The Virtue of Recess – Unstructured Play, Cognition & Child Development

Recess is a historical staple of elementary education in America and it is still not uncommon to see children granted small amounts of time for “free play” or educational games in the primary grades. Unfortunately, this practice is under fire in recent years. Some critics of public education or politicians would prefer to see that time devoted to increased amounts of formal, skill-drill exercises; but aside from the fact that test-prep activities quickly hit the point of  diminishing returns in terms raising a school district’s aggregate mean test scores ( a little is good, a lot is not) the so-called ” wasted free time”, is actually neurologically vital for the optimum cognitive development of children’s brains. It’s good for us older folks too but that’s a topic for another day.

A report from the excellent Eide Neurolearning Blog:

Remembering to Play

“Several recent articles remind us of the importance of play. From NPR, Old-fashioned play builds serious skills, and NYT, Taking Play Seriously.Also from the American Academy of Pediatrics (The Importance of Play for Health Child Development pdf : “Play allows children to use their creativity while developing their imagination, dexterity, and physical, cognitive, and emotional strength. Play is important to health brain development…Undirected play allows children to learn how to work in groups, to share, to negotiate, to resolve conflicts, an to learn self-advocacy skills.” An increased in hurried lifestyles and school-based academic performance may leave a child with little unstructured time. In one survey by the National Association of Elementary School Principals, 30% of kindergarten classes no longer had recess periods

….An additional point made in the NYT article, was the importance of play for the development of the cerebellum. For kids with sensory processing disorders, this is a big one. Sometimes the earliest indication that something isn’t “quite right” is when a child avoids the normal rough-and-tumble play on the playground. That’s why without intervention, a child may accumulate even fewer play experiences and fall even farther behind their classmates with time.”

Read the rest and find additional brain-learning resources here.

While older students do not have “recess”, time for creative, exploratory and imaginative learning activities should be a regular aspect of core academic classses! !!

 The chance to “play” with concepts, solve puzzling scenarios, smash ideas up in a synthesis, articulate new or unorthodox solutions to old problems is a teaching strategy for students to arrive at a deeper understanding of the subject at hand. It trains them to create and evaluate analogies, test the logical soundness of each other’s ideas, debate and experiment. Less structured but goal-directed time is a valuable investment as independent thinking cannot be cultivated in a classroom where every moment is direct instruction and rigidly scripted. At some point, the training wheels have to come off if we are to discover which students can ride on their own and which ones need additional guided practice.

Furthermore, in relation to “play”, music, the arts, sports and drama play a critical role in brain growth and do not represent “frills” but a central modality for integration of concepts, application of learning and generation of insight. As subjects, they are the brain’s “Right” side exercises to the ” Left” side’s analytical-logical reasoning provided by mathematics instruction and science classes.

As a society, we have gone berserk on overscheduling children into formal activities, academic as well as extracurricular, to the point where some elementary age kids show signs of anxiety, burn-out and depession or have time with their families that is not devoted to some kind of structured, formal, event. I find that many students lack any real cognitive independence, normal childhood creativity or the ability to negotiate social interactions with peers without hands-on, adult, supervision. A kind of well-meaning, suburban, shelteredness that produces a vaguely “institutional” passivity in many children.

Our students need both structured learning as well as some degree of “space” or “freedom” in order to maximize their intellectual and emotional growth, not either-or.

ADDITIONAL LINKS on RECESS:

“Time out: Is recess in danger?” - Center for Public Education

“The Importance of Play… ” – American Association of Pediatrics

“Taking Play Seriously” -  The New York Times

“Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills” – NPR

“Recess Makes Better Students” - The Washington Post

Thinking and Education: Two Slideshows

File these under “food for thought” as to how teachers, parents and communities should consider education for the 21st century. I liked both of them though the first really holds interest primarily for administrators and classroom instructors and the second show is broadly cultural beyond the sphere of public education.

# 1 D.M. Hallowell ” Cognitive Approaches to Learning”  

Note: This presentation is displayed on an application known as “Scribd” which may require that your computer has an up to date version of Shockwave installed.

Cognitive Approaches to Learning – Upload a doc

Read this doc on Scribd: Cognitive Approaches to Learning

 

# 2 – David Armano’s ” The Fuzzy Tail”  

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“What Are The Goals of K-12 Education?”

