Friday, November 1, 2013

Daylight Savings Time Is Terrible: Here's a Simple Plan to Fix It

Losing another hour of evening daylight isn't just annoying. It's an economically harmful policy with minimal energy savings.

ALLISON SCHRAGERNOV 1 2013, 10:45 AM ET

Daylight savings time ends Nov. 3, setting off an annual ritual where Americans (who don’t live in Arizona or Hawaii) and residents of 78 other countries including Canada (but not Saskatchewan), most of Europe, Australia and New Zealand turn their clocks back one hour. It’s a controversial practice that became popular in the 1970s with the intent of conserving energy. The fall time change feels particularly hard because we lose another hour of evening daylight, just as the days grow shorter. It also creates confusion because countries that observe daylight saving change their clocks on different days.

It would seem to be more efficient to do away with the practice altogether. The actual energy savings are minimal, if they exist at all. Frequent and uncoordinated time changes cause confusion, undermining economic efficiency. There’s evidence that regularly changing sleep cycles, associated with daylight saving, lowers productivity and increases heart attacks. Being out of sync with European time changes was projected to cost the airline industry $147 million a year in travel disruptions. But I propose we not only end Daylight Saving, but also take it one step further.

This year, Americans on Eastern Standard Time should set their clocks back one hour (like normal), Americans on Central and Rocky Mountain time do nothing, and Americans on Pacific time should set their clocks forward one hour. After that we won’t change our clocks again—no more daylight saving. This will result in just two time zones for the continental United States. The east and west coasts will only be one hour apart. Anyone who lives on one coast and does business with the other can imagine the uncountable benefits of living in a two-time-zone nation (excluding Alaska and Hawaii).

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Noble Professions

We wouldn’t think of going to a plumber to have a medical operation performed, or an electrician or an insurance salesman to have our annual physical. No, when it comes to medical care, we want to be sure that the physician attending to our most precious resource, our body, is licensed, skilled, operating with the proper tools in a clean and safe facility.

The same is true of a food operation. Just as we expect in our medical care, we should be operating our restaurants, markets and schools with the same seriousness and conscientiousness of a fine surgeon. It's all about the health of our customers. And just like a doctor, we need to take the necessary precautions at our job to ensure that customers leave our establishment as healthy or healthier than when they first walked through our door.

Let’s take a look at the parallels between 2 very different professions, and compare the seriousness and importance of proper procedures that a doctor uses in his/her job to that of a foodservice worker. How alike they really are, in many ways.

1) The facility

The first time you walk into a doctor’s office or hospital, you get an impression of the quality of care you will receive. The cleanliness of the floors, walls and examination tables, the friendliness of the nurses and support staff, spotless lab coats and uniforms, bright and cheerful lighting, and clean fresh atmosphere all help to communicate that. Are they equipped with state of the art technical equipment that can provide you with the medical tests that you need or are they more in the dark ages, with dingy lighting, tired worn surroundings and out-dated equipment?

A restaurant gives the same impression to a customer walking through the door for the first time, and first impressions are the most lasting ones. Your sanitation practices have never served you so well. Create a great impression by meticulously clean floors, properly stocked restrooms, lighting conditions that provide the ambience you want in your particular facility, employees with neat appearance, clean uniforms and attention to customers’ needs.

2) Tools

Both doctor and chef equally need the necessary tools to do their job right. Let’s look at the Tool kit that each of these professionals brings to work every day:

Doctor: Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) such as caps, gowns and gloves; scalpels and autoclave for sterilizing operating tools; handwashing sink; hand sanitizer; Biohazard kit with sponges and cloths to clean spills; sterile surfaces for holding tools; maintenance tools to clean and disinfect operating room afterwards; X-rays and medical records for reference

during operations

Chef: Hair restraints, chef coats, aprons, gloves, PPE (oven mitts, cut gloves, eyewear), sanitized knives and kitchen tools, handwashing sink, hand sanitizer, chemical sanitizer/automatic warewasher for cleaning kitchen equipment, biohazard kit for bodily accidents in dining room, color-coded equipment to prevent cross-contamination, mops and buckets/equipment for after hours cleaning, posters and visual aids for reference during food operations

3) Procedures

The doctor in the operating room is holding your life in his hands. Similarly, you are holding your customers’ health in the balance, with the foods that you serve and they put into their bodies. The principles of personal hygiene, cross-contamination and time and temperature controls cross over both of these professions.

