Want to Improve Schools? Get Rid of Recess!

Stay in the building all day and don't talk while you eat? Sounds like a quality reeducation center... I mean school.

Both parents work all day and the state raises the kid. Sounds like FREEDOM!

I have always thought recess was essential to having a good day at school, when they got rid of it in 6th grade I remember all of us hated it, and my grades didnt change, I just didnt like school as much since we had no time to interact with fellow students without being told to stfu.

Same goes for highschool, they gave us 7 MINUTES between classes to run down the halls, get to our lockers, and get in class. NO social time at all, and the classes went on and on full of repeating useless #. Their priorities are messed up. Some people would take a free period and go to "study hall" where they could get work done or socialize, until my last year of highschool when they made it a silent study hall. So much bull# in school, when will they realize that socializing is far more important than telling the kids to stfu. Taking 10 minutes out of each class to give kids a break is more than doable.

Keep recess and get rid of the Marxist indoctrination that turns your kid into a dead soul obedient slave.

Originally posted by Kang69
Keep recess and get rid of the Marxist indoctrination that turns your kid into a dead soul obedient slave.

Actually Marxists would be for recess, they are against school being used as a tool for indoctrination. Marxists believe that one of the problems with the school system is it teaches kids to be obedient little slaves who will follow orders from their boss or government.

Marxists advocate freedom of expression and play, and eliminating most rules - rather teach them to take responsibility for their actions and think for themselves. Teach them skills which will guide them through life - such as critical thinking skills which they can use to solve a variety of future problems they will encounter or help them to understand the world around them.

Marxists are opposed teaching them to simply follow orders or regurgitate information on a test. Marxists are opposed to school and universities being used as factories to create the next generation of wage slaves. Rather than pumping out workers who will fit like a cog into the capitalist machine, and follow the chain of command from bosses, bureaucracy and government - we need kids who will actually think for themselves, express themselves, and fight for true freedom!

I'm a true Marxist, and this is what I think.

Get together with a bunch of other teachers that agree with you and approach the principal like that.

What no recess?! Whats the point of going to school.. (jk)

reply to post by smyleegrl


Hmm I will give you a bit of advice after seeing my father go through so much crap when he was a teacher. Just go with it. He used to get upset about the adminstration making all sorts of retarded changes that were detrimental to the children.

He got black balled from one district for sticking up for what was right, got into another district then found another profession which requires him to teach but in a different sort of environment.

Just do what you can and don't get bent out of shape. It is not the first or last time people who have no idea how to do your job will make stupid changes based on something totally unrelated to your job.

If I flipped out every time they made some stupid change at my job I would have already blown a gasket.

take a deep breathe and realize that your problems are not that bad. its good to have first world problems, put it into perspective.

Go to the press. The local news where I am has been running stories like this and calling out schools.

I thought your title was serious & I came here to freak out. I totally agree with you.

Can you add in some unstructured play time to your day? How old are your kids? In our school the early grades all have "play centers" with free time throughout the day, in addition to recess.

Little kids just can't sit still that long. Not without being zombified with medication.

Oh, wait...

Wow, wth are they thinking?? I remember way back when (old man voice) the only time we were held in for recess is when a child misbehaved. Needless to say that was not a rampant problem usually. Kid's need time to socialize and play.....I honestly think I would be a psycho nutjob if I did not have time to make forts out of snow banks, or play Four Square or Walball (games that utilize a kickball) and who does not have fond memories of jungle gyms? Children are not robots, people are not robots! I don't understand where the logic comes from these days?? I applaud you though, admire you, most teachers would just go with the flow, but you are standing up for your children and for what you personally believe. If only the world had this much integrity, I daresay it may be a far much better off place these days.

Originally posted by Nina2010
Hmm I will give you a bit of advice after seeing my father go through so much crap when he was a teacher. Just go with it. He used to get upset about the adminstration making all sorts of retarded changes that were detrimental to the children.

take a deep breathe and realize that your problems are not that bad. its good to have first world problems, put it into perspective.

Good advice. At the end of the day, the principal is your boss.

If you refuse to carry out a lawful order from him, then that is grounds for him to instigate an investigation. If it proves you have not carried out his order, then that is grounds for your dismissal. Simple as that unfortunately.

I sometimes don't much like the orders I am obliged to carry out. I have to do them nonetheless.

Don't get me wrong. You may well be absolutely correct in your objection. However, it isn't your decision to make.

Perhaps the denying kids proper exercise in the form of PE and playtime / break time / recess is some sort of global thing.

Here in the UK, when I was at school in the 70's and 80's, our school hours were typically 0900-1530 / 1600, this entitled us to a morning break of about 20 minutes an hour lunchtime and an afternoon break of about 20 minutes, also we did lots of PE, a few hours a few times a week.