Vonny - a great science blog run by a particle physicist, school board member, high school teacher and education reform consultant – asks a question that teachers, parents, administrators and our elected officials should all be considering:

“What are the goals of a K-12 education? “

….I think the main point being made is that educators are not asking the right questions today about what we are doing and teaching in K-12 school systems. This is in large part because of NCLB and the mandates we are forced to follow and the goals that are set for schools (again, those goals are to get kids to score well on the exams). But the title of the book asks one of the questions we should be asking. Another question is: What are the goals of a K-12 education, as well as what should be the goals of a K-12 education? Is the point of mandatory schooling to promote and effect the continuation of a democracy? Is it to prepare students for college? For the workplace? Is it to build independent learners and thinkers? Is it to develop good problem solvers? Is it to develop students who can recall a series of facts about a given topic? Or should we develop good, decent, multicultural individuals who can fit into our melting pot society? Are the goals some combination of all of the above, and if so, what gets the most emphasis? In the end, who decides what the goals are and how a school goes about working with kids to meet those goals? Should it be federally mandated, as in NCLB, or purely local? Should the education one gets in urban districts the same as one should get in rural, southern farming districts?

….Here is something to leave with. Should a “good education” focus on the specific content of specific areas of study, or should content be used as a means of getting students to develop what Deborah Meier calls the five “habits of mind?” These are 1) the value of raising questions about evidence (how do we know what we know?), 2) recognizing the point of view (whose perspective does this represent?), 3) how is material connected to other material (how is this related to that?), 4) supposition (how might things have been otherwise?), and what I always try to emphasize, 5) relevance (why is this important to my life?).

In the end, how much specific content does a typical student remember, since most is never used in their life? How well do I remember how to diagram complicated sentences, or remember specific dates from events that occurred centuries ago? Does that mean my early education was a failure? Not at all, nor should we suddenly expect today’s students to remember everything that is brought up in class by name…it is the higher-level thinking and problem solving skills that make a difference in life. It is knowing where and how to find information. It is knowing the right questions to ask when you don’t know something. It is finding connections between theory and reality, and recognizing how to draw logical conclusions based on supporting evidence. It is about being able to use some limited information and building off of it, and perhaps making predictions that are sound in judgment. It is about finding good information from the growing, endless stream of nonsense that is on the Internet, by checking it with multiple sources. “

Setting overarching, systemic, objectives as the starting point for guiding change is strategic planning. By and large, our national and state level political leaders have failed at this task because to do so would require making clear educational choices – choices that would be guaranteed to offend significant sections of the electorate but would give the K-12 system greater curricular focus and consistency. Unfortunately, an effort to be all things to all people prevailed in Springfield

Illinois, like most states, opted to set a very, very, large number of specific and varied content benchmarks as “learning objectives” in each subject so that each interest group can feel satisfied that their concerns have been acknowledged by the legislature and State Board of Education.  Best educational practices, scope, sequence, methodology, curricular coherence and students with special needs were secondary or tertiary considerations on which the state has passed the buck on to school districts and classroom teachers, to shoehorn in as best they can around the NCLB prioritized testing process. The schools are shouldering the responsibility our elected officials have abdicated (financially as well as politically).

Some districts, like Center Cass 66, have managed this precarious balance well while still erring on doing what is in the best interests of our students. Not every district in Illinois has been nearly as fortunate

The Virtue of Recess:Play is Good for the Brain

Recess is a historical staple of elementary education in America and it is not uncommon to see children granted small amounts of time for “free play” or educational games in the primary grades. Some critics of public education or politicians would prefer to see that time devoted to increased amounts of formal, skill-drill exercises; but aside from the fact that test-prep activities quickly hit the point of diminishing returns in terms raising a school district’s aggregate mean test scores, the so-called ” wasted free time” is actually neurologically vital for the optimum cognitive development of children’s brains ( and it’s good for us older folks too!).

 A report from the excellent Eide Neurolearning Blog, run by a pair of medcal doctors and research neuroscientists:

Remembering to Play

“Several recent articles remind us of the importance of play. From NPR, Old-fashioned play builds serious skills, and NYT, Taking Play Seriously.Also from the American Academy of Pediatrics (The Importance of Play for Health Child Development pdf : “Play allows children to use their creativity while developing their imagination, dexterity, and physical, cognitive, and emotional strength. Play is important to health brain development…Undirected play allows children to learn how to work in groups, to share, to negotiate, to resolve conflicts, an to learn self-advocacy skills.” An increased in hurried lifestyles and school-based academic performance may leave a child with little unstructured time. In one survey by the National Association of Elementary School Principals, 30% of kindergarten classes no longer had recess periods

….An additional point made in the NYT article, was the importance of play for the development of the cerebellum. For kids with sensory processing disorders, this is a big one. Sometimes the earliest indication that something isn’t “quite right” is when a child avoids the normal rough-and-tumble play on the playground. That’s why without intervention, a child may accumulate even fewer play experiences and fall even farther behind their classmates with time.”

