View unanswered posts | View active topics It is currently Fri Mar 29, 2024 8:56 am



This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  [ 17 posts ] 
 Recess cancelled 
Author Message
All-star
All-star
User avatar

Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:32 pm
Posts: 67
Location: Kernersville Middle School
KOZOL says, "The banishment of recess from the normal schoolday is perhaps the ultimate penurious denical. In Atlanta, recess has been systematically abandoned to secure more time for test-related programs since the last years of the 1990s, according to the education writer Susan Ohanian, who has doucmented practices like these in many districts. "We are intent on improving academic performance,"...(120)

I'm not sure this is totally true. I figured that lost recess time at the middle school level was because idle kids left to their own have troubles with other kids and people get hurt. If I wanted to get the best out of my kids, I wouldn't cancel recess to get it. There would be a mutiny of sorts instead.


Sun Jan 21, 2007 3:41 pm
Profile
All-star
All-star
User avatar

Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:29 pm
Posts: 34
Post 
Every teacher has seen that "I'm done" look on their students' faces. Imagine how a school with no recess would wear on kids as the time goes on. To think that we can eliminate an activity that adds freedom and and joy to a kid's school day and raise test scores is absurd! It sure makes good political policy though.

_________________
Neil Atkins


Mon Jan 22, 2007 7:43 am
Profile
All-star
All-star
User avatar

Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:30 pm
Posts: 40
Post 
I agree with Kathy, it's a shame that some schools have eliminated recess from the daily routine of kids. Maybe there are additional reasons why they have eliminated it such as violence, liability reasons??? Recess gives the kids a chance to socialize and collaboratively "play" together.


Mon Jan 22, 2007 7:06 pm
Profile
All-star
All-star
User avatar

Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:32 pm
Posts: 67
Location: Kernersville Middle School
While interning at another school, teachers would release students to play structured games in the gym or on the soccer field after doing EOQs and EOGs. The students picked up the completed test and teachers motioned them to go to a designated area.

No way could we do this at the school where we are now. I feel like we hog-tie our kids too much and that is part of the restlessness and non-compliance. Glasser, in ContolTheory, says to allow latititude for choice. How can we do that?!


Mon Jan 22, 2007 7:30 pm
Profile
All-star
All-star
User avatar

Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:29 pm
Posts: 125
Post 
And the nation wonders why kids are becoming obese. They are already held captive by Ninetendo and the Cartoon Network. Let's sacrifice a kid's health for a little accountability!

_________________
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." M. Twain


Mon Jan 22, 2007 7:35 pm
Profile
All-star
All-star
User avatar

Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:29 pm
Posts: 46
Post 
As a mother of two 8 year olds and a former elementary school teacher, what bothers me the most is the fact that kids don't know how to form a team by themselves or to occupy themselves without being given structure. When I was a child, we were dropped off by the bus at school and immediately ran to the playground where we would either form kickball or soccer teams, played freeze tag, organized jumprope teams etc. Kids today can't form teams without fighting, can't play unsupervised without breaking and/or changing rules, and some just flat out can't force themselves to participate at all. Imagine what would happen today if we just "dropped kids off" in the mornings to play until the bell rings? It would be utter chaos! When we treat children like empty vessels to be filled by our knowledge and not as children who learn by doing for themselves, we hurt them more than we help them.

_________________
Rosanna Whisnant


Tue Jan 23, 2007 9:23 am
Profile
All-star
All-star
User avatar

Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:28 pm
Posts: 44
Post 
Yes, we are controlled by numbers/data and will probably be stuck there for a long time. Taking away recess is not the answer-it seems to me that if we don't provide some time to stimulate the active/physical nature of children we are certainly doing them a disservice. What perplexes me more is that we forget that kids are simply kids, not academic robots.

_________________
Leigh Anne Frye


Tue Jan 23, 2007 1:23 pm
Profile
All-star
All-star
User avatar

Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:28 pm
Posts: 43
Post 
Rosanna is exactly right about our children today
Quote:
Kids today can't form teams without fighting, can't play unsupervised without breaking and/or changing rules, and some just flat out can't force themselves to participate at all.


However, how much are we to blame as educators for failing to teach children this today. We used to be able to rely on parents to do this, but in reality this does not happen. I guess I was wondering how much responsibility lies within the schools to teach teamwork, sportsmanship, and independence today? :?:

_________________
Heath Belcher


Tue Jan 23, 2007 2:39 pm
Profile
All-star
All-star
User avatar

Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:37 pm
Posts: 51
Post 
Maybe I need to spend some time at an elementary school cause I never would have thought that students were unable to play together. This seems insane to me and is something that I have never experienced as a coach or a voluteer. Part of being a child is learning to be good teammates. Seems that taking away recess, a place where these skills are learned is just as insane.

