In hopes of raising test scores, elementary schools in Syracuse are eliminating recess.
This discounts mountains of research about the importance of non-cognitive skills, which are often learned on the playground,
And too there is the pesky fact that children need tine to run and play.
A sound mind in a healthy body.
But not in Syracuse.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Just another way to kill the joy of learning! Unbelievable. Or maybe believable at this rate. 🙂
Shannon
http://www.irunreadteach.wordpress.com
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I doubt this is going to last long… at least I hope!!
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Sad product of the Obama-Duncan education plan. What does Michelle Obama have to say?
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We’re going to have some physically unfit children, lacking social skills and the ability to entertain themselves if this trend continues. This is sad. It kind of ruins some of the fun of school. Silly me, socialization used to be a byproduct of school. Hum…wasn’t there a study that showed a correlation between physical activity and improved test scores? Why-yes! Yes there are (how valid I don’t know but the articles are from the U.S.and U.K.):
https://www.google.com/search?q=physical%20ed%20improves%20test%20scores&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&source=hp&channel=np
Well, I’ve learned four things tonight:
1. We’ve lost our minds.
2. There is no more childhood.
3. We’re going having some fidgety kids who show protest by tanking the test.
4. Stocks in pharmaceutical and mental health hospitals/facilities are looking like a wise investment.
Here’s to hoping we’ll learn before it’s too late.
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we have lost our minds. we must shake each other out of this madness.
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No Child Let Be
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Were none of these people ever children?
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I would hate to be a child today. I am not surprised when kids tell me they don’t like school. Who can blame them?
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Me too! This time is good for the kids as well as the teacher! Some fresh air and some space doesn’t hurt anyone.
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Institutional insanity.
Whoever made that decision should be immediately fired.
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And his/her boss too!
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A colleague told me how her FIRST GRADE son gets an hour of homework each night – mostly worksheets. This is in a stressed urban district. My first grade daughter only gets about 20 minutes worth for the whole week in a fairly well-off rural district. Guess which child enjoys school and which one is developing anxiety issues? They are six years old, for crying out loud!
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I believe the research shows (a term I dearly hate as most of the time folks that use it don’t really have good research that proves their point. I always say, show me the research and I’ll decide if it really shows anything.) that homework at the elementary level can be harmful to the students-for more research see: http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/rethinkinghomework.htm
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From the article: “Chief Academic Officer Laura Kelley said teachers can offer recess if they want. It is not clear how teachers could squeeze in recess and still spend the required number of minutes on instruction. [Chief Academic Officer-ha ha-when did we sign the dotted line to become part of the military?]
“If they are going to opt to do recess, they are going to be taking time from ELA (English language arts) and math, and that’s a choice I hope every teacher considers very carefully,” Kelley said.”
Notice how Kelley, the person in charge, is throwing the teachers under the bus by making it appear that they are the ones who make the decision to deny the students a chance to relax and socialize, run around, yell, scream and have a little unadulterated fun. You can bet that the principals at each school have been instructed to tightly monitor the “required minutes” of ELA and math instruction. Kelley needs to be in those classrooms at 10:30 a.m. or 1:20 p.m. to see just how “attentive” those 5-10 year olds are.
Hopefully at least one teacher has the cojones to actually have recess everyday.
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Phys Ed teachers’ performance is measured as well in an APPR evaluation in NY. Cutting out recess is like not allowing students to read outside of ELA during the school day, and expecting that they will still make adequate growth and develop good reading habits. We are talking about children! These policy makers have completely lost sight of population they are supposed to be educating and helping to foster a healthy development and are instead treating them like they are science experiments!
As a parent and a teacher in upstate NY, I am disgusted by this mentality and fear for my profession and my daughter’s educational future. While the destruction of the reform tsunami hasn’t quite breeched my district, I see the water rising, and am doing everything I can to educate our teachers and community so they may be able to withstand such asinine policies as this.
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No recess? This is a cruelty. Set the children free!
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These kids need their own union. I wonder if teachers would be willing to put a recess requirement into their contract language.
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Love it! Then let all the Rheeformers label the children’s unions as lazy and incompetent. Their next movie? : “Won’t Stay Inside”.
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Or maybe it should be called “Won’t Sit Down.”
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I returned to my first grade classroom this year to find that every minute of my day had been scheduled by “course”. I have specific times for “ELA”, “MATH” and “SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES”. My students are lucky, I guess, in the respect that they get 40 minutes of PE every day. I know that is now a luxury that many students don’t have. They also are still getting Art, Music, Library, and Computers. Sadly, though, most of their time in “Computers” will be spent on STAR testing.
