I have heard it said before that the “squeaky wheel gets the grease.” Well I intend to be that squeak to a wheel that needs greasing. To elaborate, the “wheel” I am referring to is school recess. First to start off, one must understand just exactly what school recess is by definition. According to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention recess is, “regularly scheduled periods within the elementary school day for unstructured physical activity and play” (Murray & Ramstetter AAP1). So by the result of this notion I assert and can prove that, school recess promotes and foster learning in a child, gives children a much deserved break from classroom teachings, and creates …show more content…
The first reason I will “squeak” upon is that children can, and do learn through the act of playing in an unstructured environment. Accordingly, it seems to me if children are given an opportune moment to make their own decisions without interference from adults, they are granted with a chance to make their own judgment calls in real world situations. According to Audrey Skrupskelis, the president of the American Association of the Child’s Right to Play, children at school recess time are able to learn and practice valuable life lessons, which will serve to benefit them as they continue their journey into adulthood. (Schachter 39) Additionally, I must make it known that during school recess children gain skills they cannot acquire in an academic structured classroom setting. For example, in order to adopt positive peer interaction capabilities a child needs to be afforded an unstructured time to freely associate with other children, and communicate about whatever they want to. Consequently, school recess grants this to a child simply because of the way it is designed. Indeed, a child that is give a chance to talk openly with their peers develops favorable social mannerisms, which ultimately aid in building self esteem. In addition, I must state that without a doubt, school recess is a prime setting for children to establish friendships. To provide support to my claims The American Academy of Pediatrics states that, “recess promotes social and emotional learning and development for children by offering them a time to engage in peer interactions in which they practice and role play essential social skills” (Murry & Ramstetter, AAP 2) Alternatively, a child can acquire and develop physical skills at school recess, too. It is perfectly rational for me to declare that since children are able to get up and move around at recess time that they get