In a medical setting, handwashing is critical before each patient visit or during hospital rounds, and a doctor wouldn’t even think of using bare hands to perform any medical procedure. In the kitchen, handwashing is also extremely important before starting work and any time hands are dirty, with extra protection from single use gloves for ready-to-eat foods.

A doctor must be sure that the equipment and tools he/she is using with patients are sterilized before use and in between patients. His/her workspace is also sterile, including the patient’s body itself, even before the knife touches the skin. A chef must also start with a clean work surface before food preparations, and all cutting boards, knives, pans and other tools must be clean and sanitized before use and after every task.

Taking temperatures of patients is also routine medical practice to be sure that body temperature is in normal range -elevated temperatures over 98.6° F indicate the patient may be battling an infection. Similarly, a foodservice worker taking temperatures of TCS foods during preparation, holding, storage and service is critical to be sure that foods are staying out of the temperature danger zone (41° F – 135° F [5˚C - 57˚C], according to 2009 US FDA Food Code) and bacterial growth is minimized at all times.3-501

Finally, hospital protocols should be followed at all times, just as Standard Operating Procedures should be in place as a good foundation in any foodservice operation. Proper methods for Cooking/Cooling/Reheating foods, Receiving, Storage, Personal hygiene, Reputable suppliers, Chemical usage, and methods for preventing cross-contamination and temperature abuse should guide establishments daily.

4) Training

In both the medical profession and the foodservice industry, training is the key to prolonged safety. Medical professionals not only receive extensive education but also pursue continuing education to keep up their credentials and stay current with new treatments and practices. You notice those diplomas hanging on the wall? They are comfort that you are in the company of a well trained professional. Their support staff, nurses, orderlies and administrative staff should also be proficient in their duties.

Similarly, the foodservice professional should be qualified in food safety procedures and keep their training current in many areas, including Food Manager Certification, allergen awareness, culinary techniques, at a minimum. And this training should continue as new regulations are implemented or good practices are adopted in the industry, perhaps training in HACCP, Food defense or Recalls. Training of all staff should continue as changes are made to the food code in your jurisdiction (FDA Food Code is updated every 4 years) or as employees, equipment and methods change in the workplace.

5) What can go wrong?

The risks of not following proper procedures can be disastrous in any profession. Whether it is a doctor or chef who is using unsafe equipment or tools, dangerous consequences can result. If a physical object is accidentally left inside a patient or carelessly contaminates a food product, it can sicken the individual. If liquids, blood, vomit or other bodily fluids are allowed to remain on floors after an accident in an operating room or a food facility, dangerous slips and falls can result.

Further, such spillage in an operating room can lead to hazardous pathogens spreading to surrounding areas and pose huge dangers to doctors, patients and attending staff. In the kitchen, spilled foods, grease and debris can also imbed into crevices of equipment and floors, a perfect breeding ground for flies, rodents, pathogens, biofilm and food contamination. Subsequent lawsuits, medical costs, media attention and patient/customer illness and dissatisfaction can escalate and be devastating to any business.

As food professionals, we need to take our jobs just as seriously as a physician. We wouldn’t want doctors to contaminate us with loads of bacteria as they are taking out our spleen. Just as you wouldn’t any chef to serve you old outdated chicken contaminated with dirty hands and a healthy dose of Salmonella, covered up with a sauce breeding Clostridium perfringens. Your customers trust that you are handling their foods with care, just as you put your trust in your physician. Keeping foods cold, datemarking and properly rotating them, cooking and cooling them to keep bacteria at safe levels are basic good practices.