Read the rest and find additional brain-learning resources here.

While older students do not have “recess”, time for creative, exploratory and imaginative learning activities should be a regular aspect of core academic classses. Furthermore, music, the arts, sports and drama play a critical role in brain growth and do not represent “frills” but a central modality for integration of concepts, application of learning and generation of insight. As subjects, they are the brain’s ”Right” side exercises  to the ” Left” side’s analytical-logical reasoning provided by mathematics and science classes.

Our students need both, not either-or.

Sharpening the Saw – the Dreaded “Daily Board Question”

One of the practices that I frequently use in the classroom to start a lesson is the “Daily Board Question”, which each student must address individually (at times collaboratively) in their Social Studies notebook. 

Technically, the “DBQ”, which usually takes anywhere from two to ten minutes to do and discuss, isn’t every day nor is it a factual-recall question, but the activity serves a number of purposes:

• A mental prompt or ”anticipatory set”
• To foreshadow the conceptual theme of the day or week. 
• To introduce new material
• To review old material with a different analysis or perspective
• To practice making coherent, logical, arguments based upon evidence
• To challenge preconceived notions, assumptions, premises
• Orientation to the mindset of the classroom instead of the passing period
• Present a visual format (Diagram, Graphic Organizer, Taxonomy etc.)
• Novelty – to stimulate interest in what comes next
• Synthesis – to combine old concepts into new ones
• Imaginative, counterfactual, scenario thinking and analysis

For example, the daily board question for today in Social Studies was as follows:

Which terms from Column A best match terms from Column B and explain WHY:

Column A                                                                                Column B

Monopoly                                                                        Sphere of Influence

Oligopoly                                                                                 State

Corporation                                                                            Citizen

Sole Proprietorship                                                              Empire

This question was useful for two reasons: first, it served as a basic review of terms from the two sections of our unit; secondly, it led the students to connect the terms in the form of an analogy.

The more I read about scientific studies on the brain and neurolearning, the more clear it becomes that the public schools need to bring more “right -brained” thinking skills into the classroom next to the traditional analysis, application and comprehension activities. We need to integrate synthesis, metaphors, analogies, alinear exercises and visual models with traditional methods in order to maximize student learning.

CREATIVITY, CRITICAL THINKING and CONTENT

 I divide each Social Studies unit into content and conceptual mastery, analysis and creative interpretation because public education, has three core objectives:

1. To impart a body of knowledge and academic skills deemed valuable by society.

2. To teach the students to think analytically, critically and independently.

3. To render the students capable of discovering original insights and pursuing the discovery of new knowledge or invention.

The first goal  has been delved into depth by educational researchers and gurus like E.D. Hirsh of “Cultural Literacy” fame, Chester Finn, William Bennett, Diane Ravitch and others, and is reflected in such legislation as NCLB, which has put tremendous pressure on school districts to focus on test scores in a few basic subjects and expanding the amount of content in the curriculum by increasing the time spent on rote memorization exercises and skill-based drills. Breadth but not depth.

The second goal is reflected in what used to be termed ” liberal education” or “Great Books” programs or the upper tiers of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Schools do this less effectively across the nation but there is still a fair emphasis on eliciting critical thinking in public education, most of all in Honors and AP classes, gifted and talented classes  and special programs like and Paideia and International Baccalaureate. Colleges and universities, of course, are also intended to focus on liberal education but the degree to which this is true in practice has declined since the 1960’s.

The final objective, made possible by the teaching of creative thinking and synthesis to students, public education does not do well at all at present, here or in any industrialized nation, where measurable declines in the creativity and problem-solving abilities of k-12 students appear across the board. Some people even consider creative thinking to be inimical to mastering content or logical analysis; this is untrue. One cannot think creatively or engage in analysis without content knowledge and content is itself meaningless unless the student can effectively put it to use in the real world. Content knowledge, critical thinking and creativity are like the three legs of a stool – our students need them all.

Ken Robinson, noted educational expert, giving a lively talk on creativity and public education ( 20 minute video clip):

EDUCATING FOR THE FUTURE

Students today are already operating in an increasingly digitized, interdependent but highly competitive world. Parents, teachers, school boards and administrators, legislators and community leaders need to think in terms of the next forty years, not today or their own youthful experiences, when making educational decisions.

Check out an overview of the rate of change:

The old question adults once asked children when trying to guide them to think of the future was: ” What do you want to be when you grow up ?” A better one for today might be “When you grow up, what kind of options do you want to have ?”.