Essay On Recess In School

Could you imagine being back at school without physical activity, such as recess or even physical education? Children generally have had recess as a planned part of their school day, as long as there has been schools. But, recently physical activity has been eliminated or minimized in many schools. There has been much debate over the idea of implementing physical activity in school or not, and through this debate there hasn’t been much empirical research done. Infants begin to move as soon as they can, from leg kicks to even reaching for anything within their sight. Then soon enough, they begin to crawl and eventually they learn how to hold their balance, which soon turns into learning to walk. During this time children are learning their bodies and how to use and control them. Typically during this time children are slower with bodily movements because they are learning their proprioception. As children get older their gross …show more content…
One of them is the fact that many schools have taken out recess and/or physical education. The National Center for Education Statistics, Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) (2008), state that children typically spend an average of 6.64 hours in school a day for an average of 180 days a year. This does not include homework or studying the child may have to do after school hours. Ridgway, Northup, Pellegrin, LaRue, & Hightsoe (2003) stated in their study that some schools see recess and/or physical education as too costly, other schools said that kids were being reported as too violent during recess, and some schools have even reported feeling pressured to focus more on raising grades by replacing recess and/or physical education by having longer class lecture times. Whatever the reason may be, a decline in physical activity is occurring more and more and it is hard to pin point if it is due to this lack of physical activity in