Guest Post: Recess First
Categories: Education | Nutrition | Family
Posted by
Paul Orfalea
at
8:57 PM
7
comments
by Laurel Anderson, Youth & Schools Manager, The Orfalea Foundations
Schools set a good example for students when they apply new knowledge in practical ways. We have learned, for example, that rescheduling recess just before lunch improves the eating habits and classroom behavior of children, providing a better environment for learning, and builds better habits for healthy kids.
Several Santa Barbara schools have acted on this information, including Washington Elementary, Franklin Elementary, Cesar Chavez Charter School, Adams Elementary, the Santa Barbara Community Academy, and early adopter McKinley Elementary, which started with this new schedule at the end of last year.
Most adults know that eating immediately before exercise is a bad idea, and fitness enthusiasts know that eating after a workout maximizes the nutritional value of food. How often do you eat a five-course meal just before running five miles, playing a pick-up game of basketball, or stepping into your dancercise class?
Here at the Orfalea Foundations, we promote Recess First as part of our s'Cool Food Initiative, which works to bring healthier food choices and nutrition education to local schools. Recess First is gaining traction around the country, but old habits are hard to break.
In an ideal school food environment, students would come in from recess, wash their hands, sit at round tables with their teachers, and spend 20 to 30 minutes enjoying a cooked-from-scratch meal. This is not starry-eyed idealism, but practicality. Experience shows that Recess First reduces food waste, improves after-lunch attentiveness, reduces disciplinary problems, and improves the health of our children.
Principal Casie Killgore of Franklin Elementary notes that her school is experiencing some challenges associated with success: "We have to reorganize the flow of the lunch room because the line for the salad bar is too long - it's ten kids deep! The kids are choosing more fruits and vegetables, and the whole lunch period takes slightly longer because the kids actually sit down and eat." She adds that disciplinary actions are down, because kids have been working hard at recess and come into the lunch room ready to eat.
Still, many schools are reluctant to alter their schedules. Worse, many schools have been eliminating recess periods, despite numerous studies validating the academic value of exercise and play.
A study reported in Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, concluded that recess improves a child's academic performance, suggesting that schools' elimination of recess periods to spend more time on curricula has been counterproductive. Recess First takes this a step further, suggesting that recess is a part of school curriculum, and should be as carefully managed for best results.
Dr. Antronette Yancy of the Center to Eliminate Health Disparities told NPR, "Kids pay better attention to their subjects when they've been active. Kids are less likely to be disruptive in terms of classroom behavior when they're active. Kids feel better about themselves, have higher self-esteem, less depression, less anxiety - all of those things can impair academic performance and attentiveness."
Rescheduling the traditional after-lunch recess multiplies the benefits of exercise and activity, as Dr. Sarah Hartley, principal of Scottsdale, Arizona's North Ranch Elementary School, told education-world.com. "The teachers love it. They don't feel like they have to cool down the children after lunch. In the past it could take fifteen minutes to settle the kids down after recess. So we found a lot of academic time. We also saw a drop in the number of referrals to the nurse, and the cafeteria reported more kids eating and less food being thrown away."
Nancy Weiss, Director of Nutrition Services for Santa Barbara School Districts, has seen the benefits of Recess First here in our own community: "Students are calmer. Their behavior seems more controlled and their attention seems more focused. I attribute this to having had the chance to get their energy out before they eat. They're not hurrying through lunch to go to recess."
We're glad that so many schools in Santa Barbara are now applying the lessons we have learned about the value of recess and the advantages of Recess First. We hope many more will choose to benefit from this knowledge.
Comments
Robin Miller wrote on 10/04/09 10:11 PM
In elementary school I had to spend many recesses in the classroom finishing up projects and assignments I had not completed during instruction time. Maybe if I had had more recess time earlier in the day I would have had been more alert and finished my work on time. Furthermore, missing recess time at lunch one day probably affected my alertness after lunch, allowing more work to pile up to finish during recess the next day. I agree that recess is very important to children's development and productivity. Instructors need to ensure that children receive their recess time every day by channelling a child's energy during instruction time to guarantee that they finish their work and are free to play.
Jacki Iwanski wrote on 10/25/09 10:11 PM
Recess First is an excellent program. Although switching recess to before mealtime sounds simple, it makes children hungry for lunch and focused for class. When I was in elementary school, I remember that some students wouldn’t eat their lunch and than they would get hungry later in the day. By making recess first, kids will be excited to eat after exercise.
I also support providing food cooked from scratch. Many food products claim to be beneficial; when in reality they are filled with salt and preservatives. Kids are guaranteed to eat healthy if schools serve balanced meals made from scratch. Plus, the kids can take these positive eating habits home.
