The Virtue of Recess

March 9th, 2008 by zen

Furthermore, in relation to “play”, music, the arts, sports and drama play a critical role in brain growth and do not represent “frills” but a central modality for integration of concepts, application of learning and generation of insight. As subjects, they are the brain’s “Right” side exercises to the ” Left” side’s analytical-logical reasoning provided by mathematics instruction and science classes.

As a society, we have gone berserk on overscheduling children into formal activities, academic as well as extracurricular, to the point where some elementary age kids show signs of anxiety, burn-out and depession or have time with their families that is not devoted to some kind of structured, formal, event. I find that many students lack any real cognitive independence, normal childhood creativity or the ability to negotiate social interactions with peers without hands-on, adult, supervision. A kind of well-meaning, suburban, shelteredness that produces a vaguely “institutional” passivity in many children.

Our students need both structured learning as well as some degree of “space” or “freedom” in order to maximize their intellectual and emotional growth, not either-or.

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Posted in brain, cognition, creativity, education, emotion, Epistemology, freeplay, fun, insight, intelligence, metacognition, psychology, public school, teaching, theory | 5 comments

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  1. Dan tdaxp:

    March 9th, 2008 at 4:11 pm

    For typical boys and girls, recess also models competition in loose and dense social networks.  That is, it provides for Blitzplay and COINplay that will be useful later in life.

    Recess also distracts and exhausts students enough to make them more amenable to control, but that’s another topic, I think.

  2. zen:

    March 9th, 2008 at 5:12 pm

    Hi Dan,

    Excellent broadening of the discussion! 
    .
    Well, some students are distracted/exhausted. Those who have sensorimotor integration issues can return more able to focus as a result of the systemic stimulus, possibly those with mild ADHD as well. Certainly, all of them benefit from regular exercise and fresh air.

  3. CKR:

    March 10th, 2008 at 1:50 am

    There was an article on play in the NYT magazine a few weeks back that said that there is little science to understand the functions of play. Not particularly skewed for or against, just that we really don’t know what play does for the developing brain, although many animals indulge in it.
    .
    I hated the social aspects of recess, but a kind and understanding mother aided and abetted my removal from too much of school’s regimentation, but that’s another story entirely.

  4. Educated Nation--The Salubriousness Of Recess | Educated Nation | Higher Education Blog:

    February 5th, 2009 at 10:10 pm

    […] Academy of Pediatrics: The Importance of Play… Before Children Ask, ‘What’s Recess?’ The Virtue of Recess Remembering to Play International Play Association: Promoting the Child’s Right to […]

  5. YT:

    February 6th, 2009 at 2:01 pm

    Christ jeezuz, they wanna take even that precious lil’ time away from kids? What with homework & other ECAs. All work & no play makes Jack a god**** tin man. You wanna have ’em growin’ up to become mass murderers or somethin’? But that’s another topic for future discussion…