We are rushing, rushing, rushing through our day and it much less effective than when I could schedule learning activities that fit “ALL OF THE ABOVE” into our day. Additionally, because of NY’s APPR, I have to take “period by period attendance” which will account for my ‘contact’ time with my students. That time will be somehow magically factored into my VAM score. There is no more cooperation between classroom teachers and other service providers. If a student misses 30 minutes of my ELA instruction for a service like Speech – I have to indicate that student as ‘absent’ for 30 minutes. There is no more “making it work” for everyone. Our principal scheduled every minute of everyone’s day – every teacher and every student!
One of my favorite activities from years past – we call it Read About- where the first graders join older students to read to them- is certain to be lost. What other teacher (besides me) will be willing to give up any of their precious instruction time and contact minutes so that beginning readers can practice reading to someone? It’s a tragedy because in the last 10 or so years that we’ve been doing this – I have seen reading ability improve rapidly with just that extra 20 minutes/week of practice. The intrinsic motivation of reading to a ‘big kid’ is something that I cannot duplicate. The connections that were made between my students and the “big kids” were amazing!
While we may not go outside every day, every day my first graders are in school – WE WILL PLAY!! I mean – FREE PLAY with blocks, crayons, play-doh, games, puzzles, and whatever else they can think of with the things that are in my classroom. I will NOT expect that 5, 6, and 7 year olds to go through a day without PLAYING! I will LET THEM PLAY and honestly, my VAM score can be damned! I will ‘risk’ being fired for a poor VAM score before I allow these precious children to be damaged by policies that promote the corporate takeover our schools.
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My schedule is equally scripted. Snack time is supposed to be 10 minutes long. Jesus Mary, it takes some of my students that long to walk to the kitchen to get their milk, walk back to the classroom, open the milk, and insert the straw! I’m at the same point you are: I am willing to go underground and play along, all the while doing my own thing.
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We don’t even have a scheduled “snack time”. Now that we’ve tried it out for 3 days, we have eliminated getting milk. The kids will either bring a drink or use the water fountain. AND- since there is no scheduled time, it is assumed that my students will have snack while I am teaching ELA! INSANITY REIGNS!!!
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Of course, the solution is to just not let the kids have milk! There is something seriously wrong when children are denied nutrition for the sake if test scores. I agree, we have fallen down the rabbit’s tunnel. I guess I won’t mention the milk issue to my principal then!
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Ha! Good one. The Onion sure comes up with some funny fake-news stories, doesn’t it!
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Good point CJ.
You mean to say that there are still some public schools with recess. I didn’t think there were any public schools left with recess. When my child was in 5th grade they had 30 minutes total for lunch and recess. If they didn’t have their 45 math problems and homework in all the other subjects completed from the night before, the students lost the recess part. The students had to stay in for those few minutes and work on the homework. On average it took my child six hours a night to do all the homework.
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I think the majority of public elementary schools still do have recess daily. It still is newsworthy when a school system gets rid of it. My students have thirty minutes for lunch and thirty minutes for recess. I may need to start appreciating my school system more!
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Summer is over and I am back trying to bring some semblance of normalcy to my pre-k classroom.
I am reading as fast as I can and responding where I can.
Early childhood issues always hook me.
For all children, not just the little ones, not having a physical break at least once a day, preferably more is tantamount to child abuse.
Imagine corporate suits attending meetings the entire day without a break. No one would stand for it.
Where are the parents? Why are they not complaining? I think many parents in an effort to get the best education for their child are falling for junk science and false promises.
At the orientation in my classroom on the first day of school I explained to my parents all the activities we do in my room. I explained my philosophy of education and why worksheets are a complete waste of time.
I went through an average day..all hands on activities and lots of opportunities to explore and discover. We have a full day and my students are working the entire time. it just looks like play.
When I asked for questions one mom asked, “what about homework?”
I was polite but explained that homework is 20 to 30 minutes an evening reading with their child in a warm atmosphere without making it seem like that they will be a quiz after the story. I explained that homework might be going to the park and drawing a picture of a tree the child might see. I send home work that is project based for the parent and the child to do together. One of my homeworks is to make playdough. I said that each parent is free to give their child as many worksheets as she/he wants but it has no place in my classroom and their time would be better spent engaging with their child instead of giving him/her something so abstract as a worksheet in pre-k.
We no longer have naps and next week when we start full day I can anticipate quite a few children falling over after lunch. My principal thinks naps mean free time for the teacher rather than rest for the child.
When parents don’t complain, nothing is going to change. Teacher voices do not carry the same weight and parents.
Why are parents not upset that their child doesn’t nap or doesn’t get recess or art or music and is subjected to hours of meaningless worksheets?
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Aside from the brain and learning research this totally violates, taking away recess is something from a Charles Dickens horror story.
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Dickens? Who’s he? If he didn’t write informational text, he’s obsolete.
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