October 25, 2006 4:39 PM
A father takes on the anti-recess establishment
Ken in North Port, Florida sent me a link to his site Where Did Recess Go? - which may be of interest to some of you:
As a normal everyday parent, I had no clue my child was not getting A behaviorally necessary, psychologically necessary and most of all medically necessary recess or long enough recess, throughout the school day at his new elementary school. After enrollment, my child's behavior all of a sudden began to deteriorate over a period of about 6 weeks. He would constantly "Hyper-Up", Run In Place and just "Scream Out' on occasion.We finally figured it out by asking him what he did all day. He stated "THERE IS NO TIME TO PLAY WITH MY NEW FRIENDS AND MOST OF THE TEACHERS KEEP YELLING AT ME TO LISTEN AND FOLLOW DIRECTIONS - OR I WILL GET IN TROUBLE".
This goes on ALL DAY LONG, EVERY DAY.
I started to receive notes home from the after-school teacher as well as his academic teacher, stating that my child was loud and jittery in line to go out to the playground for 15 minutes, and this was considered misbehavior. As a result he became very angry and uncontrollable and he ended up losing some if not all of his 15 minutes of recess, as a "Time-Out".
After speaking with my son, I found out that they only get recess once per day, and it normally comes at the end of the day for 15 minutes or less, or many times no recess at all.
Note: It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out what is going on here!
I have written before that the feminist view that girls are normal human beings and boys as aberrant from the norm has led to the decline of public schools meeting boys' needs. Elementary school teachers often don't understand the unique needs of boys - and frankly, neither do many moms. This leads to over-the-top diagnoses of behavioral and adjustment disorders and is the reason why boys many times outnumber girls on medications at school.
Ken's right - it shouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that boys need time to run and play. Well, everyone does really, but boys REALLY need it. Pray for misunderstood and misdiagnosed boys everywhere. And pray for teachers and mothers who don't appreciate the essence of boys in their care and think bringing them up is about squashing it all out of them
See The Truth About Boys and Girls Part 1 and Part 2.
Posted in Boys, Current Affairs | Permalink
Comments
Teachers are at the mercy of their superintendent, school board, and principals.
I cannot name a single colleague from my six plus years of teaching public elementary school who agreed with the added stresses, time demands, and structure being forced upon our day, but more importantly *their* day, teaching children as young as five and six. What few people outside the system fail to realize is that the teacher does not make many of the decisions - such as how much time is spent outside, or even how the time outside is spent. Those decisions are, truly, made at a much higher level based upon guidelines which come down from as high as the state level.
I agree there are some teachers mishandling such behavior. But please understand how limited many teachers are in how they are permitted to handle some of these issues, too. By the time I "retired" from my teaching position, my entire day's schedule was being handed to me from the top. We had no flexibility to meet the unique needs of our classes as a group or the individuals therein.
Most teachers are simply doing the very best they can within the constraints of the system. I have met very, very few who do not truly have the best interest of the child at heart.
Not that I agree with the system, by the way. We're homeschooling our children.
In Christ alone,
Kari
Posted by: Kari | October 25, 2006 7:47 PM
Barbara, Thank you for the reminder about the difference between boys and girls. I grew up in a family of 4 girls. My relaxing time was reading or writing or drawing. I'm sure I played outside - but I just don't remember that as much as the quieter, more peaceful moments. I now have a 2-year old son who is constantly on the move. His favorite thing to do is play outside and just run around - and he wants me to run with him. Yikes! I have learned to schedule my errands around visits to a variety of parks. He will now tell me that he'd like to go to the Yellow park, rather than the Red park - one is more of a climbing park and the other is more of a sliding park.
I've been out of the blog world for such a long time - and am back. I had to come check your blog first because I knew there would be current, relevant, interesting, and poignant things to think about. You are always right on the mark!
Much love,
Liesl
Posted by: Liesl | October 26, 2006 1:29 AM
I am blessed that our school system actually has a district policy prohibiting teachers from withdrawing recess as a form of punishment. It has to do with healthy kid initiative and also they have a requirement that students spend 90 minutes a week in physical activity - and since they only have a 45 minute weekly gym class, they HAVE to have recess to fulfill it. I also had recess written in to my oldest son's IEP specifically.
However, the school still controls everything, all the time, which I HATE. My 1st grader has no freedom - he's told when to stand in line, the teacher sits with them at lunch with assigned places, they eat, go back to classroom, and then later have their 'recess'. No outside time during lunch. My Kindergartner has lunch at the same time, but they can't talk to each other even though they sit at adjacent tables. They have assigned seats on the school bus too.
Luckily, his teacher lets them stand up to work/write, and gives them time and space for movement.
Posted by: Lisa S. | October 26, 2006 8:58 AM
As the mom of a very active 5 1/2 yo boy, this subject is near and dear to me. Fortunately recess is still going strong at my children's elementary school.
Back in April, Lori Bergman of the Jewish World Review wrote an interesting piece on the needs of boys back in April, entitled "Rediscovering Thumos."
In particular:
The fact that our boys and young men are shrinking in numbers on achievement scales has been so thoroughly documented as to be (yawn) ho-hum. One key to unlocking this trend may be found in understanding and accommodating thumos.
The raw energy of thumos in a young child needs a basic that has been been steadily disappearing in recent years. That basic is recess. Thumos demands movement, fresh air and wind in the face. Thumos needs space, unstructured play, forays into the wonders and hazards of nature, hands-on science, and appropriate times and places to simply be loud.
The full text can be found at:
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0406/borgman042106.php3
Posted by: KatieButler | October 26, 2006 2:30 PM
Oh my. My boys would *never* manage in "real" school, if they had no outlet for their energy. Just last night my oldest son (3.5 years old) spent 40 whole minutes running from the living room to the dining room, jumping over a book in between. The one and only time he was in a "class", he had no interest in sitting the whole hour marking up papers. He wanted to follow the teacher around, look at all the colorful art supplies, and dance when she put on music. The teacher was less than pleased. :(
Boy #2 seems to be following in his older brother's footsteps.
Thank God boys can learn without sitting quietly at a desk for 6 or 8 hours a day! And thank God my husband and I have learned that before we subjected our kids to such restrictions!
Posted by: Margaret | October 27, 2006 11:48 AM
I feel very fortunate that my boys' school has both recess and PE daily. If the weather's bad they will usually still go to the gym for recess. I know that my middle son, 7, wouldn't be able to handle a school day w/o physical activity. Since becoming mom to 3 boys it's been an eye opening journey....I had never really given thought to the dramatic differences between boys and girls. It makes me sad that boys get a "bad rap" just because they are the way they are.
Posted by: Lari | October 27, 2006 9:05 PM
