What Has Happened to RECESS?

[FaithManor]

Local school district schedule for K-5:

 

School busses arrive 7:45, kids getting breakfast at school race to the cafeteria for their pop tart and milk...the others must go to the classroom and sit quietly.

 

8:00 a.m. start time.

10:00 a.m. - 5 min. potty break, sip of water

10:05 - 10:10 - approved snack and water

10:10 - 11:45 - work

11:45 - 11:55 - silent lunch...some whispering allowed but not much more than that because the lunch room workers do not like the noise.

11:55 - MUST go outdoors, lunch will be dumped in the garbage by the workers if you haven't managed to gulp it down by then - outside play until 12:15

12:15 - 2:00 p.m. - work

2:00 - 2:05 - bathroom break

2:05 - 2:10 water at least, maybe a snack if the teacher allows it...there is no set policy on afternoon snack like there is for morning.

School is dismissed at 3:15

 

Some of the kids are on the bus as early as 6:15 a.m. and don't get home until 4:15 so it's a very long day for them.

 

PE is once per week. Play is practically extinct around here. Sports yes, play...just play...NOPE! My kids were the last to partake of such an antiquated educational notion!

 

The Lutheran School that I used to teach at still maintains the same schedule from my years there. 8:30 start time, 10:00 a.m. 20 min. recess, 40 min lunch at noon, 20 min. afternoon recess, and oft times, extra time between 2:45 and 3:15 to play if all of the academic teaching was done. We covered a huge amount of curriculum every year with far less stress amongst the students and faculty and found time for chapel every Wednesday morning too. Our test scores were very high, even our special ed students scored much higher than their PS peers with the same disabilities, and I've always said it was because we never taught to the test...it simply was not a driving force in what we planned to do with the children. But, everything was done so differently. We also ate our lunches with them, and took turns three of us at a time supervising recess. We had staff meeting at 7:15 a.m., and after that we were pretty much with the kids all the time. But, we had four teacher's aides and if we needed a bathroom break that didn't coincide with a break for the children, we could buzz the office and they would send someone down which was pretty great when I was expecting middle ds.

 

To the detriment of children everywhere, recess has become a practically "dirty" educational word in many neighborhoods.

 

Faith

 

 

[Amy in NH]

It's not diagnosed. I have ADHD myself. It's a HUGE struggle especially in college level classes. However, up until this year we have not medicated (still haven't, but it's more of a possibility) due to his last 2 teachers being phenominal. Absolutely phenominal. I can't say enough positive about them. The structure that they provided in the classroom made it so that he was able to, for the most part, function behaviorally in the classroom without meds. We have really tried our best not to have to medicate for a couple of reasons. One of the main reasons being that he's very athletically inclined and I worry that I will stunt his growth if I put him on meds.

 

Having said all of that, this is the first year that I have seen him really not LIKE his teacher. He feels picked on by the teacher. Breaks my heart because he's a sweet kid. So, we're now considering all of our options.

 

Put a request in writing for a special education evaluation for attention problems and deliver it to the principal.  If you don't feel comfortable doing it, bring him to his PCP and have them send one to the school.  They are required by law to perform the evaluation at no cost to you.

[Jamee]

Maybe I am revealing my age... LOL! :laugh:

 

Back in CA when I taught in the 80's and 90's, we had our school schedule like the following:

 

7:45-8:05  Before School Recess (Monitored by Yard Duty Staff)

8:10 School Begins

10:10-10:20 Snack Recess

12:15-12:55  Lunch & Recess

2:05-2:15 Afternoon Recess

3:30  Dismissal

This is how I remember it too--also in CA for elementary school in the 80s. We even had a split schedule where some kids didn't arrive until an hour after school started, and then we stayed an hour after--this was primarily for tracked reading.

 

The schools here have one recess at lunch, no play in the mornings.

 

ETA: the kids here have specials at least once a day where they do get out to walk to the class.  There are also extra specials a couple times a week--so there'd be two specials that day.

