improve reading, writing and math scores. Besides administrations across the country cutting back recess, they have cut back on art, music programs and even physical education.

At first glance, the public may agree that we need to improve test scores, with more attention to schoolwork. But this trend could very well be creating adverse effects. Students may not be reaching the goals set out by the law because without breaks they are less attentive and may learn less efficiently. Some administrators may say we have improved our test scores, but those test scores could be even higher if we returned to a more balanced curriculum of arts, music, P.E., and longer recesses. Students need prior knowledge gained from real life experiences to bring to stories, story writing, and to see real life applications to math. They find those experiences in their own lives at recess, unstructured time, or free time exploring the world about them. Without those times, we very well may be short circuiting them, and burning them out.

Researchers should consider looking at the drop-out rates, and see if there is any correlation between this trend and that occurrence? When was the last time P.E. at the high school level was required all four years? I am not in any way inferring that the drop-out problem is an easy fix. Yet, physical activity at any age can help reduce and alleviate stress, help keep one attentive and focused.

One would also want to look at the additional correlation between the reduction of recess and P.E. to our obesity rate. This problem has tripled in scope in the past number of years, and could be related, as well. Obviously, additional recess time, and ensuring children having P.E. everyday is not going to cure our obesity problem, because that is a life style issue. But giving adequate recess time, and P.E. everyday would be contributing to activities that promote daily health. Our goal for our children in education should be their over all welfare. We are always thinking safety first, which should be the case. Yet, their welfare should include seeking a balance between formal instruction, learning and achievement, and free, unstructured time to explore, think, problem solve and find solutions.

Students at any age are under many different stressors, and pressures to compete and perform. Some of those stressors are not in our control, such as divorce, parent’s unemployment, or even jobs that require being away from home for a duration of time. But, the pressure to compete and perform at school, is very much under our control. It very well may help our children to learn and achieve better if we sought out a more balanced curriculum that includes the arts, music, adequate recess time, P.E., and even just some unstructured free time to let their imagination and creativity soar. Lets provide our students with all the tools necessary to meet all the challenges they are going to encounter along the way.

Michael Carson is a veteran educator in the Mat-Su Borough School District.