Should schools have recess?

After a very hard English exam, you have another chemistry exam. Wouldn’t it be nice if your brain had a break from working 3-4 hours straight? Even though recess is very time consuming, moving from subject to subject can be mentally exhausting. That is why I believe that every school in the US should have recess.

Working your brain for more than 4 hours straight with cognitive tasks can be very mentally draining, especially on a student going to school for 7-8 hours every day. According to Mackenzie Carro (paragraph 6), She has recorded a study, proving that recess can facilitate learning abilities. What does he mean by that? Well, the study shows that giving an active student’s mind a break when working for so long can actually help boost their learning abilities. If you do not take brain breaks every 2-4 hours, your mind can become very overwhelmed and it might not be able to retain all of the information you put into it.

Another reason why all schools in the US should have recess, is that giving your mind a break from learning can help it relax and be put at ease. For this reason, many of foreign nations tend to outshine the US on their test scores. These other countries also attest to the fact that recess helps kids grow. Another study recorded by Dr. Robert Murray (paragraph 8), is shown to be true to the fact that kids learn better when they receive an “unstructured interruption” in between a long, cognitive task.

Yes, although recess is very mentally stimulating for kids, How would you like it if your child’s teacher didn’t have time to grade your child’s work? Well that is exactly what is happening when teachers have to monitor their students at recess. Recess is very time consuming and lots of schools do not have time for 30 minutes to an hour of play time every day, when they could be doing something totally different, like teaching their students a new subject, or grading papers.

Most schools in the US no longer have recess. Some people believe that recess should be included in the school day, because it is good for the brain and body, while others believe that recess is too time consuming. Be that as it may, studies show that brain breaks help the mind relax and boost overall performance in school.