Strollerderby : recess

Drop and Give Me 3 times 12!

Shannon LC Cate — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:30:00 GMT

Schools across the United States have begun trying a unique method for keeping kids focused on school work and increasing their fitness all at once. Ten-minute movement activities are being incorporated into academic exercises, like jumping rope while shouting out multiplication tables, or marching around a classroom to the rhythm of a poem.

Teachers in the schools trying these new methods say that not only do the exercises help wake kids up in the sluggish post-lunch afternoons, but they boost the attention of kids who struggle with just that. Movement seems to help kids stay on task, who ordinarily have trouble doing so.

While my own common sense detector tells me that this just seems right, doctors like John Ratey, a psychiatrist at Harvard University, can give us details like these:

"[With exercise] you're seeing an increase in neurotransmitters … dopamine and serotonin, norepinephrine. These are hormones related to mood regulation, to attention. And, in general, help the brain be in a better state of equilibrium."

Teachers, meanwhile, say most kids enjoy the movement-oriented lessons, though a few resist. These days, when recess is being cut in schools left and right, slipping a little activity into dull memorization lessons like multiplication tables seems like a fair way to adjust the sit/move balance a bit.

image: npr.org

They Say: Recess Improves Classroom Behavior

Shannon LC Cate — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 22:30:00 GMT

Here's another one from the "duh" files: Kids Need Recess.

Why don't they pay me whatever these studies cost so I could just tell them: "No, having a baby is not a good move when your marriage is on the rocks." "Yes, small children should be allowed to run around every so often if you expect them to do a lot of sitting still throughout the day."

But researchers have made it more official than I could have done by finding that in 11,000 third graders studied, those who had more than fifteen minutes of recess in the school day scored better on behavioral charts kept by teachers.

Here's the kicker that maybe makes the official study worth its cost, though. The approximately 30% of children who had fifteen minutes per day of recess of less were "more likely to be black, to come from low-income and less educated families and to live in large cities" and, I'd venture to guess, they will also be the ones more often getting diagnosed with ADHD or pegged as behavior problems.

The study is being used to support the notion that new schools need to be built with sufficient outdoor space to accommodate children's recess needs. Apparently, often new schools are built without any thought being given to the need for free, outdoor play. It looks like parents now have another item to add to the list of factors to consider in choosing schools for their kids. It isn't "how are the test scores?" but, "where are the monkey bars?"

Study Finds Girls "Prefer Chatting" to Being Physically Active

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:00:00 GMT

New research has found that women of all ages are less active than men. Observing schoolchildren at play, researchers have concluded that girls would rather socialize than play sports.

While I don't doubt the study’s findings that men are more physically active than women, I have some reservations about the explanation that girls simply like to sit around chatting, while boys like to run around and get dirty.

Until I graduated high school, I considered myself the least athletic person I knew. It was a big joke among my friends that any activity requiring physical exertion was off bounds for me. But once I realized that being active did not have to mean doing Indian sprints at Varsity field hockey practice, I became very athletic. I now bike everywhere, do yoga, dance, hike, surf, and run.

I certainly didn’t shun sports because I “prefer to chat.” But a casual observer could easily have drawn this conclusion from watching me on the sidelines during gym class, laughing with a girlfriend instead of trying to get in on the athletic action. The truth is, I was too intimidated to participate in traditional team sports, since I seem to have inherited a gene which makes me physically incapable of throwing and catching a ball. Even the sports that I did enjoy—gymnastics and track—were unappealing to me because I had no interest in competing. I just wanted to move around and have fun.

Perhaps it’s not girls’ natural inclinations that make them less active than their male counterparts, but rather the way sports are taught in school.

Photo: The Telegraph

Recess One Step Closer to NJ Lawbooks

JeanneSager — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 19:02:00 GMT

Remember when your parents’ friends peppered you with questions about school and you’d just had enough? When they asked what your favorite subject was, you finally shot them the smart-aleck answer, “recess.” Turn to 2008, and the No Child Left Untested Behind Act has slowly gotten its hooks into every kid’s favorite time of the school day. Recess is disappearing, but a set of New Jersey parents are fighting back.

Residents of Howell, N.J., have convinced the state’s assembly to put together a task force that will study whether a law is in order to protect a twenty-minute recess period in the school day. Their research shows only eight states have a mandate that kids get a free period at some point during the day; although New Jersey’s education department says it’s more common for schools to have recess than not - even without the mandate.

In light of Sunny’s post earlier this week about educators worried that the loss of playtime for kids is stealing their imaginations (and with it their ability to create and be innovative), shouldn’t states be more willing to make recess mandatory? ’ve heard arguments from teachers that there just isn’t enough time in the day for teaching, and they’d know better than I. But there is a point where kids brains become saturated, and they need a little time to relax. Lunchtime, with the regimented march to the cafeteria, the line-up to pay for hot lunch and the monitor watching their every bite and chew, doesn’t give a kid time to shake their sillies out. Some kids come back from recess rambunctious, but I’d bet it’s nothing compared to the sheer energy level zipping around their little bodies BEFORE the recess bell rings.

And what of the playground politics? The rites of passage? Even the bullying and cliques that - as parents - we’d like to see disappear are learning tools for our kids on their path to adulthood. I applaud the parents of Howell and the Trenton legislators for agreeing to take a look-see at protecting Red Rover, Red Rover and hopscotch.

Maybe they can all get together to celebrate with a game of kickball.