We need to keep our foods well protected at every step in the flow of food, in kitchens stocked with proper tools and gloves, implementing handwashing, personal hygiene, temperature controls, cross-contamination prevention, equipment maintenance and sanitation. Your staff should be as well-trained as a medical professional, carrying out safe foodhandling procedures every day, so that customers are protected from the foods that they consume and enjoy at your establishments.

And just as people do with a revered family doctor, with whom they’ve developed a good relationship and stick with for life, your customers will refer you to their friends and relatives. They will look to you with respect, thanks and satisfaction, and be a devoted customer for life.

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

full story

HOW CHINA'S ONE-CHILD POLICY FORCED STARBUCKS TO RETHINK ITS BEIJING STORES

BRANDS EXPANDING IN CHINA CAN'T IGNORE THE IMPACT OF THE ONE-CHILD POLICY. LIZ MULLER OF STARBUCKS TALKS ABOUT A NEW BEIJING STORE THAT IS AS MUCH ABOUT CONNECTION AS IT IS CAFFEINE.

BY JACQUELINE DETWILER

The effects of China’s one-child policy are manifold. Studies show people raised under the program are less trusting, men are unable to find mates, and then there's the "4-2-1" phenomenon, where working young people must assume financial responsibility for themselves, their parents, and four grandparents. The policy has likely had the strongest impact on a nation’s demographics of any social initiative, save genocide, in history.

More than 30 years later, the one-child policy also raises an important question for brands looking to make inroads into the country: Is there something the young adult Chinese demographic is missing on account of growing up alone? And if there is such a thing, how can we provide it?

Liz Muller, the director of concept design for Starbucks, makes it her job to answer these sorts of questions. She’s the mind behind some of Starbucks’s most creative flagship stores. As the brand expands internationally, each of her far-flung creations aims to introduce customers in Europe and Asia to the Starbucks take on the subjects of coffee and service in a way that makes sense in their culture.

She has, for instance, replaced the brand’s homogenous retail stores with a friendly coffee-and-cookie bar in a former bank building in pastry-loving Amsterdam, and plans to help open Starbucks lounges aboard two intercity trains in rail-travel loving Switzerland, a first for the brand.

Her most recent completed projects are two flagships in Beijing: a coffee tribute store in the Kerry Centre meant to introduce home brewing methods to a well-traveled, affluent demographic, and a 24-hour store in Taikoo Li Sanlitun geared toward the young adults who the one-child policy left relatively companionless. Though the two stores are just a few miles apart, the differences are significant, and the Taikoo Li site is the one that caters specifically to those impacted by China’s infamous rule of one.

“A lot of these children have grown up in one-child families, they use our store as a connection of truly interacting with, I would say, their brothers and sisters that they don’t have,” says Muller. “Unless you want to sit in a restaurant or a bar, there is nothing in that area [around Taikoo Li] that truly gives you a safe environment where you can have a meeting or chat, or get together with friends.”

The solution, says Muller, was to create a store that would cater to a late-night crowd and have a “lounge feel,” with lower softer seating where strangers could sit across from each other and potentially make friends. There would be live music on the second floor on weekends, which the company would call Club 1971, in honor of Starbucks’ inaugural year. “It has lower lighting, and a beautiful mood, a stage for you to truly engage,” she says. “What we found is that most everybody is normally on their iPad or theiriPhone, but what happens there is they put them down and they truly connect. They take pictures with each other. I think it is interesting because if you think of how they are raised, they might not have extended family that we all have, so they truly take the time to connect with people.”

The challenge, for Muller, was in maintaining the bar’s open feel all day long. Taikoo Li, which is surrounded by gardens and event space, is a beautiful site, she says, but as a glass box with few walls, the store itself was a difficult place to establish an environment where people felt comfortable looking out during the day, but also would be enticed to come in once night fell and all eyes were on the lighted lounge. Warm tones were key here, and Muller reports that the evening hours when the store gleams like a beacon in the dark are the most popular for business. “At this time, the response has been overwhelming,” she says. "People are just in awe."

