If it's important, don't demean it.

In response to this article titled: Yay for Recess: Pediatricians Say It’s as Important as Math or Reading

Love that the medical profession is starting to raise a voice to this issue. The only problem is the understated demeaning of recess – otherwise known as freedom of movement without the restriction of direct adult influence.

Sure the headline says the pediatricians believe recess is as important as math and science. Then the quotes and statements in the article support the headline. But then the doctors don’t treat recess as an equal.

In the article, Murray says, “Children need to have downtime between complex cognitive challenges. They tend to be less able to process information the longer they are held to a task. It’s not enough to just switch from math to English. You actually have to take a break.”

The statement appears innocuous on is surface. But it’s wrong to infer that recess fails to involve complex cognitive challenges.

Moving muscles stimulate axonal growth. Axons carry messages between neurons. We have more than a 100 billion neurons at birth, and every movement we make helps fire those neurons, creating more thought pathways – helping us learn more. In one particular 1997 study, completed by Paris’ Pasteur Institute and the Developmental Biology Institute in Marseilles (Changeux and Henderson), it was found that the number of axons is directly related to intelligence. Folks, who move more, benefit from that development.

That study was buttressed by a 2002 study involving 500 school children that was completed at UC Irvine. That study (Quartz and Sejnowski) found that children who spent an hour each day in physical education class scored better on intelligence test than those who were inactive. These studies have been replicated numerous times.

The movements during recess aren’t mental downtime. That movement is learning. Running, jumping, kicking, hitting, throwing, catching, squatting, bending, extending, twisting, dribbling and tumbling are all complex cognitive challenge. The difference is the movements during recess are perceived as fun activities for the children. Fun is an emotional construct. At that age, we only have the ability to truly enjoy was we perceive as pleasurable to us.

Mother Nature didn’t screw up anything. Our brains were made to enjoy movement so we would want to move a lot. Sitting around reading and looking at numbers and letters isn’t fun. But for those who move more, sitting around is easier to tolerate.

This may seem like huffiness and puffiness from a movement maven. But we must understand the power our pediatricians possess. Recess IS NOT a break from learning, but they’re inferring that it is.

How did we get into this educational mess anyway? We got here because somebody incorrectly deemed physical education and recess as less important aspects of the academic structure.

--MFB