Extending recess shortens attention spans, widens learning gap

Parents, students and educators alike agree, for the most part, that recess benefits students. Photo by Kelsey Haasch

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Written by Kelly Shepherd - Staff Writer

Parents, students and educators generally agree that recess benefits students. However, childhood obesity has tripled nationwide in the past 30 years to 12.5 million, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Schools are trying to lengthen the time of recess to lower the obesity rate, but it may affect education. to While longer recess may have a positive impact on obesity rates, it will have a negative impact on learning.

Children have a short attention span to begin with, so, even though they may enjoy recess, they are not going to be able to focus on what is important. Parents do not send their children to school to learn to play. Taking four fifteen-minute breaks through-out the school day is going to do more “good” than needed. Meanwhile, physical education is fighting over whether to be cut from education, which is just another obstacle that schools have to face, and additional justification why schools may lengthen recess time.

But why should the United States lengthen recess time and shorten the time in the classroom when schools in other countries like Japan have ten hours of school a day in elementary verses eight hours here, and barely have recess in Japan if any? Our school system is totally different, but that doesn’t seem right to add more play time rather than learning time. Additionally, American elementary schools spend only 154 days in school a year between August and May compared to students in Australia who attend school for 200 days a year from late January through November.
Even more impressive, a Japanese student their school day is from 8:30 to 5:00pm with after school activities, and they go to school six days a week. Many European schools such as Germany are similar to American schools, with a school day from 8:30 to 3:30pm, though reportedly spend a higher percentage of the school day engaged in learning than American students. Clearly, extending recess is definitely not going to help the education in America where the only place American students have a chance of catching up to their international counterparts is the playground.