Taikoo Li has been so successful that she was called back in to add more seats, presumably for all the single people looking to connect.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

How Crummy, Run-Down Housing Harms the Children Who Live in It

The housing crisis sounded all kinds of alarms for policymakers and the public about what happens when families can't afford their homes, or when they lose the stability that a secure home provides. We've heard about the effects of foreclosures on neighborhoods, the weight ofhousing stress on human health, the impact of lost equity on household wealth for huge portions of the U.S. population.

But something has been absent in all this talk about how unstable housing in any form affects families.

"The attention raised by the mortgage crisis and the foreclosure crisis really missed a lot of central aspects of housing that are likely to be important for children," says Rebekah Levine Coley, a professor in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College.

Notably, it's the quality of housing – the presence of peeling paint or cockroaches, broken appliances or damaged walls – that most strongly predicts a child's well-being and development.

Coley and colleagues from Tufts University identified this inresearch recently published in the journal Developmental Psychology. They looked at data on 2,400 low-income children in Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio, as part of a six-year longitudinal study that had been designed to track child development within poor families in the years after welfare reform. Over that time, 1999-2005, researchers (Coley was one of the original investigators) collected all kinds of data on the environments those families lived in, as well as the behavioral, emotional and cognitive development of the children.

In retrospect, that study amassed precisely the kind of data you'd need to understand how housing itself – not the social environment of a "family home" – might influence children. The study recorded whether a home was rented or owned, or rented through public housing or subsidies, how affordable it was relative to a family's income, how often families moved from house to house, and the quality of the property. Researchers looked for working refrigerators, holes in the wall, rodents, functioning heat and hot water, adequate light and fresh air – many of them signs of poor-quality housing outside of a family's control. All of the families were low-income, but some had considerably more run-down housing than others.

Controlling for other factors like a parent's employment status and income, Coley and her co-authors concluded that the poor quality of housing more strongly and consistently predicted a child's well-being than all of those other housing characteristics (including whether the home was considered "affordable" to the parents or not). Children in more derelict housing had lower average reading and math skills. They had more emotional and behavioral problems. And as families moved over time into worse housing, the children functioned less well, too.

It's easy to suspect correlation here instead of causation, but the study is compelling with its long time frame and broad sample.

"One of the concerns is that parents who don’t have the skills or the resources or the energy to find and maintain an affordable or a high-quality home might also be parents who have some other characteristics," Coley says. "They might be more likely to be unemployed or have mental health problems, or poor parenting practices. But we tried to parse out what part of this is due to the housing itself versus what was due to all of these other characteristics happening in families."

Coley suspects that crummy housing has an impact on children through the behavior of their parents. A hole in the wall or a broken boiler may induce stress in parents or cause them mental health problems, further hamstringing their ability to parent children and maintain regular family activities. It's also possible – although this study can't address this – that a run-down home environment (picture cockroaches and peeling lead paint) might have direct impacts on a child's health, influencing his or her development in other ways.

We often celebrate the value for children of a safe and comfortable home, a place that's a refuge from other problems. This study suggests that we may be ignoring the costs of the opposite scenario: when it is the home itself that's the problem.

In Coley's view, this means that we should be worrying as much – if not more – about the quality of housing as its affordability. Low-income children in high-crime neighborhoods, she adds, are also likely to spend considerably more time in their homes than are middle-class suburban children who have safe playgrounds, schools and after-school activities. In other words, children vulnerable to the worst housing also tend to spend the most time in it.

In the concrete, this research also implies that this situation – and many others like it – may be an even bigger problem than we realiz

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Nixing Recess: The Silly, Alarmingly Popular Way to Punish Kids

Three-quarters of principals say that taking away recess is part of their discipline plan. Why this is a bad idea—and what schools should do instead.

