Yes

by Anne-Marie Wichael

Created on: February 09, 2011

Recess is an important element of the learning process, for youngsters.  Though it is seen by many as a waste of time, it is actually beneficial for many reasons.  When school districts are stretched to their limits financially, it’s tempting to fit every possible moment of the school day into focus on academic subjects.  However, recess really should be left in the daily schedule of students.

~Learning Styles

There are various learning styles, including visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.  The kinesthetic learner is very hands on in processing information, and often needs physical activity to complement the learning environment.  This student often is challenged with traditional classroom instruction, and his needs are least addressed in the school setting.  Recess is one area in which this student can move about, and work out some of that energy.  Likewise, those students who have a tendency toward hyperactivity can use the recess time to expend energy, making it a bit easier to concentrate during classroom time.

~Health and Wellness

There are many complaints and concerns about the levels of childhood obesity in the nation.  However, those opportunities for children to exercise during the optimum times of day are limited.  Recesses provide a short time out of doors during the best weather of the day.  This is well suited to student activity and exercise.

If health and wellness of students is truly a concern, then recesses really should remain in place as testimony to that importance.  Active lifestyles are not promoted effectively from inside a classroom, if there is no opportunity to be active.  Additionally, health benefits are derived from safe exposure to sunlight, as with vitamin D, which an outdoor recess facilitates.

~Refreshment

As most adults would attest, a work break is an important time of day.  It’s a moment to step away from focus on the job.  Laws exist to protect the rights of workers to have breaks and lunches of certain lengths, based on the time spent at work.  However, students are often limited to a half hour lunch break during the school day.  Recess for children is similar to a worker’s break time, but many children are deprived of that break when recess is cut. 

~Processing Time                                             

Many people need time, after intensive learning, to step away from a subject and to process it.  Recesses provide students with an interim time, in which they can change focus, get some fresh air, and allow learned material to “settle” a bit. 

~Imagination                                 

Some of the greatest moments of exercising the imagination are in the context of free play.  Students with a recess can think up their own entertainment, whether racing in the grass, or swinging, or playing on a jungle gym.  Classroom opportunities to imagine are often constrained to defined parameters in a given lesson.  On the playground, however, students can dream, imagine, and do so without following a defined direction. 

Many policy makers examine school systems in order to determine how to fit more instructional time into the teaching day.  Often, recess is targeted as expendable.  However, the disservice to students is potentially more intense in removing these defined outdoor break times.  There is great value, for many reasons, and recess should remain in place in the school day.

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