KQED News Mind/Shift – Christopher Connelly
“Recess at Eagle Mountain Elementary School in Fort Worth, Texas, looks much like recess anyplace else. Some kids run and squeal, others swing, while a half-dozen of their peers are bunched up on the slide. Journey Orebaugh, a 6-year-old in an off-white princess dress, is playing family. “You just get a bunch of people and just act like who you want to be,” she says. Journey likes to play the mom. But in one sense, recess at Eagle Mountain is different. Journey gets more opportunities to role-play than many of her peers, because recess happens a lot here — four times a day, 15 minutes a pop for kindergartners and first-graders. That’s much more time on the playground than most public school kids get in the U.S. Over the past couple of decades, trends show schools have cut recess time to make room for tests and test prep.”(more)