[tex-mex]

I think this is a regional issue.  When I was an elementary student in the 80's in CA we had before school recess, a 20-min morning recess, and a full hour for lunch & recess (the quicker you eat - the more time to play).  If the weather was nice then your teacher would take you back out in the afternoon to play baseball, basketball, or dodge ball.  Kindergartners only had 2 1/2 hours of school, but they still managed to have 15 min of snack time and 20 min of recess.  Even in Junior High we got a full hour for lunch (in addition to an hour of P.E.).  Boys would scarf down their lunch and spend the rest of the hour out on the field playing pick-up games.

 

I started teaching in the West in the late 90's and recess was exactly the same.  When I moved to the deep South in 2001, I was in for a huge shock.  Students in K-2 got just one 20 min recess.  Students in 3-6 were out of luck.  The poor kids didn't even get a break at lunch.  They ate in silence for 20 min then went directly back to class.  When students were dropped off at school, they were not allowed to play on the playground or run around on the fields.  They had to go directly to the gym where they sat in rows by grade level in complete silence.  I had never seen 300 students sit so silently before.  The attitude was that kids needed to work hard.  Recess was a waste of time for the lazy.  There was a strong regional attitude there that I had never encountered before.

 

I have gradually seen other areas going the way of the South, and I think it's very sad.

:iagree:

 

I do believe you are correct.  As a child in the 60's and 70's in California's public schools, I do not recall such draconian rules for eliminating recess or lunch times.  But then, CA has always been in the bottom tier for rankings in testing.  LOL  But at least CA's beautiful weather got us freedom outside!  :lol:  Once I began my professional teaching career in CA in the late 80's to 1999, I was happy to see the students had the same type of recess and lunch times.  Though I never thought much of the "noise" level at lunch times (back in 2002-2004, I worked p/t as a Yard Duty and Lunch Monitor in a CA school) as to myself, it was not loud at all.  Just kiddos who needed a break to talk with their seatmates.  No one was roughhousing or yelling to someone else across the room.  No biggie.

 

At the previously mentioned Charter School here in TX, I was floored to see top Admins come into the lunch room and if they thought the noise level was "loud" (to me it was not disruptive), they would blow a whistle and then verbally ream (i.e. yell) at the entire group of students to be quiet.  The first time it happened, I was terrified.  Later, I was confused as to why students had to sit quietly during their 20 minutes of lunch not talking to anyone.  By the time we got to the lunchroom, went through hot lunch line, and then sat down to eat... you were lucky to have 10 minutes left.  But I thought it was just that bizarre Charter School experience, ya know? 

 

Well, at a recent interview, I found out all schools in my region here in TX do the same philosophy... :eek: yikes.  And the school's student (.pdf) handbook had the exact rule and expectations of the previous Charter School.  Rules like no talking during before school drop off, no talking during lunch, when an adult talks to you it is always, "Yes Sir" or "Yes M'am"... which made a lot of sense as one day at the Charter School I taught at, one of the Admins came into my classroom thanks to a serious bullying issue and spoke to the class.  At one point, the Admin got so heated up, but professionally told the class of a certain expectation and all of them replied back to him in unison, "YES SIR!!".  Me being a native Cali girl was again confused at how those students instinctively knew how to address the Admin... that regional (Southern culture) expectation sure did impress me.  But gosh, I sure do feel like a foreigner in a foreign land with those regional expectations!  (And I have at long last returned back to my Mama's land... my people being Tejanos before Texas was a US State.  But me?  I feel Native Californian deep down with my childhood.  And don't get me started with Tex-Mex cuisine (blech) versus CA's awesome fusion of cultures food wise. LOL) 

 

I just can't shake how creepy it is to have 400+ students sit quietly in a large room... reminds me of the Stepford Wives movie. (????)  Are we programming a generation of Automated workers who can parrot (or regurgitate) back information via testing versus actual true learning?  Sad.

 

 

DW is in year 26 and hoping to make it to retirement.  You're right, it's nuts and getting worse.  With the new PARCC paperwork, she just had to do over 60 two-page evals for her classes -- had to deliver it to the office in a box.

