Blog

What Priority for Recess?

Each minute in a school day is precious. We need students to catch up and be on track with their learning. Meanwhile, we feel pressure to add activities, elements, and aspects to their day, without always identifying what’ll be removed to create time. At the same time, some argue that academically focused time is likely to pay better dividends than allowing students to run and play with friends and classmates. Without question, these are worthy considerations. However, robbing students of recess may have longer term consequences than we think. Giving students breaks from learning and time to shift their focus to activities that aren’t planned and structured by adults can offer some surprising learning and life benefits. The American Academy of Pediatrics advises there are several important outcomes associated with what we’ve traditionally called recess. First, children, and even adolescents, are best able to focus on learning when they’ve periodic mental breaks to focus on non-academic topics and activities. Other countries and cultures have long embraced schedules with intense focus followed by frequent mental and physical breaks. For example, young students in Japanese schools typically are given ten-to-fifteen-minute breaks each hour. Simply shifting focus from one activity to another can be advantageous to learning, but the most significant benefits appear to come from breaks allowing students to choose and be free from tight structure. Research and experience hold that following breaks students are better ready to re-engage and focus on academic learning. Importantly, even though recess isn’t typically a part of school schedules for adolescents, they still need and benefit from mental and physical breaks. The same is true for adults. Beyond academic learning, unstructured but safe and supervised recesses provide students with opportunities to develop important interpersonal skills, such as resolving conflicts, negotiating priorities, forming relationships, developing perseverance, and sharing resources. These skills are important building blocks for social success that can often get bypassed when adults are immediately available to enforce rules, render judgments, and direct behavior. We might think of these experiences as opportunities for students to develop and apply social and emotional learning and skills. A study by professors at the University of Colorado and University of Denver further reinforces the benefits of less structured and unstructured activities in yet another aspect of student development. Researchers found that students who spent more time in free play appeared to develop greater executive functioning: the ability to plan, make decisions, use information with purpose, successfully switch between tasks, and manage thoughts and feelings. Of course, there’s a strong connection between executive functioning and academic success. Students with well-developed executive functioning tend to be less dependent on adults to manage their behavior and are better able to focus on important tasks. Additionally, time spent running, chasing, and active play during recess also contributes to the recommended sixty minutes of physical activity each day. As a result, recess helps to combat obesity and sedentary lifestyles that contribute to health problems later in life. It can also take the edge off energy that leads some students to fidget, squirm, and engage in off-task behavior. Importantly, recess shouldn’t be confused with or seen as interchangeable with physical education. Physical education is intended to be a more formal environment in which students learn skills and activities that help them to make good life choices and develop a healthy, active lifestyle. Physical education is an important part of the education of young people. It can also contribute to the total minutes of activity in which students engage daily, but recess and physical education have different purposes and play separate roles in learning. The American Academy of Pediatrics offers several recommendations regarding recess including: Consider recess students’ free time. Resist over-structuring the time or withholding recess for academic or punitive reasons. Schedule breaks of sufficient length for students to mentally decompress and be ready to re-engage. Treat recess as a complement to physical education, not an alternative or replacement. Provide adequate supervision during recess but avoid unnecessary structuring of activities. Finally, opportunities to decompress and refocus aren't just for young people. We, too, need to make breaks and exercise part of our routines if we hope to do our best work and be fully present and ready to support students as they learn.