SIGRID ANDERSON CORDELLOCT 23 2013, 7:31 AM ET

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION] — Kathryn Haake/AP Photo

When Kathy Lauer-Williams’s son was in elementary school in Allentown, Pennsylvania, he would often lose recess as a punishment for forgetting his homework or a signature on a form. Troubled by the teacher’s habit of taking away recess, Lauer-Williams wrote about it on her blog and spoke to other parents. She found that she was not the only parent questioning this practice. Despite her attempts to talk to the school, she says nothing has changed.
Taking away recess has become a common practice among teachers trying to rein in unruly students. A study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that 77 percent of school principals reported taking away recess as a punishment, while a 2006 study found 81.5 percent of schools allowed students to be excluded from recess. While teachers may think taking away recess is an effective way to punish students for bad behavior, recess plays an important role in children’s development. Research shows the value of recess: It gives kids a much-needed break from intense studying, teaches them social skills, encourages them to use their imagination, and allows them to exercise.

So why is this practice so prevalent? In her work mentoring teachers, Olga Jarrett, an Associate Professor in the College of Education at Georgia State University often hears teachers express frustration and a sense that they have few other options for controlling misbehavior in their classrooms. At one event where she discussed the importance of recess, a group of teachers from the same school asked, “What do we do? We make lunch silent, we keep them in at recess as punishment. What else do we do?” This feeling that teachers have few options for maintaining discipline in their classrooms is backed up by online discussion groups, such as pro-teacher, where educators debate approaches to classroom management.
State and district-level policy can also guide a teacher’s decision to keep students in from recess. In documentation for its statewide implementation of a program called Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports, a disciplinary framework adopted by many states, Michigan’s Department of Education lists taking away five minutes of recess time as a possible disciplinary option. Chris McEvoy, a behavior support consultant who co-authored the policy, explains that “It is essentially a brief time-out. It allows the student to reflect on their behavior and quickly get back on track. “ Withholding recess, notes McEvoy, “in a PBIS school would never be done in isolation from other positive (teaching and positive acknowledgments) classroom management strategies.” On the other hand, Steve Goodman, co-author of the policy and director of Michigan's Integrated Behavior and Learning Support Initiative, describes taking away recess as “a process where the student may ‘owe’ time from recess” because of negative behavior during class time. The question remains, however, whether recess is the appropriate place for educators to be looking to make up that time.
When it comes to instituting recess, state-level policies like those in Michigan matter. A study published in JAMA Pediatrics found that children are most likely to get recess if state laws require it or if districts have a policy encouraging it. The National Association of State Boards of Education lists states with policies encouraging or requiring recess, and slightly less than half have such policies in place. Whether or not these policies are enforced is a separate question, and in some cases the policies appear contradictory. For example, Michigan’s State Board of Education has also issued a Model Policy on Quality Physical Education and Physical Activity in Schools recommending that “physical activity, including recess, not be denied or used for disciplinary reasons, or to make up lessons or class work.” As of yet, this policy does not appear to be reflected in the state’s discipline guidelines, and it would be understandable if both educators and parents were confused about what is or is not acceptable. Nationally, recess policies reflect a patchwork of individual and state practices.
When Recess Goes, What Else Do We Lose?
An increasing number of organizations are speaking out against the practice of withholding recess. In its recent statement on the “crucial role of recess,” the American Academy of Pediatrics emphasizes that recess should not be taken away for disciplinary or punitive reasons. Likewise, the National Association for Sport and Physical Education outlines in a position statement that “students should not be denied recess so that they can complete class work or as a means of punishment.” Furthermore, most researchers advise against replacing recess with physical education classes: PE is a class, they argue, whereas recess is an opportunity for social interaction and creativity.
Recess has the added benefit of leading to a more effective learning environment in the classroom. Research has shown that taking away recess does not make classroom behavior any better, and, in fact, it might make things worse in the case of students who are misbehaving because of an excess of energy or boredom. In a study of fourth graders, Jarrett and her colleagues found that students were less fidgety and more on-task if they had recess. As Jarrett explains, “a lot of the kids deprived of recess are kids with high activity levels … so you make them sit it out and not be active? It doesn’t make sense as a useful punishment.” Likewise, as Jarrett’s study revealed, kids with ADHD are particularly likely to benefit from recess.
Sheila Kahrs, principal of the Haymon-Morris Middle School in Winder, GA, asserts that at her school, “Nobody can be punished in that way. Bad, good, or indifferent, they get recess. I say to the teachers, look, the worse a kid is that day, the more they need it.” In Kahrs’s view, the practice of punishing kids for bad behavior by making them sit out part or all of recess can have the negative effect of making the problem worse when kids lose the opportunity to take a break and work off excess energy.
Tahnee Muhammad, a New Haven, Connecticut, parent who fought to make recess mandatory in her district, suggests an additional benefit to recess: a more “positive perception of school.” When her son’s school eliminated recess, he began to express unhappiness about going to school. According to Mohammad, “He just was not liking it anymore. In the beginning. I didn’t know what it was. I thought he was being bullied. [He] wouldn’t say, just, I hate school. I asked what about your teacher? What are the tears coming from? What are you not liking? And he replied, ‘We don’t have recess!’”

