Retired teacher Nancy Bailey has a way of putting school issues into perspective. In this post, she explains what recess is, why it’s important, what it is not, and why parents should beware of the programmed substitutes that are offered up instead of real recess. The war against play began with the Reagan-era report “A Nation at Risk,” then went into high gear with the passage of George W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” law and was reinforced by NCLB’s wicked stepchildren: Race to the Top and the Every Student Succeeds Act. What everything since 2001 stressed was the importance of test scores, not children’s health and well-being. Play in the era from 2001-2023 was a waste of time that would be better spent practicing for the next test.

Bailey wrote:

The lack of breaks for children and the misrepresentation of what constitutes recess continues to flourish.

School reformers try unsuccessfully to replace recess. But recess is not Playworks, Phys.Ed., meditation, or Brain Breaks controlled by adults who tell children what to do, denying them the ability to learn academic and social skills that recess provides when children are free to learn.

Recess is unstructured play. It’s supervised (supervision is critical) but not controlled by adults. It’s one of the easiest and inexpensive ways to help children flourish in school, and studies have highlighted its importance.

Removing recess from the school day involved one of the terrible school reforms in the ’90s connected to high-stakes standardized tests, with the bizarre belief (see A Nation at Risk) that children need more classwork without breaks.

After a while, adults realized the severe health problems that could arise if children don’t have breaks. Still, now they focus on physical activity and need to understand the significance of the critical social interactions children learn during recess.

In some places like Florida, parents have had to fight for a recess mandate, where they are always at risk of losing even 20 minutes of recess. Fortunately, the legislature allowed 20 minutes for now!

Recess involves unstructured play. As Mr. Rogers said, Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning. Play is the work of childhood.

Conflict resolution and working out difficulties are critical parts of recess and another critical variable involving what children learn with unstructured play.

Playworks

The Pulse’s reporter Grant Hill, a Philadelphia NPR/PBS station, recently reviewed recess and its role in conflict resolution, especially after COVID-19. In Getting Better at Resolving Conflict, the recess discussions are at the end, and Hill covers recess’s importance. I get a short spot criticizing Playworks. The CEO misinterprets what recess involves and seems not to understand the impact of controlling what children do. This is not actual recess.

Playworks is a nonprofit run by volunteers from Americorps. It cashes in with donations from various outside corporations, people who likely confuse actual recess with an organized version of what is like Phys. Ed.

If charitable organizations were looking to assist with play and actual recess, they’d seek out poor schools with lousy playgrounds and fund those or find a way to offer children actual recess.

It’s also insulting to hear volunteers in a nonprofit getting donations and tax dollars say one of their purposes is to show teachers the importance of play. If Americorps volunteers want to work with children, they might consider becoming teachers.

Playworks is not alone in skewing the meaning of recess. Recess has been replaced with other inadequate substitutes like Phys. Ed., meditation, and Brain Breaks. Some classes have children sitting on bouncy balls, thinking that nonstop balancing keeps them on their toes!

Please open the link to learn about other efforts to supplant recess.