Six Keys to Designing Life-Changing Learning

In Your Corner, Student Learning, Thinking Frames

February 22, 2023

Six Keys to Designing Life-Changing Learning

Recall, if you can, a time when you had a powerful learning experience, an experience in which the way you thought, assumptions you made, and perspectives you held were challenged and changed, or became more nuanced. You may recall problems you confronted, struggles in which you engaged, and new learning that emerged. If you can recall experiences such as these, you’re a fortunate learner. These special learning experiences can have a life-long impact. They can ignite life passions, define driving missions, and create new clarity and commitment for learning and life. Unfortunately, too few of these learning experiences happen within the context of the school curriculum. When they occur, they often emerge by coincidence, or they may happen in response to an incident or experience that cannot be ignored or set aside. Yet it seems the mission and context of school should be the place where life-changing learning happens often and with intent. An important recent research review at the University of Pennsylvania distilled five decades of research involving over 7000 studies on learning to define a set of characteristics associated with learning that has a lasting impact. The defining characteristics of life-changing learning are more closely related to the experience than to its duration or even its specific content. In fact, life-changing learning experiences can be the result of a project, extended engagement over the course of weeks and months, or in some cases the experience may span the course of a full year and beyond. Interestingly, for students to experience a profound, life-changing learning experience, not all these characteristics must be present. Depending on the situation, as few as two or three can be enough to drive the learning experience to new depth and breadth and create a life-long memory. Let’s explore these characteristics and how we might use them to design learning experiences that can have a life-changing impact. The first is a supportive environment in which mistakes are accepted, even expected. Students need to be free to explore, examine, experiment, and take risks. Learners need to experience a level of trust and autonomy that invites them to take ownership and invest in their learning. Second, life-changing learning experiences often result from learning that involves service to others, especially people who have a particular need. Teaching, tutoring, mentoring of others who need support are examples. The key is for the learning activity to extend beyond oneself and provide a meaningful benefit to others. Third, these learning experiences may include exposure to ideas, beliefs, or perspectives that are different from those held by the student. However, the experience must be more than something minor that might be ignored or something so overwhelming that it may be rejected. The key is to open the door to a broader perspective and deeper understanding. The goal is for the student to gain a more complex understanding of something significant and the ability to differentiate among things that previously may have seemed indistinguishable. Third, profound learning comes from active engagement, giving energy, and making a commitment. Life-changing learning requires an investment, features a level of learning risk, and presents a meaningful challenge. The greater the commitment and involvement, the greater the return in learning. Fourth, life-changing learning almost always involves real problems, or at least simulations that are sophisticated enough for students to take them seriously and engage authentically. These learning experiences often come without clear answers and existing solutions. As a result, the experience promotes critical thinking, evidence examination, generation of novel ideas, and tolerance for ambiguity. Fifth, powerful learning experiences typically benefit from collaboration with peers, educators, mentors, or others. Profound learning experiences can occur in isolation and with the engagement of a single student. But more often, the thinking, assumptions, approaches, questions, and perspectives of others add richness and depth to the experience. The dialogue, support, and even conflict can move learning forward and generate new insights. Sixth, life-changing learning experiences benefit from opportunities for reflection and meaning making. Reflection can support examination, testing of insights, and adjustment of thinking. Reflection opportunities during these learning experiences can help students to clarify and assign meaning to what they’re thinking and feeling. Discussion, debate, and dialogue with others can provide opportunities to test new assumptions, try out new perspectives, and explore new beliefs. The range of topics, issues, and phenomena that might be the focus of life-changing learning is almost limitless. Of course, we must take into consideration the maturity and readiness of our students and the extent to which we're prepared to support the learning experiences we design. However, the opportunity to make a life-long impact on the learning of our students is a special privilege and shouldn't be ignored.

Climate and Culture, In Your Corner, Thinking Frames

Want to Improve Your Outlook and Sense of Well-Being? Diversify

February 22, 2023

Communication, In Your Corner, Thinking Frames

Five Superpowers We Can Employ Every Day

February 16, 2023

Communication, In Your Corner, Student Learning

A Dozen Ways to Motivate Lazy Students

February 16, 2023

Behavior, In Your Corner, Thinking Frames

Five Responses to Misbehavior We Must Avoid

February 10, 2023

Share Your Tips & Stories

Share your story and the tips you have for getting through this challenging time. It can remind a fellow school leader of something they forgot, or your example can make a difficult task much easier and allow them to get more done in less time. We may publish your comments.

Send Us An Email