Children’s education approaches are crucial to be constantly analyzed and developed because, during kindergarten and school, kids gain sufficient knowledge about the laws in accordance with which our world functions.
To encourage children to learn and provide them with love to gaining knowledge, the learning process planning should include many aspects. Thus, according to the well-known psychologist Pellegrini, recess turned out to be the crucial factor in children’s focusing on the study and their motivation. Analyzing theoretical research and empirical practice, Pellegrini, in the article called “The Recess Debate,” published in 2008, offers a detailed analysis of the role of recess in children’s education, basing his position on the recess survey findings. The author of this article focuses on proving the importance of recess in the children’s educational process and providing counter-arguments to the recess-eliminating position by analyzing empirical research results.
Pellegrini starts the argument for the positive influence of the recess by discussing the opponents’ points of view. The author emphasizes two central anti-recess positions: it implies the unproductive waste of time; it gives a free of teachers control time where the bullying flourishes (Pellegrini, 2008). In discussing the first position, Pellegrini refers to the recess-eliminating experiment held in Canada, which included replacing free time with controlled physical activities. The author states that this experiment was not profound enough and emphasizes that physical education does not stimulate children’s brain activity according to the numeral research (Pellegrini, 2008).
Instead, the author points out that recess contributes to the children’s academic motivation and social skills development. Providing arguments to the second position, Pellegrini states that aggression avoidance is practically impossible in children’s behavior. Moreover, the author adds that experiments’ results show that recess aggression stands at low rates. Therefore, the author proves the against recess arguments wrong and illustrates its importance in the learning process.
The second part of the article focuses on the author’s hypothesis about the recess behavior analysis potential. The author, describing his path to the recess study, states that analysis of social skills that children gain through recess time can contribute to the more efficient educational assessment and, as a result, increased academic performance (Pellegrini, 2008). Holding practical experiment, the author managed to prove the correlation between the children’s social behavior during recess in kindergarten and their test results in the first grade. This breakthrough enhanced the author’s position in society and provoked additional studies.
Pellegrini also focuses on comparing the United States and the United Kingdom approaches to the recces. The author described that recess reduction is a more common practice in the first country than in the second. Another crucial point is that the author mentions that the recces duration shortens on how old children are. At the end of the article, Pellegrini provides the arguments for the recces. The author states that the recces contribute to the disturbed school practice, which increases children’s academic performance according to the research (Pellegrini, 2008). The second benefit of recess for children is that non-intellectual activity helps the nervous system accommodate energy and concentrate attention better. Therefore, the recces implementation is essential for children of all ages and helps to increase their academic performance.
Therefore, according to Pellegrini, the arguments against recess do not have enough empirical proof, while the positive influence of its practice vice versa was repeatedly supported by various research. The author claims that recess should be applied to increase children’s academic performance, motivation, and educational capacity. The author’s sophisticated proofs leave no doubts about the crucial role of recess in children’s education and social skills.
I support the author’s idea that distributional education and breaks between lessons contribute to a productive educational process. From my point of view, school is not only about gaining theoretical knowledge. One of its primary aims is to allow children to communicate in society and cope with personal differences. Interpersonal communication sharpens the character of kids and helps them to become better personalities and lead successful lives.
Thus, the author also states that school teaches children to live in a society (Pellegrini, 2008). The difficulties like bullying are the steps to developing a personality. Without understanding the principles of community, children will never be able to apply all the profound knowledge they get without recess. Kids learn how to love, accept and even hate others which makes them alive. When they have free of control time, as the author state, through the peers’ communication, children motivate each other and put more effort into studying. After all, our body is constructed this way: we need to change the activities and rest from the intellectual work through communication with other people.
Reflection Questions
- When I first read the article, I thought that the arguments against recess are of no value and do not sound logical enough. I could not help but agree with the author and did not understand the issue of the argument. Reading the article for the second time, I learned that the opponents’ statements, even though the research does not quite prove them, have logic. The opponents just considered school education one-sided: only from the point of gaining knowledge.
- Due to the analysis held to respond to the article, I learned more details about the positive connotations of recess. Thus, while formulating the answer, I used the results of this analysis to perform a more in-depth response.
References
Pellegrini, A. (2008). The recess debate: A disjuncture between educational policy and scientific research. American Journal of PLAY, 1(2), 181–191. Web.