Physical Activity Helps Boost Cognitive Abilities in Children

On Tuesday we started a debate over if we are for recess and if we aren’t. I was on the pro side of the debate. With doing this debate we found out a lot of reasons why maybe recess isn’t such a good idea and why it is a good idea. For the pro side we found that recess provides an unstructured break that gives children discretionary time to engage in physical activity. We also learned that recess can be held anywhere. Recess plays an important role in a comprehensive school physical activity program and can provide a portion of the activity that a child needs every day to maintain health. We also told the con group that children learn through play. Free play allows children the opportunity to be themselves and use their imaginations. The con

The disappearing of playtime is causing a mental health problem in children (Jacobson, 2008). As mentioned before, Winerman also believes that the lack of playtime in schools is causing health problems like anxiety and stress in these young children. Education is putting a lot of pressure in learning a lot of material and not giving them enough playtime. Keeping children healthy is a key while in school, if children are healthy they will not miss a day of class and will be on top of what is being introduced; To keep a child healthy, they have to exercise and play. If preschools and kindergarten are going to diminish playtime, they should at least have physical education.

This proposal serves as a detailed description as to why I believe that elementary school students should be required more free recess time. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) highlights the important of recess because it help the children create social skills that can lead to a happy and healthy adult life. Not only would longer or more recesses promote socialization but also promote a healthier life style for the children. Over the past few years we have begun to notice and trend in childhood obesity and through more recess we can promote a more active and for healthy lifestyle. Free play time has been shown to produce higher cognitive performance and better memory. Schools should not be restricting recess time because they see recess

Creativity or the lack of encouraging creativity can be seen declining as you get lower in the class level in Anyons research. She states “Work tasks do not usually request creativity” and “Creativity is not often requested in social studies and Science projects”. In an article entitled “The Impact of Creativity on the Brain” by Judy Willis M.D; M.E.D posted on the website Radtech.com. “Neuroscience and cognitive science research are increasingly providing information that correlates creativity with intelligence; academic, social, and emotional success; and the development of skill sets and the highest information processing (Executive functions)”. This basically states that if creativity is encouraged then the upper intelligence functions of students are developed which includes social and emotional success. Which shows that if you stifle creativity you basically limit the

Creative learning is about how children are actively involved in their own learning and ability to make choices and decisions. This can be achieved through providing a creative environment allowing exploration through play and praising creative efforts. Creativity is about risk taking and making connections, allowing children to

What creativity actually is when you use your imagination, allowing things in the mind to occur that wouldn’t actually occur and also things to better the world. “Being creative is not only about thinking: it is about feeling” (160). You can not just think but you have to have feelings to make sure that you doing things right and feeling like you made something productive in the time. Being creative requires a long process, “magination which is the process of bringing to mind things that are not present to our senses; creativity, which is the process of developing original ideas that

Recess is important to let your energy out. And to go outside to run and play to get your exercise. People say that recess is good for you because you run and play and when you back to work in the classroom you pay attention more. Recess is good for your body to keep your blood pumping thought your body. Recess is all so healthy for your body. It all so helps your muscles when you run around outside.

Creativity is about risk taking and making connections, allowing children to explore and express themselves through a variety of media or materials including, dance, music, making things, drawing, painting and make believe and to make new things emerge as a result. Being creative is strongly linked to play and can emerge through a child being absorbed in their own actions and ideas.

In order for children to be creative the environment and the experiences they are exposed to will determine their creative learning and creativity.  This is closely linked with cultural approaches and role modelling.

For example, according to 2009 study of third graders published in Pediatrics, more play in the day increases test scores. This shows that if school were to have more play hours, our grades would improve. That play can help neural connectors in the brain to help you learn. Long recess the brain to learn and grow in school.

These Statistics point out that playing outside for recess reduces the amount of stress because kids can forget about test scores and bad grades. Also when I get bad grade I start getting stressed and frustrated so if I had recess all of my stress and frustration would go away. My personal experience claims that kids should have recess in Middle School to take away from stress because when you're playing you forget about everything. I bet that the other kids that don’t have recess get stressed to and if they did have recess all of their stress would go away and be

Growing up, it was among the most common of punishments to be told to stay inside during recess. It is still being used in the school where I do my observations. I remember when recess had to be cancelled due to inclimate weather. The rest of the day would drag on. It was hard to focus on school work as I kept glancing out the classroom window at the playground. An article published in the 2011 journal Economics of Education Review cited the findings of Olga Jarrett and her colleagues, who determined that recess increased the amount of work completed in the classroom and it reduced the amount of fidgeting and listlessness in students, promoting behavior management. It’s worth noting that the American Pediatric Association referenced a series of studies that determined the brain was able to process at optimal levels once it had the chance for a break following learning. Then there are the physical benefits of recess to consider. Between tablets, smartphones, laptops, and advanced gaming systems; a majority of the attention grabbing activities for students involve staying inside and being sedentary. Recess offers students an opportunity to get out and be active which they might not be motivated to do after school at home. The National Association for Sport and Physical Education recognize recess as an essential component to helping students participate in physical activity and recommend that students be allowed at least 20 minutes of recess per school day.

The first article read that discusses the topic of structured recess for this literature review was Behavioral School Psychology Goes Outdoors: The Effect of Organized Games on Playground Aggression written by H. Murphy, J. Hutchison, and J. Bailey from Florida State University. While conducting this research project, there was a focus placed on the inappropriate, largely aggressive behavior of the students on the playground prior to the beginning of the school day. In this quantitative research study, the researchers studied the behavior of 344 k-2 students while on the playground before the beginning of the school day. It was observed that the students were very aggressive with each other during the time they were on the playground before the start of the school day. The purpose of this study was to see if “When dealing with large groups, antecedent environmental manipulation may be more practical than providing consequences for the behavior exhibited by identified individuals” (Murphy, Hutchison, & Bailey, n.d.).

Creativity is equally as important as literacy, and we need to start treating it that way in schools around the world. According to Ken Robinson’s claim in his, “How Schools Kill Creativity” speech, he believes this to be exceptionally true. All children are creative and talented, however, we have grown up in a world where we believe that it’s wrong to exemplify our creativity. Robinson uses both, pathos, and ethos to help make his claim. He arises emotion in you; he causes you to really think, to trust him, and to question ultimately, how things are being done in the educational system. We as a world have become so consumed with the idea of putting each child into a category of what they’re going to be successful in, regardless of their creativity or passions. You’re either good at math, science, or English; everything is based on your academic ability. What happens then to the people who aren’t academically smart, but are more creative? They are then made to feel that what they have to offer the world simply isn’t good enough, but the truth is, it is good enough. Over time however, we are taught out of our creativity. Schools around the world kill creativity by instilling a sense of fear in the child that what they are doing, and how they feel is wrong, this ultimately discourages them, and they fall victim to the industrialized educational system that we have present day. Robinson believes now more than

Creativity is the ability to produce work that is original yet appropriate-something that others have not thought of but that is useful in some way (Kaufman & Sternberg, 2007; Sternberg, 2003b). The significance of creativity for children’s development is very high. Creativity helps children develop the overall areas of development; physical, social, emotional, language and cognitive. A child learns to innovate as well as invent while doing creative activities. Through creative practices child finds multiple methods of looking at various situations, assessing these situations and finding new solutions. Children often desire to be able to express themselves without any