Recess could very well be the most important 30 minutes of students’ school day for learning — and it has become a contested period for the nation’s youngest students, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times.
Teachers use recess as a behavioral bargaining chip, administrators weigh playtime against sagging test scores and researchers argue over how best to structure the minutes.
The debate over recess prompted the American Academy of Pediatrics to update its policy statement. Play is not a reward, a privilege or wasted learning time. It is a developmental necessity.
“Having kids sit in their seats for six hours a day is not necessarily a recipe for success,” says Rebecca London, a sociologist at UC Santa Cruz. “They need a brain break. Everybody needs a brain break.”
“For us, we want to know are the kids thriving during recess? Are they engaged? Are they actually being physically active? Are they benefiting from the play environment?” says Celeste Soto, executive director of Playworks in Southern California, which helps schools and youth organizations plan out beneficial recess strategies.
On the cognitive side, pediatricians focus on what researchers call “wakeful rest.”
When students learn new information, the memory is fragile and the brain needs a pause from additional cognitive demands, according to the pediatric association. Recess can provide a low-demand break so new information can stabilize before the next lesson begins.
Physical activity during recess has a second benefit. Moderate exercise improves learning among students from elementary school through young adulthood, and the effects on attention, memory and executive function are well-documented, pediatricians say.
Still, recess remains at the discretion of individual teachers in many schools throughout the country.
“The students are definitely more focused when they’ve had that time to play — to put their energy out there,” says Katie Hickox, principal of Prisk Elementary in Long Beach, CA. “But they also engage in important relationships with each other.”
The legal ban in California against withholding recess as punishment has generated friction.
“Many teachers and other professionals in schools feel that in order to get kids to behave, you have to have a credible threat,” London says. “One of the easiest to implement: Kids care a lot about recess.”
In 2023, a Gallup Poll found that 77% of principals nationwide reported taking recess away as punishment. Even in school districts with strong policies protecting recess, 60% of schools still withheld it for poor behavior and 69% withheld it for incomplete academic work.
“There is no study out there that I have found that says this is an effective way of disciplining elementary school students,” London says. “Yet it’s a very common practice, because it’s accessible.”
How a school organizes recess matters.
At Prisk Elementary, students have four periods of play a day, varying between structured and unstructured play to prod early childhood development — how to take a turn, how to invite play, how to accept that invitation.
London asserts that early investment in recess quality could interrupt the disciplinary pipeline before it starts.
“Rather than pull students from the recess environment, which is not going to teach them how to be successful in life, we should be pushing in with more recesses,” she says.
Los Angeles Times
