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The Washington Post
The
consequences of forcing young kids to sit too long in class
By Valerie Strauss
March 17
Robbi Giuliano teaches her fifth-grade class as they sit on yoga balls
at Westtown-Thornbury Elementary School in West Chester, Pa., in 2013.
(Matt Rourke/AP)
On July 8, 2014, I published a post titled “Why so many kids can’t sit
still in school today” by Angela Hanscom, a pediatric occupational
therapist. Ever since then, the idea has struck a chord with readers
around the world, still drawing a big audience along with some of the
follow-up pieces Hanscom wrote.
Why did that story have such resonance? Because standardized-test-based
school reform has overemphasized math and reading instruction and test
prep to the exclusion of other things, forcing young children to sit in
their chairs for hours at a time, often without a real break, even
though many kids aren’t ready to do that (if, indeed, young people of
any age should have to). The result, as Hanscom has written, is that
too many kids fidget, lose focus and act out, with some diagnosed with
attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder even when they do not have it.
To be sure, some schools have realized the damage this is doing to
children. One is Eagle Mountain Elementary School in Fort Worth, which
has started sending kids out for unstructured play four times a day as
part of a program it adopted called the LiiNK Project. The project
connects play and character development and is designed to bridge
academics with the social, emotional and physical well-being of
children.
Other schools, too, have started adding recess back into the school
day, but still too many limit it, and kids wind up suffering. In this
post, Hanscom takes a new look at the issue. She is the author of
“Balanced and Barefoot,” and the founder of TimberNook, a nature-based
development program designed to foster creativity and independent play
outdoors in the United States and in New Zealand.
By Angela Hanscom
This post just won’t sit still.
It originated on my blog here as what appeared to be a simple plea for
people to wake up to the dark realities of restricting children from
two things: movement and outdoor play. It got picked up and posted here
and here and elsewhere, and it keeps going viral even today, nearly
three years later.
Why does this message resonate with the hearts of so many?
It is a great indicator that there are many truths behind this article
— ones that we need to start paying attention to. And they remain the
same truths today: In order for children to learn, they must be able to
pay attention. In order to pay attention, we must let them move!
To do anything less, we cause harm. In fact, we’ve reached a tipping
point, where we are restricting children’s movement and play
experiences so much that we are witnessing the consequences from
toddlers to adolescence on this new generation of children. It is
alarming.
Teachers are reporting a significant decline in children’s ability to
pay attention in class to more reports of children falling out of their
seats to seemingly being “unable to keep their hands off each other”
during recess breaks in the past 10 years. At the same time, the number
of children needing occupational therapy services to treat these issues
is on the rise in a profound way.
The connection? When we continuously expect children to be seated for
hours everyday, whether that is sitting for lengthy stints of time in
the classroom, being driven from one event to the next, or doing
homework till it gets dark outside — children are often found in an
upright position with little sensory stimulation.
Children need to move much more than we realize. They need ample
opportunities to move their bodies in all different directions such as
going upside down, spinning in circles, rolling down hills or even
climbing trees. This movement causes fluid to move back and forth in
the inner ear, stimulating hair cells that develop the vestibular
(balance) sense. This sense is the unifying sense and supports all the
other senses.
Many children today are walking around with an underdeveloped
vestibular sense. It is the No. 1 issue we have to treat in the clinic.
A mature vestibular sense supports attention, emotional regulation, eye
muscle control, spatial awareness, and organization of the brain to
support learning! As you can imagine, if this isn’t developed and
maintained through plenty of daily movement opportunities, it is very,
very hard for children to learn.
This truth isn’t always easy to hear, especially when it requires
action.
“I never said this was going to be easy,” my mentor told me last year
when I was facing a particularly difficult trial with my work in
relation to TimberNook and getting children outdoors. He was right.
Doing what is right isn’t always the easiest path — but it is the right
path. It would be so much easier for us to just throw our hands up and
say, “this is impossible” or “we don’t have time for more play or
movement during the day,” or even “our hands are tied.”
I have news for you. If you ignore this message, things are only going
to get worse for the children. We will continue to see a decline in
children’s strength, coordination, balance, attention and
social-emotional skills.
We will likely see even more:
• Children struggling to sit still and pay attention;
• Children falling from their chairs;
• Children lacking the ability to regulate their activity levels and
their emotions;
• Children hitting with too much force when playing games like tag;
• Teachers losing faith in their profession;
• A continuous rise in sensory and motor deficits.
As adults, we often have the choice if we want to move or not. Children
do not have the same luxury. Even if they need to move, oftentimes they
are told to remain in their seat. And their 15 minutes of recess to
“play” within a six- to eight-hour school day is laughable. Young
brains depend on frequent movement experiences throughout the day in
order to learn, yet most schools fail to provide this essential, basic
need. And we wonder why they fidget in their seats or “act up.”
We have an obligation to defend our children’s right to move.
We cannot allow fears, worries, justifications, rules and regulations
to take over, to dominate the educational world and continue harming
our children on a global level.
It starts with you and me. May you gather your courage and start taking
the steps necessary to create this change our kids need. Here are a few
ideas to get you started:
• Bring the “post that won’t sit still” to your administrators. The
secret to creating change is to share the science behind movement and
outdoor play and how they impact child development. Most adults want
what is best for children. Once their eyes are opened to this truth,
they often desire to work toward that positive change.
• Get Creative. It is time to start thinking outside the box. What are
your objectives in the classroom? If it is to teach, then this is best
done through meaningful hands-on, whole-body learning experiences. Take
notes from Finland, and allow children to study the ecology of a river
by exploring an actual river. Take a walk to a local museum to learn
about history, science and the arts. Go outdoors to write poetry. Walk
outside to discuss complex topics with a partner. Go a step further and
create a committee just to brainstorm ways to get children moving more
while learning.
• Be the example. If you are a teacher, take the children outdoors and
tell other teachers about this and the changes you are seeing. If you
are a parent, invite other children over for the day and send them
outdoors! If you are an organization that gets kids outdoors, invite
the local press to come see what you are doing and get the word out
about the benefits. Being the example can be one of the most powerful
ways to create change.
• Unite. Schools could benefit immensely from creating outdoor
classrooms. Work with local organizations to help you plan for and fund
for this endeavor. Watch as the community comes together for this
greater purpose of getting children outdoors in meaningful learning
experiences. Parents can do the same at home. Find like-minded
individuals that value outdoor play and invite their children over to
play or go on outings such as camping trips or hikes. Get to know your
neighbors again to create a community that watches out for the children.
It is not enough to read these articles and say, “Yes, this is good.”
Will you listen?
Read this and other articles at The Washington Post
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