_________________
Tim Hoffman


Tue Jan 23, 2007 9:29 pm
Profile
All-star
All-star
User avatar

Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:33 pm
Posts: 36
Post 
Stop recess, but find a way to get every student physically fit. Again, politician speaking out of both sides of their mouth. Let's be real, recess provides an outlet for students with the as Neil states the "I'm done" look on their faces. Student need to be energized!

_________________
BT AP
WIMS
Iredell County


Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:50 pm
Profile
All-star
All-star
User avatar

Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:30 pm
Posts: 32
I wonder how much of this has to do with the content of the video we watched in class on the class system in this country. It seems today that parents are working harder, longer hours in order to "keep up with the Joneses" and eventually (hopefully for many) move from working class to upper-middle class, or from upper-middle class to high-class. Who suffers? THE CHILDREN! Suddenly, parents are so concerned with social class and the Almighty Dollar that they leave turn the guardianship of their children over to Apple, Sony, Nintendo and Nickelodeon. How to break the cycle? I don't know, but it is a problem.

_________________
Logan McGuire


Sat Feb 03, 2007 11:33 am
Profile
All-star
All-star
User avatar

Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:37 pm
Posts: 32
There are goals in place right now for all levels of students within our state. The Healthy Active Children plan states that elementary students must have a combined time of 150 minutes per week to fulfill its mandates. WE must give them at least 30 minutes each day if they do not have PE. There are days in which my kids just need to stretch themselves out and work their brains. I know that look also and I get it around 12:00 in the afternoon. They are at their best in the morning and closer to the end of the day, they are like zombies.

This was sent out to our staff at the beginning of school. It may be useful to start classes with each dayand get them going again with your subject area:

http://www.ncpublicschools.org/curricul ... resources/

_________________
Alisa Ferguson
MSA, ASU, summer 2007


Sat Feb 03, 2007 12:34 pm
Profile
All-star
All-star
User avatar

Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:32 pm
Posts: 67
Location: Kernersville Middle School
Yes, schools can have recess and gym with time allotments. But there's something else to consider. Feb. is Healthy Heart Month and the National Geographic has a front-featured article on "Health Hearts." It gives all the bad news and latest research on genetics. It also provides a map that shows the deep south, starting with North Carolina, as being one of the darkest areas for heart disease.

I'm wondering why... and figuring out we need more play space in our communities, more YMCAs, more sports fields, and maybe...and maybe a longer school day to support these extracurricular, active times.

I fiigure our latch-key kinds can't play outside, so they vegetate, which is a good thing when you consider dangerous activities like roasting marshmellows over the stove, Bic lighters that light, guns that unlock, etc.


Sat Feb 03, 2007 8:24 pm
Profile
All-star
All-star
User avatar

Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:29 pm
Posts: 125
Post 
As an administrator, I hope I will never let all the ABCs and AYPs and tests in the world get in the way of what is best for the child. I can only hope that we all recognize children do need recess. Let's not burn students out by taking away what little time they have to BE CHILDREN. I do not think they are just products to be stamped as level ones, or level twos, and so on. They are children who love to jump, run, play. The day any law asks me to forget that, that's the day I walk out of this business.

_________________
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." M. Twain


Sat Feb 03, 2007 9:53 pm
Profile
All-star
All-star
User avatar

Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:37 pm
Posts: 51
Post 
Yet, with sports in America comes wealth. Many parents want thier children to run and play in sports that will one day make them rich. Not just play kickball. Parents drove thier children from one activity to another on school nights to pursue the dream of being Derek Jeter. This is not because it is best for the kid, but as Logan stated " chasing the Alighty dollar" only through the child. Amazing how we in this country seem to do everything to make a dollar. How many of us are in graduate school just to get a pay raise? I know that is part of my motivatation.

_________________
Tim Hoffman


Sun Feb 04, 2007 3:30 pm
Profile
Semi-pro
Semi-pro
User avatar

Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:33 pm
Posts: 17
Post 
Kids need some time to relax and be themselves with their friends. Down time is important for everyone.

_________________
Rebecca Secrest


Sun Feb 04, 2007 9:33 pm
Profile WWW
All-star
All-star
User avatar

Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:31 pm
Posts: 36
I can't say that I actually remember having recess past third grade. I have the reasoning as you mentioned about needing the classroom time, but at what cost? Students are literally my size and bigger by middle school. Its not a few kids here and there, its almost all of them. Not to mention, most kids don't step foot outside after they get home from school. I ask my students what they when they get home and they say computer, phone, or electronic games, so exercise is rarely a regular practice. I think this ties into increased laziness at school. Which I feel effects scores more than 30 minutes outside during the school day to get your blood pumping.


Mon Feb 05, 2007 6:21 pm
Profile
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.   [ 17 posts ] 

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 5 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
cron
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group
Designed by ST Software for PTF.