Image: Amazon

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Update: School Reinstates Tag After "Reorientation"

Kelly Mills — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 16:32:00 GMT

The Virginia elementary school that banned tag may again allow kids to be "it". A few weeks ago, principal Robyn Hooker outlawed the game, saying it had gotten out of hand, with students being tackled and piled on and dragged into games unwillingly. Some outcry among parents ensued, and so school administrators instituted a week of "reorientation lessons on playground safety" (sounds so ominous, like "reprogramming") in P.E. classes, and should be allowing the game to begin again today.

Now clearly we are a blog divided on this issue, and I have the feeling Jen will not condone my practice of tackling each Strollerderby writer at the annual holiday party and administering either a noogie or a wet willy. But I am the crotchety libertarian again, it seems, and I couldn't get behind the ban. I mean, it doesn't seem like tag is an inherently violent game, and I imagine you could outlaw tackling and dogpiles instead. But I think the real problems rest in our understaffed schools, with minimal supervision at recess, and in our inability to work on constructive solutions with kids that don't involve making big, sweeping rules. And this is coming from someone who, as a kid, would so have been at the bottom of that dogpile.

When Playground Equipment Attacks

Jen Chaney — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 18:28:00 GMT

The see-saw can be a little daunting, what with its seeming capacity to catapault small children into the air. And to a 3-year-old, the slide probably looks like a first-class ticket to Dangertown.

But both of those playground standards have nothing on a freaky looking doctor sculpture wielding a syringe, or the bizarre, puncture-tastic piece of equipment pictured here. It's a wonder any of the kids on that thing still have both of their eyeballs.

These are just two examples of the outdoor-toys-gone-bad in this post on Nightmare Playgrounds, courtesy of the blog Dark Roasted Blend, which came to my attention via the always smart Very Short List.

As you scroll through the images, they get progressively worse. My personal favorites: Two separate rides that offer the always joyful opportunity to travel through an elephant's digestive system. Have fun, kids!

Photo: Dark Roasted Blend

Tag: No Longer 'It'

Jen Chaney — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:02:00 GMT

When I first saw this story about a McLean, Va. elementary school that has banned tag at recess, I thought it was absurd. First schools started outlawing dodgeball. Now we're putting a stop to tag. What's next, a moratorium on four-square? A cease-and-desist order for hopscotch?

But then I read farther into the article, and I realized I was wrong. It turns out the principal at Kent Gardens Elementary School was right to halt, at least temporarily, the playing of tag. And here's why.

The kids at this school are not simply tapping their opponents to make them "it." They are knocking down kids who aren't even playing and often piling on top of each other, an approach to the game the principal characterizes as "the nouveau tag." In other words, students are getting hurt. And the bottom line is that if kids are getting injured on a regular basis, whether it's physically or emotionally, it's the principal's responsibility to take control of the situation. We should not, as one of the parents quoted in the article does, spend our time asking why "we are regulating the fun out of normal childhood activity," although I understand why someone would have that reaction. If indeed these children can't play nicely, we should be asking why they insist on behaving so aggressively, then correct the behavior so that a normal childhood activity like tag can be a normal, no-big-deal activity again.

Every time a violent act is perpetrated on America's young people by another young person -- whether it's a Columbine or a mass shooting like the one that took place a year ago today at Virginia Tech -- the shooter is almost invariably characterized as someone who felt bullied or harassed by his or her peers and built up more rage than he or she knew how to handle. Now, I am not saying that anyone who gets knocked down during a game of tag is going to grow up to become a murderer. But before we all find ourselves scratching our heads over yet another national tragedy, I think we need to look at the seemingly small things -- the kids being knocked down over and over again at recess, or the cheerleader getting beaten up on YouTube -- and do what we can to prevent those incidents from piling up and leading to something bigger.

All that said, I must object to something else noted in the article: The office of risk management in Fairfax County, where Kent Gardens Elementary is located, keeps a list of activities prohibited at school. In addition to dodge ball and tug-of-war, another no-no: Break dancing. Now that's just not right. If China winds up raising a generation of kids who can do the worm better than American young'uns, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Photo: Myspacehun.com

Recess Should Be Work, Not Play

Karen Murphy — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 17:11:00 GMT

Remember recess? At my school, recess was survival of the fittest. Or get out of their way. I avoided the ever-present game of dodgeball, and avoided getting kicked in the head by someone on the monkey bars, the people with perpetual blisters on their hands. Instead, with my other geeky friends I caught ladybugs or picked blades of grass or peeled twigs. Boy, recess was so much fun!

But now, some nosy adults want to step in and manage recess. No longer a semi-violent, Lord-of-the-Flies free-for-all, recess now is going to be a "golden opportunity to boost children's fitness"!

Pul-eeze.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has put together a report saying that a prime opportunity to make students' school days more active is being missed when schools don't take full advantage of recess time. A new program called Sports4Kids was developed where adults teach games to kids and everybody plays.

Hmm, that sounds just like P.E.!

So while kids in the experimental program at several low-income-area schools reported feeling safer on the playground and enjoying being active and were more productive in the classroom, all admittedly positive results, I find it troubling that this takes away a time of freedom for the kids where they can unwind a bit and express their joys and frustrations. Being a part of a forced group activity makes me think of communist China, for some reason.

However, faced with an alternative of no recess at all, I do find this appealing, but I'd much prefer that kids had freedom to craft their recess time any way they wanted.