The key for the Recess First program is to spread their research and ideas across the country. Santa Barbara is a pretty health conscious place. The program can be even more beneficial in areas with high childhood obesity. Positive eating habits start through change and awareness. I am excited that the Orfalea Foundation found a simple, practical way to improve childhood nutrition.
Kristine Gengler wrote on 10/26/09 4:32 AM
I agree with this article in saying that there are many positive effects of putting recess first in schools. With traditional scheduled lunch and recess, kids try to eat as quickly as they can so that they have more time to play after. I think with this schedule kids go to lunch seeing it as something mandatory: a task they have to finish before they get to be free and have fun. Scheduling recess before they eat tells the kids that having fun and playing is important as well, and nor something they will only receive if they rush through lunch. I agree that coming in to lunch after recess will allow kids to focus and make healthier choices. Giving them a chance to actually sit down and eat reminds them that eating lunch is an essential part of the day. They are able to focus more on what they are eating and develop better eating habits. I agree with this article in putting recess first. We should focus on educating our children and teaching them healthier habits in order to combat obesity in the United States.
Laura Cimarelli wrote on 10/28/09 10:33 PM
I think that lunch following recess is an excellent idea. I worked at a summer camp for five years and more often than not, my campers would rush through their lunches so they could have more time to play. Some kids would even “accidentally” throw their lunches away to maximize their playing time. By creating specific times for play and for lunch, students would know that regardless of how fast they eat, it will not impact their play time. I find it incredibly surprising that schools are not only unwilling to adopt this approach, but are cancelling recess altogether. Recess is arguably an incredibly important part of a child’s growth. This unstructured play allows children to socialize, imagine, and learn how to interact with their peers without the influence of adults. If anything, recess is very important for the development of the child. If schools cancel recess, they could be harming their students by inhibiting their social development and causing restlessness during class time, thereby hindering their ability to retain information. If schools adopt the practice of having lunch after recess, students are more likely to eat all of their lunch at a normal pace, contributing to better health and greater attentiveness during class.
John wrote on 10/30/09 12:37 AM
With so many budget cuts in education, many in the community wonder why Orfalea is focusing on school food. Help us teachers not school food and cooking classes for cafeteria workers. Kids can start to learn how to cook by packing their own lunches. Teachers do not support the School Food Initiative. We want to keep our jobs and need staff and material to teach our children, our future.
A Chidren's Advocate wrote on 02/19/10 7:21 PM
To Paul Orfalea,
Yes, Santa Barara can be a pretty place. Also an affluent place of conspicous consumption with a high percentage of well educated dual income couples
who have both the income and a plethora of resources available to them and their children. In an era of diminishing public resouces, especially to the parents and
children buffetted by the the economic storms of post industrial capitalism while
the growing ecomomic inequality in America bodes for a perpetual underclass
while an oligopoly of corpratists and a layer of elite technoctats , IT professionals
and the biomedical cartel that is taking 17-18% of America's gross national economic product while delivering significatly inferior results to the American populus overall.
While I can appreciate your sentimental connection to the central coastal California
region of your origins, the vast amount of the wealth you have accumulated through
your endeavors has been in the less propitiously endowed regions of America.
In funding some of the child development- in this region through the foundation
that bears your name -- UCSB-- to create incentives to attract faculty which are
increasingly involved in the sciences and connected to the defense contractors
in Santa Barbara . Is this your intention, even if inadvertently to be complicit in
facilitating this phenomenon. Certainly the defense contractors are reaping the profits from taxpayer dollars in their role in America's military industrial complex
without funds from your foundation to enable them to attract their deadly talent
by creating perks ( through innocent children ) to relocate to Santa Barbara.
There are so many parent and children and parents and children in need who
can benifit from the kind of programs you fund go wanting because of misdirected
federal dollars supporting the very federal defense contactors your funding in some cases benifits even if indirectly.Funding programs for the children of well paid hospital worker when so many children and their parents lack access to medical coverage in spite of working mutiple jobs much less access to decent and affordable child care. Please revaluate your priorities when
considering funding decisions.
Will Chandler wrote on 09/28/09 10:33 PM
I agree with this article and I myself had first hand experience when growing up. I attended Cold Spring School in Santa Barbara, where we had 3 recesses each day. One in the morning (25 minutes long), one recess after lunch (40 minutes long), and one in the afternoon (15 minutes long). I am a very active person, and I get very restless after sitting down for long periods of time. I feel that these recesses throughout the day were the perfect thing to keep me focused and concentrated on classwork. I felt more alert than I thought possible during my time at Cold Spring School, and work and play were mixed in so well, that the day was over before I knew it.