To Recess or not to recess, that is the question...

Today I thought I'd catch up on my spiritual Three Minutes a Day reading. Sometimes I don't have time to read it or I forget, so I fall a few days behind. Well, the one I was supposed to read on March 26th discussed the importance of Children spending time outdoors. It addresses the fact that when Children play outside it helps develop their large motor skills, their social skills and improves their imagination. I completely agree! Although my children dearly love video games, I try to make sure they play outside as well. For those of you who know me and my children, I have 2 very active kids (well, all my kids are active, but 2 are particularly very "busy") One is an ADHD child and the other is just very hyper and she always has to be moving. It's amazing she lays still long enough to sleep! Anyway, in reading this particular passage it got me thinking about the early days in school of my Eldest child. We, of course, enrolled him in the public school we were zoned for when he was of Kindergarten age. By the time he got to 1st grade we found out that the school only had ONE fifteen minute break outside for recess and this was right after the kids ate lunch. That was it! ONE! I was horror stricken! They of course tried to appease me by saying they took potty breaks 2 other times during the day, but seriously! That's not running playing and screaming time! Get Real! During this time, since he was our first child and this was our first time dealing with the public school system, we were also trying to diagnose him as ADHD. We had a lot to learn. By Second grade we sat down with the teacher and told her that she'd better give him some breaks or she'd be pretty miserable! So, it took US to suggest that during the potty breaks, instead of taking them to the bathroom INDOORS, take them to the OUTDOOR potty and if they didn't want to go potty, let them run around on the playground for 10 minutes. Can you believe she was actually SURPRISED at how much better her class behaved when she did this twice a day? Go figure!!! Well, after further research, we come to find out that most of the schools in the Clark County School district DONT let the children have any other recesses during the day; just the one at lunch time! I was appalled! I grew up in this school district and always had a 10 minute morning recess, a half hour lunch break and a 10 minute afternoon recess. This was in Boulder City though. (the other issue with this school was that they acted like they didn't know what an IEP or a 504 plan for special ed children were. That's another topic though.) So, needless to say, we yanked him out of that school and tried parochial school because we knew they had recess time.

So, what's my point to all of this? Well, I'd like to know why schools think it's ok to work the children all day  with only one lunch break and enough time to pee and get back to class for the rest of the day, when even the Work Force says you, as an adult, have to take TWO 10-15 minute breaks and at least a half hour of lunch when you work an 8 hour day. Why do the Adults get recess and the kids don't? Wanna know one of the reasons I was given? Because we are trying to keep up with the education of Japan and the Japanese kids don't get breaks so neither do we! Yeah, except Clark County is voted one of the 10 worst School Districts in the country!  And they think not giving the kids recess is going to help that? How about paying teachers more money and reducing classroom sizes?! According to this website Nevada is #2 for the worst school district in America!
http://www.walletpop.com/photos/best-and-worst-public-school-systems-in-us/ and here's what it says:

2nd Worst: Nevada

Total Score: 68.8 (out of 100)

Overall State Grade: D+
Chance of Student Success: D+
School Finance: D
K-12 Achievement: D-

I also have this comment: If everyone wants their children to be successful adults, I agree that education is important, but so is being a kid when you ARE a kid! After all they are only a kid one time in their lives, so I think they should enjoy it and play and take breaks from their school work, don't you? I mean, really, if you didn't get any breaks in your 9 to 5 job would you be performing at your peak everyday? Or would you go mad because you couldn't get up and stretch your legs, relax your brain, and have a bite to eat or a drink of water? I plead my case!!!