Remember elementary school? Writing cursive, learning basic algebra, phonics, and of course recess. A half-hour or longer period of rest, relaxation, and play, mandated for all students.
As a college student, the transition from mandated playtime to the expectation to sit still in class has been challenging. I yearn for the time when we used to explode from our desks and run screaming out the classroom doors, into the lawless land known as the playground. The playground was where rivalries developed, friends were backstabbed, and new alliances were made. It didn’t matter which classroom you were from, the playground was the place where new bonds were forged.
When I aged out of elementary school, there was an emphasis on play being a frivolous activity. Playtime was actively discouraged since it was seen as a detriment to productivity. Imaginative thinking was replaced with rote learning. For a long time, I hated learning because I associated it with boredom. It was only after feeling the consequences of burnout that I learned play and learning go hand in hand.
There is much research on the benefits of play for children. Parents are encouraged to play with their children because it is important for childhood development. Fine motor skills, social skills, and emotional strength are all developed through play. Neglected children often struggle with growth in these areas. As we become adults, the importance of play does not decrease, but unfortunately, we don’t encourage leisure in adults. Dr. Deepti Kharkhanis, Chair of the Psychology program at Bellevue College, agrees, stating that play is important for adults because it encourages positive social interactions and stress relief. Unfortunately, there is a strong expectation for adults to be constantly productive, with many of us basing our self-worth on how much we produce. While it may seem that constant productivity would lead to better results, it unfortunately causes burnout.
I say we bring back recess for college students. I find it reprehensible that colleges mandate authoritarian structures for teaching (a topic for another article), but must we extend these archaic beliefs to leisure time? It is unfortunate that we force students from classroom to classroom, burden them with tedious homework, and then leave them not even an hour a day to relax. Playtime fosters the skills we want students to learn in the classroom, for instance, creative problem solving. It is counterintuitive to discourage students from engaging in play but at the same time expect a high standard of work from them.
Our current educational system forces students to spend hours mired in tedium and only encourages burnout. If a mandatory recess period were implemented in colleges, it would give students valuable time to unwind and limit the amount of busywork that could be assigned to them. Students would be guaranteed a set time in which they could talk to friends with different class schedules and even get a chance to meet new people on campus. Mandatory recess would set a social precedent that leisure is valuable and not an afterthought. Students who grow in such environments would be healthier on a holistic level and perhaps better equipped to handle life after college.
