Glimpse of My Research Paper on Recess

Current mainstream society has focused its attention towards the present, thus placing less attention on our future. It seems as though our nation has been hypnotized by the aftermath of the war in Iraq. Everyday our eyes are tuned into the news and sent into a trance as we watch gas prices slowly increase a little more each day. I believe that knowing about current events is important, but I also believe that we must also build a stable foundation for our future. As a Communication Science and Disorders major at Saint Louis University, I support speech language pathologists and audiologists' role in helping people, especially children with speech, language, and communication. A conflict that exists between my belief in building a foundation for our children and my support for the CSD department is the ongoing situation in certain school when a child would be taken out of recess in order to get developmental speech treatment. In addition to conflicts like this, physical problems such as obesity, present another problem. I believe recess should be kept in school schedules because its pros outweigh its cons.

First let's start by understanding the history of recess. It initially began as a result of the need for human mentality to take a break after a long period of work. After many schools began to take breaks that allowed a half hour of freedom for both teachers and students, other schools also began to adopt recess into their daily schedules. According to Anthony Pellegrini, "recess is defined as a temporary withdrawal from work or activity." Therefore, this break that was taken in the middle of the day was eventually referred to as recess. Written records exist that explain how the name recess was formulated, but I find it amazing "to find virtually nothing written about the historical origins of recess in American schools (Pellegrini pg 23)."

Recess has been known as the break taken in the school day that allows students to get away from structure. On a more political perspective, "the role of recess will probably be judged, for better or worse, on its influence on children's academic achievement ( Pellegrini pg 140)." Recess may either interfere with learning or it may facilitate learning and achievement. Depending on the student's tests scores, the Education Board will respond accordingly to counter tests score results. If students score higher when having recess, then recess will be kept in that school. If students score lower when having recess, then recess will most likely be shortened to allow more time for academics. Schools are able to understand how their students cope with recess by subtly lowering the amount of time for it and then observing attention spans and most importantly grades. This long awaited break by most students also allows the children to experience life lesson and develop skills that could not be learned in the classroom. Development in social skills such as cooperation and resolving conflict can be learned through a game of basketball. For example, if there are two many people for two teams, children can develop a simple system, in which, losers of the first game are substituted with a new set of players and then this process is repeated.