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برچسب: Recess

  • Our students need more recess

    Our students need more recess


    Students at Copper Island Academy in Michigan engage in unstructured play during frequent outdoor breaks.

    Credit: Courtesy of Timothy Walker / Copper Island Academy

    A flush of anger had spread across my fifth-grader’s forehead. I had never seen a student more upset in my classroom, and it was all my fault. During my first week of teaching in Finland, I had withheld recess — not just from this one fifth-grader, but from all my students.

    Elementary school teachers in Finland typically incorporate a 15-minute break into every hour-long lesson. Many times each day, their students head to the playground and engage in free play after 45 minutes of classroom instruction. Coming from the United States, I questioned this model.

    I firmly believed my fifth-graders would thrive on longer stretches in the classroom. Instead of teaching in 45-minute chunks, I taught 90-minute double lessons followed by 30-minute breaks as often as possible. (Finnish law allows for this kind of scheduling, but it is far from the norm.)

    On the third day of school, just an hour into a 90-minute lesson, I saw that my go-to strategy of delaying breaks had failed. Miserably.

    “I think I’m going to explode!” my fifth-grader had said to me. “I’m not used to this schedule.”

    This awkward confrontation became a turning point in my teaching career. Until then, I had paid little attention to the importance of unstructured breaks. Research, however, has demonstrated many benefits of school recess.

    Over the last decade, a growing list of U.S. states — including Missouri, Florida and New Jersey — have mandated daily recess. California joined the trend in late 2023.

    Starting with the 2024-2025 school year, all K-8 students in Golden State public schools will receive at least 30 minutes of daily outdoor recess (air quality and weather permitting). Not only that, but the recess law also bans the harmful practice of withholding recess for disciplinary reasons.

    California’s new law is a welcome change that expands access to daily recess, but there’s a critical omission. The law does not mandate public schools to offer multiple breaks during the school day. Most U.S. elementary schools (83%) provide daily recess, but only a relative few (21%) offer two periods of daily recess. (Arizona requires its schools to give two periods of daily recess to K-5 students, but unlike California, it fails to specify the duration).

    “Increasing recess frequency offers a cost-effective, accessible and sustainable opportunity to improve children’s health on a population level,” U.S. researchers wrote in an article published this year.

    Under its new recess law, California schools can easily perpetuate the status quo, offering just a single 30-minute daily break. One recess is better than nothing, but I learned firsthand in Finland that keeping kids cooped up in the classroom for hours is a mistake.

    After my fifth-grader confronted me, I quickly embraced the Finnish approach to breaks. And it paid off. Following a 15-minute recess, my fifth-graders would return to the classroom looking refreshed. They seemed much more engaged and focused during lessons, too.

    At my former U.S. school, many of my students — after spending hours inside our classroom — used to struggle with behavior and attention issues. Especially in the afternoon. Back then, I often turned to energizers (i.e., brief songs, poems and games) in an effort to reinvigorate my students. These teacher-directed breaks could make hours in the classroom feel more tolerable, but they were only minimally effective. More than anything else, my American students needed more opportunities for unstructured play breaks (ideally outdoors).

    Decades ago, educational researcher Anthony Pellegrini conducted experiments at a U.S. elementary school and witnessed what I observed at my Finnish school: Students were more focused after a break than before one. When Pellegrini described his research to his 10-year-old daughter, she responded, “Well, duh.”

    Delaying recess — what I did initially at my Finnish school — flies in the face of neuroscience. “People who take regular breaks, and naps even, end up being more productive and more creative in their work,” Daniel Levitin, an American-Canadian neuroscientist, said in a public radio interview. “You need to give your brain time to consolidate all the information that’s come in, to toss it and turn it.”

    Implementing a Finnish-inspired schedule may seem like a far-fetched idea for American schools, but it’s already happening in the United States. I now work with a Michigan school that borrows best practices from Finland’s educational model, including its approach to scheduling.

