“Eeny meeny miny moe, catch a tiger by the toe, if he hollers let him go, eeny meeny miny moe, YOU’RE IT.”
We all run as the unlucky one chases after us, behind the red slide of the playground and the small forest at the back of our school. Oh, how I loved recess, but why don’t we still get to love it?
As we all know, high school can create copious amounts of stress and anxiety. The slump of assignments, extracurriculars, clubs, college applications or work, fosters a negative and pressure provoking mental state. The question is, what if we could eliminate that by giving high schoolers recess?
A lot of the time, I find myself losing the meaning of life to school, having my emotions tied to something as simple as a grade, dictating the state of my day. I long for the times when I would be able to just go outside and play hide and seek throughout the playground simply because it brought me joy.
Recess gave me the happiness that is just unspeakable, the time to just enjoy being a kid, the break I needed after a long day of learning, and it’s a break that I feel would be just as useful now.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, students from kindergarten through 12th grade are encouraged to involve themselves in physical activity and interactions. Recess is said to improve focus, memory, productivity, social development and emotional development, things that are needed for all of your developing years, not just the early ones.
If recess is said to improve all these things, then why not implement it into high school?
Out of elementary, middle and high school, I think it’s safe to say that the work load from high school can be a lot more than the other levels of schooling. Motivation and concentration is crucial to every class, and a needed brain break during recess can give us an outlet to destress from our day and improve focus to be ready for our next class.
Thirty minutes of lunch, in which 10 minutes are taken from simply walking to the cafeteria and getting your food, isn’t enough of a break for high school students to eat, go out and get back into complete concentration for the rigorous coursework they part take in.
When thinking about it, the average day of a high schooler doesn’t have much time for enjoyment or brain breaks as before and after school time is devoted to homework or school related activities, making it impossible to create room for relaxation throughout the day.
If recess in our high school isn’t a possibility, why can’t we adopt hour block lunch at Coppell High School instead of only having it at the Coppell High School Ninth Grade Campus? During my time at the ninth grade campus, hour block lunch was something that I didn’t appreciate as much until it was gone, and oh do I miss that one full hour of freedom.
Hour block lunch is a perfect way to incorporate a break similar to recess at CHS. That one hour can give me, and many others, enough time to eat, catch up on homework, go outside and go to a club meeting, which is what I think we should have on a daily basis.
Whether it’s an extended lunch period or a set recess, high schoolers need time out of their day to release stress and simply relax without the thought of their next assignment, test or quiz.
Sometimes, all we need is a little time to play tag, or four square or hide and seek as we run around the campus, releasing our worries until the next class period.
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