Alternatives for Discipline
It’s fair to ask how teachers are expected to maintain discipline in their classrooms. Many schools have attempted to change the focus from punishment to positive discipline. At Haymon-Morris, Kahrs has long used a positive discipline approach that rewards kids for coming to school ready to learn rather than focusing entirely on discipline problems. In her school, they acknowledge positive behavior using stamp cards that accrue points toward a fun Friday. Positive discipline is one of the central tenets of the Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports program, although it leaves the details of school policies up to individual states, districts, and schools.
Another way of looking at the issue is to focus on the learning that can come about through corrective measures. Instead of withholding recess for disciplinary issues in the classroom, for example, Jarrett recommends that consequences should be logically connected to behavior. As Jarrett explains, “I think that teachers need to look for natural consequences of behaviors. If you’re rude to somebody, you apologize. If you don’t get along with the kids in your group, the teacher should arrange your seating […]. There are other things that are appropriate for dealing with misbehavior.”
Similarly, the Responsive Classroom—an approach to elementary education that focuses on both pedagogy and encouraging a positive school atmosphere—recommends “logical consequences” for misbehavior. According to Mike Anderson, a program developer for Responsive Classroom, their approach distinguishes between logical consequences and punishments. Logical consequences are directly tied to the behavior and are aimed at teaching students the skills to channel their energy in more productive ways. In addition to being directly tied to specific instances of misbehavior, logical consequences should be respectful of both the student and the teacher and developmentally appropriate. So, a logical consequence for making a mess in the cafeteria might be to clean up that mess, but not to clean the entire cafeteria. As Anderson points out, it would make sense to have a logical consequence related to recess if the misbehavior is related to recess. For example, if a student has been pushing other kids on the playground, that student might miss recess for a few days in order to meet with a school counselor to talk about safe behavior on the playground. On the other hand, punishments, in Anderson’s view, are less effective in the long-term because they are not directly related to the misbehavior and often aim to humiliate or shame the student.
While the Responsive Classroom offers concrete suggestions for ways to teach students more positive behavior, it is not just about classroom management, but also about making learning more engaging for students. As Anderson points out, “If students don’t enjoy what they’re doing, they’ll misbehave.”
The non-profit Playworks offers another approach to school-wide positive discipline through a structured recess program led by trained coaches. Playworks coaches organize games on the playground and spend considerable time establishing community standards, like treating each other with respect and having, which they encourage through positive reinforcement like high fives. They also use seemingly simple strategies for teaching kids to settle disputes. For example, a key practice in the Playworks recess is the use of rock-paper-scissors to manage conflict. Rather than losing playtime by arguing over issues like who got there first, students are encouraged to play rock-paper-scissors to determine a “winner” and then move on. Angela Rogensues, program director for Playworks in Detroit, says that they tell the kids, “the more time we argue, the less time we have to play.”
I had an opportunity to see a Playworks recess, and the rock-paper-scissors approach, in action when I visited the Roosevelt School in Ferndale, MI. At one point in the 20-minute recess period, two kids were arguing over a foursquare spot and Angela went over to see what was going on. After hearing that they both claimed the same spot, she suggested that they try rock-paper-scissors. The game led to an immediate de-escalation of tensions, with one child returning to line and the other staying in the square. According to Rogensues, the advantage of this approach is that arguments on the playground get settled quickly, rather than being taken back into the classroom after recess.
The program also integrates play sessions into class time once every two weeks, This offers another opportunity to focus on relevant behavior issues. For example, if a class is having a hard time getting along, the Playworks coach might have them engage in cooperative games.