    Copper Island Academy, a K-8 charter school, provides students with multiple outdoor breaks each day. Teachers supervise the students on the playground while giving them significant autonomy. Students can freely run up the slide, build forts in the woods and climb trees.

    It’s a bold strategy, especially in the Wolverine State. Like most states, Michigan does not require recess, and approximately 1 in 5 elementary school students receive less than 20 minutes of it daily (despite a state Board of Education recommendation to incorporate this amount).    

    When I visited Copper Island, a few teachers told me they were initially skeptical of the unstructured breaks. “I wondered what fifth-graders would do out on the playground,” fifth-grade teacher Leslie Fischer told me, “but I’ve been really amazed and impressed that it’s been so healthy for them.”

    Kevin Boyd — the middle school social studies teacher — has observed an increase in student engagement. “Boredom is not an issue at [Copper Island],” he said in an email, “and I attribute this to the Brain Breaks.”

    The nationwide movement to mandate recess makes sense, but it’s just the first step. U.S. elementary school students need more than just one play break each day.

    It is time for all American schools to align recess frequency with the science of learning. California can help lead the way.

    •••

    Timothy Walker is an American teacher and author living in Espoo, Finland. He is the author of “Teach Like Finland: 33 Simple Strategies for Joyful Classrooms,” and a consultant with Copper Island Academy, a Finnish-inspired charter school in Calumet, Michigan.

    The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • Millions of kids are still skipping school. Could the answer be recess — and a little cash?

    Millions of kids are still skipping school. Could the answer be recess — and a little cash?


    Melinda Gonzalez, 14, poses at Fresno High School where she’ll be a freshman in Fresno on Aug. 14, 2024.

    Credit: Gary Kazanjian / AP Photo

    MEDFORD, Mass. (AP) – Flerentin “Flex” Jean-Baptiste missed so much school he had to repeat his freshman year at Medford High outside Boston. At school, “you do the same thing every day,” said Jean-Baptiste, who was absent 30 days his first year. “That gets very frustrating.”

    Then his principal did something nearly unheard of: She let students play organized sports during lunch — if they attended all their classes. In other words, she offered high schoolers recess.

    “It gave me something to look forward to,” said Jean-Baptiste, 16. The following year, he cut his absences in half. Schoolwide, the share of students who were chronically absent declined from 35% in March 2023 to 23% in March 2024 — one of the steepest declines among Massachusetts high schools.

    Fleretin “Flex” Jean-Baptiste, 16, of Medford, Mass., poses for a photo at Medford High School on Aug. 2, 2024, in Medford, Mass. Jean-Baptiste’s attendance has improved since the school made the gym available to attending students during the school day, in one example of how schools in the state have succeeded in reducing chronic absenteeism.
    Credit: Josh Reynolds / AP Photo

    Years after Covid-19 upended American schooling, nearly every state is still struggling with attendance, according to data collected by The Associated Press and Stanford University economist Thomas Dee.

    Roughly 1 in 4 students in the 2022-23 school year remained chronically absent, meaning they missed at least 10% of the school year. That represents about 12 million children in the 42 states and Washington, D.C., where data is available. 

    Before the pandemic, only 15% of students missed that much school. 

    Society may have largely moved on from Covid, but schools say they are still battling the effects of pandemic school closures. After as much as a year at home, school for many kids has felt overwhelming, boring or socially stressful. More than ever, kids and parents are deciding it’s OK to stay home, which makes catching up even harder.

    In all but one state, Arkansas, absence rates remain higher than they were pre-pandemic. Still, the problem appears to have passed its peak; almost every state saw absenteeism improve at least slightly from 2021-22 to 2022-23.

    Schools are working to identify students with slipping attendance, then providing help. They’re working to close communication gaps with parents, who often aren’t aware their child is missing so much school or why it’s problematic. 

    So far, the solutions that appear to be helping are simple — like postcards to parents that compare a child’s attendance with peers. But to make more progress, experts say, schools must get creative to address their students’ needs.  

