Regulating School Recess—and the Hits Just Keep on Coming

posted at 10:19 am on March 15, 2010 by Howard Portnoy
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The new and improved recess at Broadway Elementary School in Newark.

Photo: Richard Perry/The New York Times

Great news today from the New York Times—if you happen to believe, that is, that every minute of your waking life requires intervention of one kind or another by the government or quasi-government forces. An article, by Winnie Hu, assures parents of enrollees at Broadway Elementary School across the river in Newark that there’ll be “no more sitting around after lunch. No more goofing off with friends. No more doing nothing.” Wow, are you feeling that tingling sensation up your leg?

Before Barack Obama’s election, his wife promised that Obama would “never let you go back to your lives as usual.” And Alejandro Echevarria, principal of Broadway Elementary, seems hell-bent not only on keeping Michelle Obama’s threat but making it a reality from the tenderest ages on.

In case you were worried that enforced play at recess was free of charge—or as Obama himself is fond of saying, “won’t cost you [the taxpayers] a dime—the cost of the program is $23,500 a year.

And just how much are the little darlings at Broadway enjoying their newfound playground imprisonment? The article answers that question with a frank exchange between 11-year-old Esmeilyn Almendarez and 28-year-old Brandi Parker, the “recess coach with a whistle around her neck, corralling children behind bright orange cones to play organized games.”

Esmeilyn: I don’t like to play.

Brandi: Why do I have to go through this every day with you? There’s no choice.

What is Spanish for dolce far niente?

But surely some of the children like the new regime, right? Well, not Jose Salcedo, a fourth grader, who misses the old recess when “nobody would tell us what to do.” And not Khizeeq Murphy, aged 10, who used to enjoy just running and dribbling a basketball. Or Kazmir Payne, a second grader, who “wishes he could have his free time back.” At least Kazmir’s mother, Kizzy, is on board. She is quoted as saying “I think the more supervision, the better.”

Presumably, in the interests of fairmindedness, the article even goes so far as to cite a study from the journal Pediatrics which found that “children still benefit most from recess when they are let alone to daydream, solve problems, use their imagination to invent their own games and ‘be free to do what they choose to do.’”

Not to worry, though. Brandi Parker knows better. “These are the things that matter in life: who you are as a human being at the core,” the article quotes her as saying. Never too soon to take the weight of adult responsibility on your shoulders. Or put it on the shoulders of children in their formative years.

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