That school system is trying to find an excuse to end recess anyway. A number of public schools down this way did away with it entirely by using the excuse that new standardized tests—including the Virginia Standards of Learning and the feds' No Child Left Behind—required spending every available classroom minute on teaching the material, even in the early primary grades. This excuse is dubious—I blame lazy teachers for simply not wanting to interrupt class for recess—but it has just enough validity to keep many parents from questioning it. However, some schools have reinstated recess after parental complaints. And teachers and administrators wonder why so many kids are "hyperactive" and "need" drugs such as Ritalin and Adderal. The kids can't burn off excess energy in school!
Years ago, when our family was involved with the Boy Scouts, the guideline for adult leaders at meetings was to spend only about the same number of minutes teaching or discussing a subject as the age of the child. The leader would then supposed to go to a physical activity, take a break, or move on to another subject. This guideline was meant to account for an average child's (at least boy's) attention span, taking age into some account. In other words, if you were teaching a group of 11-year-olds how to tie knots, you spent about 11 minutes on the topic and then changed pace somehow, perhaps by having the boys practice tying the knots. Schools violate this every day and now want to limit one of the few respites from constantly sitting at a desk. Young children simply aren't wired to sit down for several hours a day with little or no physical activity.
If you don't think schools would much rather have a bunch of passive, inactive kids, check out this excerpt from syndicated columnist John Rosemond at Rosemond.com:
"Q: My 5-year-old son started kindergarten this year. He is an active, inquisitive boy who has not taken a nap in three years. However, the school enforces a 45-minute naptime after lunch, during which the kids must either nap or lie quietly. His teacher complains almost daily that my son not only doesn’t sleep, but won’t be still and quiet. Is there a discipline method the teacher and I can use to stop this, or should I just suggest that she give him a book to look at during naptime?
"A: You can certainly suggest to the teacher that she accommodate your son’s special naptime needs (I’ve got my tongue in my cheek here) by giving him a book to look at while the other kids nap. If the school’s policies will permit it, she might consider putting him in an isolated area of the classroom or in the hall with a book or solitary activity with which to occupy his time.
"Quite frankly, I’m a bit amazed that a school requires naptime of 5- and 6-year-old children, most of whom, like your son, haven’t taken daily naps at home in at least two years. This is more than a tad unrealistic and speaks, furthermore, to some degree of rigidity on the part of the school’s administration. I see the potential of your son being identified as a problem at this early stage of his academic career. While this would probably say more about the school than your son, it’s nonetheless a reputation that may well follow him from grade to grade. For this reason, I think it’s important that the school work with you to solve this problem in a way that doesn’t involve punishment. If they will not, then I would suggest that you consider moving him to another school before he becomes labeled a troublemaker and you and he find yourselves on the diagnosis treadmill."
Mark my words: a school that cuts out unsupervised "chase" play during recess today will cut out recess entirely in the near future. And then the trouble will begin.
