The Link Between Recess and Academics

by Rae Pica

You may have heard the argument that recess takes time away from academics. Reality or myth? Let’s take a look.

Typically the early childhood and elementary curriculum consists of seven major content areas: art, language arts (comprised of listening, speaking, reading, and writing), mathematics, music, physical education, science, and social studies. Of course, art, music, and physical education are often considered expendable and are therefore either eliminated from the curriculum or given the minimum amount of time possible. That leaves what many parents and administrators consider the “essential” content areas: language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies – all of which can be experienced effectively at recess. We’ll explore them one at a time.

Naturally, when children speak and listen to one another, they’re using and expanding their vocabularies and learning important lessons in communication. When they move over, under, around, and through pieces of equipment, these prepositions take on meaning and relevance to them because children need to experience concepts in order to understand them fully. When children invent stories to act out, they develop skills essential to writing. These are some of the way sin which the language arts are addressed.

When children keep score, they’re dealing with important math concepts: counting, quantitative ideas (which number is bigger?; which score is highest?), and simple computation. When they decide on and act out a seri4s of events, they’re tackling the math concept of sequencing. When they play hopscotch and jump rope, math is involved.

Throughout it all, the children are working together, interacting in numerous and varied ways and thereby learning valuable lessons in social studies. As children learn about themselves and about each other, they discover how they’re alike and different. They explore feelings and rules for living, make decisions, and solve problems. Learned, too, is the ability to deal with conflict. In other words the children learn how to be and work together in a community.

Finally, much of the learning that takes place outside is related to science. Classroom themes typically falling into the science category include the human body and such nature-related topics as the seasons, weather, plants, and animals. Where better to experience these subjects than in the outdoors?

Consider, too, such scientific concepts as evaporation (learned when children “paint” the sidewalk or the side of the school with water), flotation (easily demonstrated with a bottle of bubbles and a wand), balance and stability (the lesson of the seesaw), gravity (why doesn’t the ball stay up in the air no matter how hard we throw it?), and action and reaction (obvious during a game of tug-of-war).

Sure, we can “teach” children these concepts through the use of lectures, books, and/or demonstrations. Or we can let children really learn them – in such a way that the lessons remain with them for a lifetime. Young children especially learn through experience, but the research shows that, for the majority of individuals, learning by doing is most effective. In fact the more senses involved in the learning process, the greater the percentage of retention. As Confucius said, “What I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I know.”

Of course we also have the issue of how recess contributes indirectly to the learning of academics. Even as far back as 885 and 1901, the research showed that both children and adults learn better and more quickly when their efforts are distributed (breaks are included) than when concentrated (work is conducted in longer periods). More recently, the novelty-arousal theory has suggested that people function better when they have a change of pace. And most recently, research by experts such as Anthony Pellegrini and David Bjorklund has shown similar results.

According to Pellegrini and Bjorklund, because young children don’t process most information as effectively as older children (due to the immaturity of their nervous systems and their lack of experience), they can especially benefit from breaks – from the practice of distributed, rather than concentrated, effort. They wonder, rightfully so, why school districts are ignoring all of this science when considering their recess policies.

Finally, parents don’t need science to tell them what they can see with their own eyes: that being without recess takes it toll on their children, who come home from school “exhausted, wound up, and angry,” in the words of one Nebraska mother. Surely we don’t need scientific data to know that that state of mind isn’t exactly conducive to learning.

Rae Pica is a children’s physical activity specialist and the author of 18 books for teachers and parents. Read more of what she has to say at her blog, The Pica Perspective, and hear her interviews with experts in the fields of  education, child development, the neurosciences, and more at www.bamradionetwork.com.