Rescuing Recess, sponsored by the Cartoon Network, creates awareness for the importance of recess. Academic pressure and budget cuts have significantly cut down the amount of time that children across the nation get to play outside. Rescuing Recess provides kits that include games and playground equipment. As a teacher, I realize the importance of recess and how kids need time to let off steam and run around being a KID. The following is an interesting article retrieved from the Chicago Tribune.
Children at Oakdale Elementary School here in southeastern Connecticut returned this autumn to learn their traditional recess had gone the way of the peanut butter sandwich and the Gumby lunch box.No longer could they let off their youthful energy by cavorting outside for 22 minutes of unstructured play, or perhaps with a vigorous game of tag or dodgeball. Such games had been virtually banned by Principal Mark Johnson along with kickball, soccer and other “body-banging” activities, as he put it, where knees — and feelings — might get bruised.Instead, children are encouraged to jump rope, play with Hula-Hoops or gently toss a Frisbee. Balls are practically controlled substances, parceled out under close supervision by playground monitors.
The traditional recess, a rite of grade school, is endangered not only in the Oakdale School. From Cheyenne, Wyo., to Wyckoff, N.J., recess — long seen as a way for children to develop social competence, recharge after long lessons and resist obesity — is being rethought.
In the face of this, a national campaign called Rescuing Recess, sponsored by the National Parent Teacher Association, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Education Association and even the Cartoon Network, has taken hold at many schools where parents and children fear that recess will go the way of the one-room schoolhouse.
At Oakdale, Johnson finally relaxed some prohibitions after a parade of parents complained. Now, twice a week when a parent or grandparent volunteer is present, 4th and 5th graders are allowed to play a modified version of kickball as long as the score is not kept. Many parents are still not satisfied, however, saying that such coddling fails to prepare children for adulthood.
“Life is competitive,” said Shari Clewell, mother of a 5th grader. “Kids compete for attention. They compete for grades. You compete for a job. You compete from the time you’re little all the way to the end.”
But the principal is resolute. “I’m honestly one of the most competitive guys in the world, having coached sports for a long time,” said Johnson. “But I honestly don’t believe this is the place for that.”
Acknowledging that the changes caused “quite an uproar,” he defended his policy as a way to build skills and camaraderie rather than competition and conflict.”
Our school has recess, although much shorter than what we had growing up and only once a day. My biggest concern is that children are kept from recess on a daily basis as punishment. Usually it is because they haven’t completed all of their work during class time or something having to do with school work. There have been so many studies showing the children need that time to run and can actually concentrate better after having some free time to run around. They have to walk in the halls like soldiers, they are limited in socializing at lunch and they have twice as much work as we do when we went to school. I wonder why we have so many children suffering from depression and anxiety!!!