One other key element to Playworks’s approach to encouraging positive discipline is the junior coach program. Every year each school identifies about a dozen older kids to be junior coaches who will help lead recess and encourage play. Considerable time is spent supporting the junior coaches and helping them to be strong leaders and examples for their peers. In choosing junior coaches, the focus is on choosing both children who are natural leaders and those who may not always exhibit positive behavior. By giving those kids a chance to be leaders, Playworks attempts to channel their energy and behavior in a more productive way.
According to Playworks’ founder, Jill Vialet, “Playworks contributes to a healthy school climate - one in which kids are engaged and feel as though they have choice and voice and belong. A healthy school climate is simply a more effective place to teach and learn.”
For Dina Rocheleau, principal of the Roosevelt School in Ferndale, Michigan, Playworks has worked. According to Rocheleau, there have been no disciplinary referrals from recess since Playworks came to the school two years ago. Before that, she was spending much of her time managing disciplinary issues that were arising on the playground. “And the families love it,” she adds.
There are detractors who say that coached recess programs like Playworks are too managed. Olga Jarrett, for instance, expressed “mixed feelings” about such programs because one of the crucial elements that makes recess a learning opportunity is the ability to organize one’s own activities at recess time. Although Playworks allows children to decide what games to participate in or whether to participate at all, she fears that they might miss some of the “cultural transmission” that happens in less structured recess environments.
The Counter Movement: A Resurgence of Recess
Just as many schools are cutting back on recess, and others are leaving it up to individual teachers’ discretion, there is a growing movement to make sure that all children have an opportunity for play during the school day.
In addition to schools partnering with programs like Playworks to ensure that recess is productive at their school, administrators like Sheila Kahrs are taking the lead in re-establishing recess. Seeing recess as a necessary break for all students, Kahrs took the unusual step of introducing recess into her middle school. Kahrs insists on it: “This works for us. This is a non-negotiable of mine.” One reason that Kahrs feels so strongly about the importance of recess at her school is that she fears that many kids are playing video games or watching television after they get home rather than going outside, unless they are in an organized sport. Recess is particularly important, she says, because “I don’t think the children go out when they go home.”
The push for recess has also come from parents: Parents in Chicago successfully lobbied to reintroduce recess in area schools, making it a policy that children are not allowed to have recess withheld for disciplinary reasons. Most recently, parents in New Haven worked with their district to institute a mandatory recess policy for all students, again stipulating that withholding recess is not a disciplinary option.
However, even when there are state laws, there is no guarantee that recess will happen. The push for recess in New Haven was facilitated by a recently passed Connecticut state law requiring recess in all public elementary schools, but individual districts moved slowly to make changes. Even with support from teachers, administrators, and the Board of Education, making recess mandatory was hard work in New Haven, according to Eliza Halsey who joined Tahnee Muhammad and other parents to push for the policy.
According to Halsey, the most important thing that parents can do in advocating for recess is to organize and be prepared for hard work, especially in getting the word out to other parents. Halsey says, “It’s not as easy as saying that our kids should have recess and making it happen”
The good news, Halsey points out, is that districts are looking for parent involvement, and this is one area where parents can advocate for their kids. For the New Haven parents group, it’s not just about recess, but putting recess and education in the context of children’s development, beginning with “small, winnable campaigns.”
Jarrett agrees: “Parents can make a difference […] meeting with the teacher. If that doesn’t help, meet with the principal. Talk about the effect on the home when the child has no break. Many parents say their kids are wild when they get home. Raising it in a respectful way, realizing […] that teachers have challenges. There have to be consequences. Parents and teachers can work together.”
As the policy changes in New Haven and Chicago show, it requires both parents and educators to come together to bring everyday practices into line with what we know about how recess benefits our kids.

DailyGabe