Recess - The Ultimate Classroom

A recent article had me riled up, " Tuesday's Wake Up Call! Are your schools cutting back on recess?"

Sometimes the only place-based ed. kids get is at recess! Free play is so important to the mind and the morale of a child. Before I left the classroom to stay home with my family for a few years, I worked at a Title 1 school. It wasn't making AYP for a myriad of reasons. One of the knee jerk reactions was to cram more kids into the after school program, but not give them a recess in between regular school and their extended day. The behavior problems that factor alone created made the program so much LESS effective then it could have been, This is a huge problem in under privileged schools. We take away the things that are most enjoyable and then wonder why the drop out rate is so high!