This school lets kids climb trees and ride scooters during recess!

[creekmom]

Amazing! No one should be surprised that boredom leads to bullying. What a great idea!

 

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/school-ditches-rules-and-loses-bullies-5807957

[Angie in VA]

One favorite quote:

 

""The school is actually seeing a drop in bullying, serious injuries and vandalism, while concentration levels in class are increasing."

 

Uh-huh. I knew that! 

 

 

[Snow]

Good stuff. Yes, I often find myself saying, boredom breeds misbehavior. Certainly true in my house!

[JustEm]

thats awesome!

[8filltheheart]

What I find hilarious, or actually sad, is that it took research to accept it as valid. It is common sense.

 

I take it even further and see this as the same argument as project lead learning vs. self exploration.

 

But this wasn't a playtime revolution, it was just a return to the days before health and safety policies came to rule....,.,

"The great paradox of cotton-woolling children is it's more dangerous in the long-run."

 

Society's obsession with protecting children ignores the benefits of risk-taking, he said......

 

Children develop the frontal lobe of their brain when taking risks, meaning they work out consequences. "You can't teach them that. They have to learn risk on their own terms. It doesn't develop by watching TV, they have to get out there."

 

Instead of a playground, children used their imagination to play in a "loose parts pit" which contained junk such as wood, tyres and an old fire hose.

Love the bolded part bc it is so true!

 

I think the scheduled and constantly organized lives of today's kids is detrimental to intellectual development.

[Cricket]

Around here, especially with the boys, physical work/play is so helpful.  My 12 yo ds starts picking on his sisters and getting mouthy when he hasn't had enough physical activity to burn off all that energy.  It will be interesting to see if other schools follow.

[Pen]

I was active at one point trying to work on a bullying problem at a school that already allowed tree climbing and had other active physical outlets frequent in the day. Possibly the bullying problem would have been worse without the physical play time and other physical activities...but it was still prevalent.

[OneStepAtATime]

I know that my kids tend to fight and disagree a lot more when they are bored.  Frankly, I sometimes get that way, too (not the fighting but being cranky).  I also know that when I was in school and we climbed trees and were allowed a LOT of freedom with very little supervision during recess, we worked on relationships, team work, imaginative play, etc.  It was great....and I think we all developed better life skills than when kids only have structured, extremely supervised play or only P.E. class or karate class or that type of interaction for physical time with other kids.  But there was still bullying on the playground.  Maybe it just wasn't as pronounced because we had so many options for playing with each other, but it still existed.

 

I am honestly really kind of appalled at how many schools are cutting recess down to 15 minutes or eliminating it altogether.  Have they read any real research on play and cognitive and social development?  Especially in the elementary years?  Maybe stuff like OP posted will help turn that trend around.  

[stripe]

What I find hilarious, or actually sad, is that it took research to accept it as valid. It is common sense.

But there are lots of "common sense" things that are only common sense to some people, or turn out to be just wrong.

 

Taking another topic, for example, I enjoy reading small amounts of America's Test Kitchen because they take the time to see if "common sense" teachings like "never add salt to beans before they are soft because they won't cook!" are actually true, and sometimes, they aren't.

So, I see nothing wrong with scientific/impartial examination of ideas to see if they work.

[lea_lpz]

Love it! I feel like I get a lot if judgement because I let my kids play outside unsupervised except for occasional pop outs (they do have strict rules that if they break they come in immediately and lose outside priveleges fir the rest of the day if caught) and I generally do not hover at park day or jump in right away when they have social blunders. The obvious conclusion is I am aloof, don't care, lazy or maybe just ignorant and don't know the risk I am taking. I do and I think the benefits if kids learning to trust themselves, gain some independence and learn how to use caution on their own (also common sense) out weighs the risk of bumps and bruises and maybe occasional hurt feelings. I am about 6 units shy of earning my masters in educational counseling and getting my LPCC liscensing requirements. I am very deliberate in my parenting choices and approach and when I can see people initially judging, I remember my goal is to raise competent adults. I see kids as old as 9 at park days who are so used to parents swooping in to tell them what's dangerous that their kids get seriously injured by making careless mistakes for not paying attention to what they are doing at all. Ones my 4 year old would not make. Like literally walking off a play structure because they aren't even looking.

[AimeeM]

My daughter's private school is similar. They ride scooters, skateboards, etc during recess; during the winter the teachers and headmaster stay up all night icing the driveway/garage area for the kids to go "bob sledding" on, in recycling bins, and play ice hockey on.

[umsami]

Great, but how sad that this is such an exception to most schools. :(

[Mergath]

I'm sure shortened recesses might serve to make bullying worse, but I don't think it's the primary cause.  When I was growing up, the school had a long recess with no real rules to speak of, and kids were allowed to bring toys outside, climb trees, organize games, etc.  There was still a huge bullying problem.  

[IsabelC]

Interesting.

I am all for free ranging outdoors - my kids spend a fair bit of time outdoors running around, they climb big trees, they play jousting games with big sticks, and generally do lots of things that more protective parents would never allow.

However, I don't think that letting kids loose with little or no supervision is the magic bullet that will fix bullying.

Many parents and grandparents remember a time when it was supposedly safer to let kids wander about the streets, however when kids ran around in composite age neighborhood gangs, there was bullying. 

I was lucky enough to avoid any serious bullying issues at school, but as a timid and socially challenged child, I remember finding unstructured, less supervised times were the scariest times. 

I'm with Mergath: I honestly think that bullying is caused by bullies. If there is a bully in a group of kids, letting them climb more trees is only going to give him/her more scope to pick on other kids without being seen by teachers.

Sure, I can see that being bored and lacking the chance to do normal levels of physical activity might exacerbate problems, but better play opportunities aren't going to magically eliminate the bullying issue.

[stripe]

There was a nice story about  a school incorporating nature study, I'll see if I can find. 

[8filltheheart]

But there are lots of "common sense" things that are only common sense to some people, or turn out to be just wrong.

 

Taking another topic, for example, I enjoy reading small amounts of America's Test Kitchen because they take the time to see if "common sense" teachings like "never add salt to beans before they are soft because they won't cook!" are actually true, and sometimes, they aren't.

So, I see nothing wrong with scientific/impartial examination of ideas to see if they work.

I think it is bc I focused on a different point of the article than the bullying. The part I quoted was focused on this:

 

Society's obsession with protecting children ignores the benefits of risk-taking, he said.

 

Children develop the frontal lobe of their brain when taking risks, meaning they work out consequences. "You can't teach them that. They have to learn risk on their own terms. It doesn't develop by watching TV, they have to get out there."

 

That is common sense, otherwise people really would learn from other people's mistakes......not very true for most people. And the part I bolded about playing with the junk.....definitely true for my kids. They would rather build something out of junk than simply play on a playground.

[Ottakee]

When I was in school we NEVER had a teacher or other playground supervisor in the K-8th grade years.  We were a small Christian 3 room school out in the country---3 grades in each room and 3 teachers.  We had free rein outside.  I remember going down 3 doors from the school to get eggs for one of the teachers from a local farmer.  We crossed the road to get the school mail.  Some of the boys would run back through the woods to the "pond" back there, etc.  It was a great time and we really didn't have any troubles.

[...................]

yay!!!