My son is at primary school and the kids are allowed a morning break and an hours lunchtime, no afternoon break, the school hours vary from 0830-1500 to 0900-1530. They have to have an hours PE a week but schools have been soft optioning this and giving things like Indian dancing classes and light exercise instead of proper muscle building aerobic exercise. Some of the allocated exercise time is done as a sort of 'rotation' where they do half of the time learning a few French words or light exercise or computing so the actual time exercising is halved.

As well as the fact school dinners invariably consist of a main course and pudding (sometimes a tinned fruit option), it is no wonder there is childhood obesity. In the UK, kids don't play outside like they used to either, added to that the huge increase in solitary / sedentary lifestyles the media offers to kids via Playstations, Xboxes, video games, Wii, Facebook, texting, mobile phones etc and the addition of sugar to most of the advertised kids foods, it would appear as some sort of conspiracy.

The PM wanted school PE time increased to 2 hours but didn't push for it due to the soft options.

www.guardian.co.uk...

You sound like you care a great deal about your job and the way it is meant to encourage children into becoming progressively better people, you are also incredibly aware of the way in which authority and lack of a fair and reasoned hand can affect the progress and process of children becoming balanced and well mannered individuals.

I can see as a result of removing the opportunity for children to be "Children" and not "Pupils", outbreaks of bad behaviour from children that were once thought of as being very well behaved, it is a necessity of the school day for kids to release energy with their friends, deny them the opportunity to do that, especially after being allowed to do it for so long, they will attempt to do it anyway.
You can't remove a "Right" to be children away from them when they have had it for so long and not expect to see lapses in concentration and at times an unwillingness to follow the regimes rules.
The kids won't even know why they are doing it.

Originally posted by Nina2010
reply to post by smyleegrl

 

Hmm I will give you a bit of advice after seeing my father go through so much crap when he was a teacher. Just go with it. He used to get upset about the adminstration making all sorts of retarded changes that were detrimental to the children.

He got black balled from one district for sticking up for what was right, got into another district then found another profession which requires him to teach but in a different sort of environment.

Just do what you can and don't get bent out of shape. It is not the first or last time people who have no idea how to do your job will make stupid changes based on something totally unrelated to your job.

If I flipped out every time they made some stupid change at my job I would have already blown a gasket.

take a deep breathe and realize that your problems are not that bad. its good to have first world problems, put it into perspective.

I'm sorry, I know you mean well. And I've done this with countless other stupid mandates.

But this effects the kids, and negatively.

It's my job, as teacher, to do what's in the best interest of my children. And 6 year old kids need as much physical movement and unstructured play as possible.

My student's will have gym at 8:00 in the morning....first thing. So no break for the rest of the day.

On days when it rains and we can't go outside, I lose them in the afternoon. They can't focus, they're extremely fidgety, and comprehension decreases.

Taking away recess will compound this problem.

Originally posted by Lorienth
Go to the press. The local news where I am has been running stories like this and calling out schools.

I'm going to let some of our more vocal parents know. They'll probably call for blood. Maybe they can cause enough pressure to make a difference, if I can't.

reply to post by smyleegrl


Smartest move you can make. They won't listen to the teachers, but they WILL listen when parents come in, especially if it's parents that are usually supportive or a large group of them at the same time. The more vocal the parents are, the better. Steer away from the parents of the kids that need a lot of "attention" and go with the parents that are seen as supportive, "professional", hate to say it but "powerful" and it will change quickly.

The high schools in this area are horrible these days. The classes are over 60 minutes long, they are supposed to teach bell to bell, four minutes between classes and only a 25 minute luch

Then they wonder why their test scores won't come up

reply to post by seeker1963


More like fighting critical thought aggregation and conversation time

Originally posted by smyleegrl

My student's will have gym at 8:00 in the morning....first thing. So no break for the rest of the day.

On days when it rains and we can't go outside, I lose them in the afternoon. They can't focus, they're extremely fidgety, and comprehension decreases.

Taking away recess will compound this problem.

Boys will perhaps be particularly hard hit, as some of them tend to find it harder to sit quietly anyway.

Why has the principal brought in this change? Is there a lack of teachers to supervise breaks? Does it save money in some way?

Why has he brought in this change?

Originally posted by smyleegrl
It's my job, as teacher, to do what's in the best interest of my children.

It's not your job to set the times of classes or breaks. Don't get me wrong. What the principal is introducing does seem like a bad idea.

However, you are paid to teach the children, not to determine the times of classes or breaks. That's how a court will look at it.

reply to post by smyleegrl


Brilliant work there by your head! Is that following guidelines or did they come up with that doozy all by themselves?

I have to say, as an ex teacher, forget all the good it will do children! No, you need to be more sensible than that - on a purely selfish level, deep down, every single teacher i know loves recess as it gives you a chance to unwind yourself. Sod the little ankle biters!

You have to laugh though. This follows the lines of other "fantastic" ideas dreamed up by Educational bodies around the world.

If this happens at my sons school it will be the last straw and I will start home schooling. I want him to learn through social interaction, but getting rid of recess is crazy. I still don't agree with no nap time in Kindergarten, but if they take recess out I'm done with public schools.