Sal Khan

Most of you are likely familiar with Khan Academy. Khan Academy is an online tutorial program, offering support in Math and other subjects. According to Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy, he developed the website after determining, through tutoring his family members in math, that educators are limited by time and the educational system to meet the individual needs of the students in their classrooms. At first, he created his online learning platform so his family could access his math tutorials when he was not in town. He eventually expanded the endeavor and opened access to anyone with an internet connection. In his words he wants “a world class education for anyone, anywhere.” Khan Academy is now used in many classrooms as an additional support for students to either access during class or from home.

Since going worldwide, Sal Khan conjectured that because of his success in tutoring through Khan Academy, maybe his ideas would also work in a brick and mortar school. This led to the creation of the Khan Lab School in Mountain View, California. Originally, the Lab School focused on online learning. They soon discovered, however, that the key impact on student learning is the teacher. With this understanding they rethought their program model and brought in teachers to facilitate student learning. Once they shifted the model, they saw positive outcomes for students. This is a very important point to note.

A couple of additional things to know about the Lab School – First, it is a private school with a large price tag to attend. Second, the Lab School serves a highly affluent community, not only because of the high price of tuition, but also because it serves the families in Silicon Valley. This second element calls into question the efficacy of the program. In its current iteration, it fails to serve our most challenging students. It is easy to prove a program works when it is implemented in an area and with students who guarantee success. I, personally, would love for Mr. Khan, to take this idea and implement it in the most challenging school in San Francisco or Oakland to really test the efficacy of the program. It is only in our most challenging environments that we can truly see how an innovative program works.

With all of my skepticism, there is one particular aspect of the Khan Lab School which I believe would benefit our most underserved students, and with careful planning, could be implemented in our public schools – the Khan Lab grading system. It is unique and non-punitive. What Khan Lab School has done is remove grade levels and the standard letter-grade system, instead focusing on mastery and independence levels.

Rather than assign students to a grade-level based on their age, students demonstrate mastery of content. Students are provided a rubric through which they must show ability in both knowledge and skill, according to a specific standard of learning. Students can assess mastery whenever they and their teachers determine they are ready. This means that if a study is at a second grade reading level, but fifth grade math, they are able to study both subjects at their mastery levels. This provides students a flexible timeline through which they may master content at an appropriate rate for their individual needs and teachers are better able to differentiate instruction for each of their students.

A student’s independence level determines how much autonomy s/he has in learning. Independence is also measured on a rubric and assessed when both the student and teacher deem the student is ready. Khan Lab School calls student schedules a “playlist.” Students have certain classes assigned to them based on their mastery, but then there are several spaces left open for students themselves to determine their classes for the week. In their first year at the Lab School there are no open spaces in a student’s “playlists.” As the student moves up independence levels, more spaces open for the student to control her/his trajectory through school. This is extremely empowering, as students are learning to be self-starters, that they have agency, how to advocate for themselves and take control of their learning and their futures.

Group of Friends Smiling

I believe this way of rethinking grades and grade levels would be powerful for all students, especially our most underserved. Imagine implementing a grade system that honors students’ abilities, encourages and teaches independence, and creates a growth mindset in students by developing a focus on their assets, rather than on their deficits. Now imagine a system in which thought leaders, like Sal Khan, endeavored to implement their innovations not in an exclusive school, but in a school accessible to all students, a public school. Students of all backgrounds and abilities would be empowered. Just imagine…

Has your district and/or school been creative with grading students? What are your thoughts on the Khan Lab School mastery and independence levels? Can we make something like this work in our public schools? Why? Share your thoughts and opinions in a comment below. Let’s start the conversation.

Physical touch between sixth graders is not uncommon – they’re all over each other, and mostly in a friendly, playful way. I recently instituted a “one person per chair” rule in my classroom, as a trend towards seat-sharing started taking root. Some of these instances were clearly flirtatious, but more often they were between friends, and much harder to classify. Early middle school is a lot like early elementary developmentally – they’re handsy, affectionate, full of emotions.  

But touch gets complicated in and out of the classroom, and the #metoo movement has brought up countless discussions about the nuances of consent. How do I teach students, particularly boys, about responsible, caring ways to interact physically with others?

