Cormac 1

Recess is important for kids' communication skills, preventing loneliness, and improving focus in the classroom. It also helps reduce childhood obesity and keeps kids healthy. Recess allows kids to talk to peers from different classes and grades, fostering real communication. Personal experiences show that recess strengthens friendships. Taking away recess as punishment can worsen behavior. Recess provides a break to release energy and helps kids stay on task. It also contributes to reducing childhood obesity by promoting physical activity. Recess is necessary and beneficial for kids' overall development. This is your Kids Without Recess. Kids need recess for many reasons. Without it, kids wouldn't have as good of communication skills and might suffer from loneliness and it is needed so they can focus better in the classroom. Exercise also helps cut down on childhood obesity and keeps kids more healthy. Kids' lives would be a lot different without this necessary aspect of childhood. Recess is necessary for strengthening kids' communication and interpersonal skills. Without recess, kids cannot have the freedom to talk to kids from other classes and different grades. Kids talking with each other at recess is real communication, not just your teacher telling you to get in groups and talk. I remember spending my recess time talking to my friends about our favorite books and TV shows and playing games that many kids at my school participated in. All of this was not facilitated by teachers. It was facilitated by us and are some of my favorite memories from childhood. Real people have had real experience with how recess affected their friendships just like Cormac. Would you like to introduce yourself? Hi. As I said, I'm Cormac. I'm a 19-year-old student here at the University of Iowa and I am an avid appreciator of recess. All right. And how are you doing today? I'm doing great. I got my morning walk in so it's like my little version of recess, get me active, going through the day. All right. And how did recess strengthen your friendships as a kid? Personally, I actually met my, like to this day, very best friend at recess and I owe it all to recess really. Did recess allow you to stay connected with friends who are in a different class? Absolutely. Like I just said, my friend that is my best friend to this day didn't have any classes with him but met outside playing football. We're best friends now. All right. And did you have any other stories from recess that you'd like to share? I did absolutely moth my friend playing football at recess. He does resent me for it a little bit but he can deal with that. All right. Sounds like a great time and sounds like it really helped to strengthen your friendships. Thank you so much, Cormac. Another reason why recess is needed is to strengthen kids' focus by getting out their energy. It can be hard for kids to focus in class all day if they don't get any time to expand their energy. The CDC says that recess helps kids stay on task in the classroom while also reducing disruptive behavior. This is another reason why recess should not be taken away as a punishment. If kids are not on task in the classroom or engaging in disruptive behavior, taking away recess might make these behaviors worse. Recess is necessary to negate these behaviors. A personal account for me is I know every year when we had to take the Iowa assessments, we would have to take tests for hours straight and towards the end I would lose my focus a lot. So when we got our recess to go out, I would come back in refreshed and be able to perform just as good as when I started. Recess can help kids get adequate exercise throughout the day and help reduce childhood obesity. Physical activity during recess leads to increased energy throughout the day, keeping children more focused, like we touched on before. But increased physical activity also leads to a decrease in childhood obesity. The CDC recommends that kids from 16 to 17 years old should get at least 60 minutes of physical activity a day. Recess can help with this, especially for younger kids. While recess usually ends around 5th grade when kids are about 11, letting kids go outside during lunch in middle school might be a good option to continue to let kids be active during the school day and to transition out of recess. Every day when kids wake up, recess gives them a good reason to want to go to school. Strengthened communication, focus, and higher levels of physical activity are all good benefits that show the necessity of recess.