 

 

 

:iagree:

 

 

I have been disheartended by this, too. My kids get one 20 minute recess per day. No before school or any other time. This is especially rough on my ADHD son, because any time he gets in trouble (they call it thinking time) it's taken out of his recess in 5 minute increments for anything from slouching in his seat to talking when not supposed to or forgetting homework. Due to his ADHD (and just sheer forgetfullness- he gets that from his Momma ;) ) he often ends up with 15 mins gone from his recess and being spent in "thinking time". It's sheer torture for him. He HATES to get thinking time, so I suppose the disciplinary idea is working, but he's 7...7.... he needs play time. In our household the kids spend a large amount of time outdoors after school. That's the only thing I can do to compensate.

 

:grouphug:  That is so sad.  And unfortunately, it is all too common.

 

 

 

Goodness me... some of these timetables are crazy! Kids starting school at 8:00 and ending at 3:30? Standing in front of classrooms for 45mins in the morning? 20 minute recess only? Busses which arrive at 7:30? I can't even imagine these things. In fact, I dislike our school system, but comparing timetables makes me realize how lucky we are in my country! Maybe our kids haven't got it so bad after all!

 

I am from Australia, so obviously things are different here.  The basic schedule for primary schools (G1-7) in our area looks like this, or at least, did the last time I had the opportunity to compare, which was about 5 years ago, and I've not heard about any changes since.

 

 

The radio show I was listening to had countries like Japan and the Netherlands giving many "recess" breaks during the school day.  I had a professional teaching colleague do a Fulbright Exchange to Scotland back in 1995.  She had an amazing time teaching in a very nice village.  But her Scottish exchange partner who took over her 3rd grade classroom was in SHOCK over our USA culture and low academic expectations. LOL :lol:  We taught in a rural Title I school with a high poverty (at-risk) population. I had the classroom next to the Scottish teacher and learned a great many things that year.

 

I had just one teacher also (CA in the 80's).  There were no specials, no extra teachers, no rotation.  In 4th and 5th grade we started instrumental instruction, but the band teacher came to our classroom.  We must have saved tons of time by not moving all over the school all day long.  Not only did we have up to 2 hrs of recess, but we always had huge history & science projects going on, we had daily art and music, and we usually performed a class play in the fall and the spring so a lot of time was spent rehearsing.

 

What on earth are they doing all day long in schools with no recess?  Seriously, you can only have so much reading or math instruction before the kids get burned out and the instruction becomes counterproductive.  What are they accomplishing by skipping recess?

:iagree:  Oh yeah!!  Preach it, sister!!  I have to laugh when I hear people here who teach in Texas complain about budget cuts.  Back when I taught in CA, they already did away with Art, PE, Computer teachers, etc.  My 4th graders did not join band as it got cut out of the budget back in the early 90's. We had no extra budget back then to order science material or get reimbursed for Xerox copies. No money to pay for traveling to a teaching conference. When I taught from 1987-1999, I was the only teacher every day, 5 days a week for 180 days a year.  Thank God the district did not take away Yard Duty/Lunch Monitor staff (um... thank you, teaching unions for that perk.) :lol:  We did have Library for a 30 minute session once a week.  And the computer lab was open, but we had to bring our class to the lab and teach the class.  Most teachers as a result skipped Computers.  But my students needed a BREAK as we did a lot of academic time back then.  I don't know how today's teachers handle the student burnout factor.

[AndyJoy]

I haven't heard of no recess here (small town CA).  I'm sure my friends with kids in PS would be up in arms!  That is really sad!

 

The private Christian school I taught at here has morning recess supervised by rotating teachers and lunch recess with hired playground monitors for grades 1-5.  Afternoon recess and PE are handled by each teacher individually with her own class.  Kindergarten is 1/2 day with a morning recess, and the kids who stay for aftercare have at least an hour of outdoor play in the afternoon.  

 

Grades 6-12 have a 15 minute break in the morning and a generous lunch period.  Originally the break was in the afternoon, but I lobbied to move it to mid-morning since we discovered most students were not eating breakfast before school for various reasons and they would start getting cranky shortly after this time.  Once we added a morning break they started bringing snacks and were much more pleasant in the classroom until lunch!  Since there is no cafeteria and we have good weather almost year-round, they eat outside or in one small lounge.  Many of them end up playing pick-up games of basketball or football during the lunch break.  They have an hour of PE daily during last period.  I really appreciated the emphasis on exercise for the teens. 