    $50 per week

    In California, Oakland Unified’s chronic absenteeism has been skyrocketing from 34.4% pre-pandemic to 61.4% in the 2022-23 school year, excluding charter schools — one of the few districts in the state where rates increased even as schools reopened for in-person instruction. For the last school year, Oakland reported a drop to 31.9%,

    editors note

    This in-depth report on chronic absenteeism is part of an EdSource partnership with the Associated Press and Stanford Professor Thomas Dee.

    For earlier coverage, go to EdSource’s Getting Students Back to School.

    — Rose Ciotta, investigations and projects editor

    One solution has been for the district to ask students what would convince them to come to class.

    Money, the students replied, and a mentor.

    A grant-funded program launched in spring 2023 paid 45 students $50 weekly for perfect attendance. Students also checked in daily with an assigned adult and completed weekly mental health assessments.

    Paying students isn’t a permanent or sustainable fix, said Zaia Vera, Oakland’s head of social-emotional learning.

    But many absent students lacked stable housing or were helping to support their families. “The money is the hook that got them in the door,” Vera said.

    More than 60% improved their attendance after taking part, Vera said. The program is expected to continue, along with districtwide efforts aimed at creating a sense of belonging.

    A caring teacher made a difference for Golden Tachiquin, 18, who graduated from Oakland’s Skyline High School this spring. When she started 10th grade after a remote freshman year, she felt lost and anxious.  She realized only later these feelings caused the nausea and dizziness that kept her home sick. She was absent at least 25 days that year.

    But she bonded with an Afro-Latina teacher who understood her culturally and made Tachiquin, a straight-A student, feel her poor attendance didn’t define her.

    “I didn’t dread going to her class,” Tachiquin said.

    Another teacher had the opposite effect. “She would say, ‘Wow, guess who decided to come today?’ ” Tachiquin recalled. “I started skipping her class even more.”

    In Massachusetts, Medford High School requires administrators to greet and talk with students each morning, especially those with a history of missing school. 

    But the lunchtime gym sessions have been the biggest driver of improved attendance, Principal Marta Cabral said. High schoolers need freedom and an opportunity to move their bodies, she said. “They’re here for seven hours a day. They should have a little fun.” 

    Stubborn circumstances

    Chronically absent students are at higher risk of illiteracy and eventually dropping out. They also miss the meals, counseling and socialization provided at school.

    Many of the reasons kids missed school early in the pandemic are still firmly in place: financial hardship, transportation problems, mild illness and mental health struggles.

    At Fresno’s Fort Miller Middle School, where half the students were chronically absent, two reasons kept coming up: dirty laundry and no transportation.

    The Central Valley school bought a washer and dryer for students’ use, along with a Chevy Suburban to pick up students who missed the bus. Overall, Fresno’s chronic absenteeism improved to 35% in 2022-23.

    Melinda Gonzalez, 14, missed the school bus about once a week and would call for rides in the Suburban.

    “I don’t have a car; my parents couldn’t drive me to school,” Gonzalez said. “Getting that ride made a big difference.”

    How sick is too sick?

    When chronic absence surged to around 50% in Fresno, officials realized they had to remedy pandemic-era mindsets about keeping kids home sick.

    “Unless your student has a fever or threw up in the last 24 hours, you are coming to school. That’s what we want,” said Abigail Arii, director of student support services.

    Often, said Noreida Perez, who oversees attendance at Fresno Unifed, parents aren’t aware physical symptoms can point to mental health struggles — such as when a child doesn’t feel up to leaving their bedroom.

    More than a dozen states now let students take mental health days as excused absences. But staying home can become a vicious cycle, said Hedy Chang, of Attendance Works, which works with schools on absenteeism.

    “If you continue to stay home from school, you feel more disengaged,” she said. “You get farther behind.”

    In Alaska, 45% of students missed significant school last year. In Amy Lloyd’s high school English classes in Juneau, some families now treat attendance as optional. Last term, several students missed school for extended vacations.

    “I don’t really know how to reset the expectation that was crushed when we sat in front of the computer for that year,” Lloyd said. 

    EdSource contributed to this report.

    Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, contributed to this report.

    The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.





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  • Let’s ensure ‘Recess for All’ law really does apply to all

    Let’s ensure ‘Recess for All’ law really does apply to all


    Recess at Redwood Heights Elementary School in Oakland.

    Credit: Alison Yin / EdSource

    When one of our sons (then a third grader) lost recess privileges for a week last school year, he came home cranky and irritable. As he put it, “Recess is the only time I can actually really play with my friends without so many rules.” Research in education, psychology, physiology, and brain science consistently points to recess as a vital part of the school day. There’s a reason most kids claim recess is their favorite subject in school.

    As students across California return to their classrooms, they will step back into healthier learning environments thanks to the landmark Senate Bill 291, known as Recess for All, which requires elementary schools — for the first time in the state’s history — to provide students with at least 30 minutes of daily recess, while also prohibiting withholding recess as punishment.

    The law is a response to the growing concerns about inactivity and the mental health crisis among our youth — challenges exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. As public-school parents and professors who study recess and school health, we applaud the effort to not only increase students’ opportunities for school-based play but also to help address the traumas and social isolation our children faced during the pandemic.

    Now we must ensure that schools implement these changes so all children have the access to recess they need and deserve.

    Unfortunately, many still see recess as simply fun and games. This view — a vestige of the No Child Left Behind era, which ramped up school testing and created disincentives for developmental activities like recess, arts, music, and civics — had led some localities to reduce or eliminate regular breaks for children. This was a major issue post-pandemic when concerns about learning loss were pitted against the healing power of play in school. Research supports the importance of taking recess breaks from traditional academic subjects like math and reading; stepping away from classroom learning to move and play can help improve students’ test scores.

    Why is recess so essential for California’s more than 3 million public school students? The play, teamwork, socialization, leadership and self-regulation that happen at recess are critical for child and youth development. Recess is the only unstructured time in the school day when students can acquire and practice these skills. Young children learn a tremendous amount through organized and imaginative play — how to create and follow rules, be inclusive, make good decisions and collaborate.

    The physical activity that occurs at recess is important for many reasons, including helping students to get their wiggles out. But brain science tells us there is more to it than just wiggles. Physical activity and social connection at recess help students regulate their behaviors and emotions. Supporting these executive functions improves students’ abilities to concentrate and learn throughout the school day. 

    Providing students with daily recess can help students deal with trauma. With the distress and isolation they experienced through remote learning, coupled with the escalating mental health concerns, we need low-cost solutions to reach as many students as possible. Research shows that people under stress act reactively, and they behave poorly as a result. Recess allows students time to practice their executive functioning skills, which can help them cope better with stress and reduce anxiety. 

    Importantly, Recess for All is an anti-racist and equitable policy. It has the potential to close the gap in access to recess that exists in California and across the country.

    Students of color and those in low-income areas routinely have less recess time than students in wealthier and whiter areas. Additionally, children of color are disproportionately more likely to be disciplined in school. By abolishing the practice of withholding recess, schools can create restorative practices that support appropriate behavior, rather than punishing students by forcing them to sit out and miss essential growth time. 

    Recess for All is vitally important for California’s youth. As California public school parents, we plan to speak directly to our principals, PTAs and school boards to show our educators how much we value school-based opportunities for play and socialization. We encourage other parents to do the same. Schools respond to the issues most important to parents and their communities. Talk to your school administrators about their plans for ensuring kids get the newly mandated 30 minutes of recess a day. Our children, and our communities, will be healthier for it.

    •••

    Rebecca A. London, Ph.D., is professor of sociology and faculty director of Campus + Community at the University of California Santa Cruz. She is author of the book “Rethinking Recess: Creating Safe and Inclusive Playtime for All Children in School” (Harvard Education Press, 2019).

    Hannah R. Thompson, Ph.D., MPH, is assistant research professor at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health. She works with school districts to study the impact of improved school-based physical activity and nutrition opportunities on student health.

    The opinions in this commentary are those of the authors. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us





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