When you were in elementary school, you may have had a specific part of your day you looked forward to most. For many, it was recess. However, when you enter middle and high school, this time is taken away.
Many argue when you get to high school, your workload doubles, and this is really the time we should be able to have that “break” in our day.
“Having recess could increase our social skills and give us a break during the day from our work,” said junior Kylee Blum. “I think it could help relieve a lot of stress we experience, too.”
According to research done by Mental Health America, spending time in nature is linked to positive mental health effects. You will have improved focus, lower stress, a better mood, and the reduced risk of developing a mental health condition. After all, we are sitting down all day– unless you count the five minutes we get to change classes. Giving us recess could serve as a replacement for all the missed exercise. It could improve our social development with peers, help us stay on task in the classroom, and even increase our concentration.
However, with the many positive effects that recess may bring to high school students, there are some negative effects we can also see.
“I think recess is just a waste,” said junior Gavin Gregory. “I think for someone like me, I focus more on my school work and having recess would take time away from my work.”
Recess can also be argued as a “waste of time” because high school schedules are already packed for most students with academic classes and extracurricular activities and adding a “recess” period could reduce the time for those important activities.
Recess could especially have a negative effect on students who may be more highly focused on academics and preparing for college. They might rather use the “flex” time that we are offered now and just study instead of running around outside.
“Unstructured play is a positive thing,” said history teacher Matthew Coltrane. “But, we just have to make sure our grades are good in order to do it.”
Another issue that could be seen is the space and supervision over the students that would be outside during recess. For some schools, it may be hard to find a space to hold recess to make it a worthy and enjoyable experience. For supervision, it can be seen as unsafe trying to manage a large group of students, especially high schoolers. To be sure they are supervised, it would require additional staff and planning.
“I think recess would be fun,” said junior Olivia Brown. “It gives us time to get out of our seats and just have free time to get outside and talk to our friends.”