 

The public jr./sr. high in my town had basketball courts outside, but they were never used during school hours because lunch was ridiculously short and there were no other breaks!  My private Christian school (grades 7-12) had a long lunch (1 hour) to encourage exercise.  We scarfed our food then played basketball, extreme four-square, volleyball, or touch football.  Only a few kids opted out of exercise.

[Sisyphus]

I just can't shake how creepy it is to have 400+ students sit quietly in a large room... reminds me of the Stepford Wives movie. (????)  Are we programming a generation of Automated workers who can parrot (or regurgitate) back information via testing versus actual true learning?  Sad.

---------------

 

(forgive me, I'm on an iPad and get it to just quote the bit I want!)

 

But this-yes! I figured even though Ds had issues, even though perhaps I couldn't get him academically as far as the school, well, at least he would escape that. It really was horrible, that second grade year, just damn depressing. I figured he could at least have joy in his day, if nothing else, and 8 years later here we are. The silent lunches, high stakes testing, for 7 year olds mind you- it just gave me the flat heebie-jeebies. It was NOT the school experience of my childhood. It was awful.

[QueenCat]

I think this is a regional issue. ..........................................

 

 

  When I moved to the deep South in 2001, I was in for a huge shock.  Students in K-2 got just one 20 min recess.  Students in 3-6 were out of luck.  The poor kids didn't even get a break at lunch.  They ate in silence for 20 min then went directly back to class.  When students were dropped off at school, they were not allowed to play on the playground or run around on the fields.  They had to go directly to the gym where they sat in rows by grade level in complete silence.  I had never seen 300 students sit so silently before.  The attitude was that kids needed to work hard.  Recess was a waste of time for the lazy.  There was a strong regional attitude there that I had never encountered before.

 

I have gradually seen other areas going the way of the South, and I think it's very sad.

 

My kids went to elementary school in the 90s to early 2000s in the South. They had recess twice a day, all the way through 5th grade. And they did not have silent lunch. I think it's more school system by school system rather than regional. They have recess here, in another part of the South too.

 

[momma2three]

I think it's regional/up to the district, too.  We didn't have recess at my elementary school at all.  Lunch was 20 minutes to eat/20 minutes on the playground, and that was it.  I didn't have recess until I was in high school!  There was still a 20 minute morning break after the first two periods of the day grandfathered in from back in the days when the students got a sanctioned smoking break then.

[MinivanMom]

I just can't shake how creepy it is to have 400+ students sit quietly in a large room... reminds me of the Stepford Wives movie. (????)  Are we programming a generation of Automated workers who can parrot (or regurgitate) back information via testing versus actual true learning?  Sad.

 

*snip*

 

:iagree:  Oh yeah!!  Preach it, sister!!  I have to laugh when I hear people here who teach in Texas complain about budget cuts.  Back when I taught in CA, they already did away with Art, PE, Computer teachers, etc.  My 4th graders did not join band as it got cut out of the budget back in the early 90's. We had no extra budget back then to order science material or get reimbursed for Xerox copies. No money to pay for traveling to a teaching conference. When I taught from 1987-1999, I was the only teacher every day, 5 days a week for 180 days a year.  Thank God the district did not take away Yard Duty/Lunch Monitor staff (um... thank you, teaching unions for that perk.) :lol:  We did have Library for a 30 minute session once a week.  And the computer lab was open, but we had to bring our class to the lab and teach the class.  Most teachers as a result skipped Computers.  But my students needed a BREAK as we did a lot of academic time back then.  I don't know how today's teachers handle the student burnout factor.

 

I love the Stepford Wives image - that is the perfect description.  This is where I think the big cultural differences come in.  Californians see a lunchroom full of noisy kids and think, "Look at all those happy children building social relationships."  In the area where I taught in the deep South they would have looked at a noisy lunchroom and thought, "Look at all those future juvenile delinquents!  Why can't anyone control them?"  I saw the silent gym as sad and a bit creepy.  They saw the silent gym as proof that they had control over the children, proof that the children had been taught respect and obedience. 

 

As far as specials go, I don't know where the idea came from that you need a special teacher to run a game of kickball, teach an art concept, or instruct students in how to turn on a computer.  It seems like there used to be more respect for the ability of elementary school teachers to teach multiple subjects.  I never had specials teachers, but I got great instruction in science, history, art, music, drama, dance, and P.E.  My classroom teachers were intelligent women who could plan and organize a class play or a baseball game or a science experiment just as easily as they could plan literature circles or math instruction.  I can understand having a Spanish teacher or a strings teacher come in for specialized instruction, but many of these specials teachers just seem so unnecessary to me.  Couldn't that time used to walk back and forth to specials be used for . . . recess?

[vonfirmath]

Thinking back to when I was a kid in the 70s, I had recess at least once a day. I went to a lot of different school in many states. Seems wherever I was the students got at least before school time to run around or work on homework (depending on age/grade) then recess after lunch each afternoon. Even high school in the early 80s was much of the same. We wouldn't have called it recess at that age though.

 

I also grew up in the 80s and the last year I can recall having anything like recess was 5th grade (And I'm not SURE that what I'm remembering in 5th grade was Recess and not just PE that happened to take place outside since I don't remember a Gym at that school at all)

[ktgrok]

I'm now jealous. I am 37, and we NEVER had recess. EVER. 

 

We did have 50 minutes of PE once a day, but that was structured, not free play. 

 

We had 20 or 25 minutes for lunch, in assigned seats. 

 

We had to wait outside the school in a line if we got there early. No playing around. 

 

This was in Florida. 

[weddell]

My dd is in 2nd grade at a fabulous elementary school in the north suburbs of Chicago. They have a little free time before school if they get there early (which she likes to do). They have morning recess, a recess after lunch, and usually an afternoon recess. They also have some free play time during the school day where they can choose from legos, blocks, board games, etc in the classroom. They are allowed to talk during lunch. These stories of silent lunch break my heart. Her school also has gym 4-5 times a week. My dd has tons of socializing and free play time everyday. And they still seem to have time to learn.

[MrsBasil]

We had 2-3 recesses a day in eastern Kansas in the late 80's and early 90's.  Even morning K had 1-2.  Plus PE twice a week. 

There was one K-12 Charter School (i.e. At-Will & Non-Union) where I experienced no personal breaks, no lunch breaks, and no money to hire extra p/t staff to do yard duty or monitor lunch.  I was stuck from 7:45am to 3:45pm with the students all day.  If I had to go to the bathroom... I was flat out of luck. 

 

 

I'm somewhat surprised this is legal.  At least in my state, you can't force an employee to work eight consecutive hours without any breaks.

[tex-mex]

I'm somewhat surprised this is legal.  At least in my state, you can't force an employee to work eight consecutive hours without any breaks.

 

You are correct.  However, my supervisor at that Charter School used the excuse that in TX, they do not have to follow Federal labor laws??  I ended up in the ER twice due to sheer exhaustion in the first month on that job.  They were more worried if I was about to sue them rather than change the rules and hire extra Yard Duty/Lunch Monitors.  I quit the job soon after the second ER visit.  Just was not worth it, health wise. 

[FaithManor]

Many things that are illegal to do to an adult worker, are perfectly legal to do to a minor child in

school. It makes me sick!

[2squared]

My kids are in a small parochial school in a very small town in Minnesota. 

 

They have before school recess officially for 20 minutes, but the kids like to arrive earlier than the official start time so they have more before school recess.

 

K-4th have a 10 minute morning recess.  My Ker has rest time after lunch.  My Ker and 1st grader have afternoon free time at centers.

 

Everyone has 50 min for lunch and recess.  

 

Recess is K-8th, and the kids play like crazy.  All ages and grades mix; it's a family atmosphere.

 

I love our school. 

 

I should mention that my Ker gets a morning and afternoon snack.  All the other grades just get an afternoon snack.

 

Every kid in the school is assigned a job to help with the school....anything from lunch server to messenger (carries notes to the office) to board eraser to crossing guard to custodian (flushes toilets). 

 

The Kers are assigned 6th graders as guardian angels, and the older kids look after the littler ones for three years.  The angels also sit with the younger kids at mass, eat lunch together once/month, and play together at recess (voluntarily).