Last week I heard a commotion: my 8th grade Teaching Assistant was demanding that a student – let’s call him “Sam” – apologize to a nearby female student, “Elena.”  He had pulled her hair, and my T.A. was reacting loudly and vehemently, while Elena walked away from the situation. Not surprisingly, this all happened right as the bell rang. I talked with my T.A. to learn what they witnessed, and I talked with Sam privately (in the hall during class) the next day. He said they were just playing around, that Elena didn’t mind. “How do you know she didn’t mind?” I asked. His response: “We’re friends.”

I tried, strategically, to word my response in a way that didn’t put him in a defensive position that would shut down the possibility for learning. “Sam, I’ve known you for a few months, and I’ve seen you be a great friend. But even if you mean something playfully, it might feel like a violation of personal space to someone else.” He agreed, promised to talk with Elena, moved on. My T.A. was satisfied that I took it seriously.

But then, a few days later, I noticed Sam tickling a male student at his table. This time I got more to the point: “Sam, did you ask for his consent before touching him?” The other student giggled and said, “It’s ok – we’re friends!” I snapped to my senses and pointed out that tickling doesn’t belong in a classroom anyway. They were both smiling and participating – does that count as consent?

In cases of sexual touch, Washington State law is clear around Standards of Conduct for Students: “…consent must be clear, knowing, and voluntary. Anything less is equivalent to a ‘no’…Consent is active; silence or passivity is not consent.”

The wording leaves no room for nuance, and rightly so: anything short of an explicit “yes” is equivalent to non-consent. As early adolescents explore all kinds of touch, I’m struggling to help shape students that won’t be the next generation of sexual harassers…or worse. There are many opportunities for social development in the art classroom while students collaborate, share experiences from their lives, analyze artwork and consider bias and privilege. Social learning happens when they’re in a bad mood, and trying to share tape or scissors! As they interact and learn about the impact of their behaviors on others, how do I teach them to really listen when others are communicating boundaries? Sometimes boundaries are communicated with a smile, between “friends,” because the other person is so uncomfortable that it is too hard to say “no” with a serious tone. Or the social capital that would be lost with firm “no” keeps a girl silent.

In “Do You Think I’m Pretty: Consent as Community,” Reina Gattuso writes, “We tend to talk about consent ‘as an individual process,’ not asking ‘What kinds of power are operating in this situation?’ but only ‘Did you or did you not say yes?”

That resonates for me as key to my students’ understanding of respectful, consensual, GOOD touch now and in their futures: What kinds of power are operating in this situation? What power do you have in relation to the person you want to touch?

I don’t plan to center these questions as the learning target of a unit or lesson plan. But I will try to incorporate these questions as I help students navigate social relationships in class. The power relationship aspect is connected to our class discussions about cultural appropriation in art, and it’s the reason that a boy can’t pull a girl’s hair without her abundant, enthusiastic “yes.” Even then, he needs to watch for non-verbal cues that she wants him to stop. (And no, hair pulling doesn’t belong in class anyways.)

Even at age 12, there is an imbalance of power between boys and girls, and I won’t have boys assuming “yes” or even hearing “yes” when a girl means “no.” Social norms around consent continue to change. As our understanding grows regarding the vast ways that privilege and power shape daily life between us, I hope our boys get better and better at physical touch that empowers others. And stick to one person per seat in class!

As a teacher, I often hide.

Sometimes I hide from my students – during my plan period, I might sit far away from the door in a corner desk, just so I can get work done with no distractions.  Sometimes I hide from my colleagues – last year, my first year back in the classroom after five years, I taught in a part of the school removed from the main building, so it was easy to keep to myself, away from any drama and school gossip.  This physical isolation also meant few district visitors, drop ins from other staff members, and general glances in from adults in the hallways.  This year, in a new room, much closer to the action, I feel more connected to the culture of the school, but I also feel more exposed.

One of the values of my school is “visibility.”  We seek to make our students’ thinking visible (especially through the work of Ron Ritchhart and Project Zero’s Visible Thinking work) and we are working towards making our own work more visible to each other.  And this visibility often means vulnerability.  Throughout the day, even though I project a strong, outgoing personality, I often feel vulnerable in front of my students.  On some days, it takes all my energy to put myself together to make it through the day, and I work to hide that vulnerability from students.   So being visible and vulnerable in front my colleagues is another level of challenge.

For me, this visibility is part of my daily teaching life as I co-teach all my classes with an Exceptional Needs Specialist.  (See my post on co-teaching.)  I can’t hide, even when I want to.  I can’t hide the days when I’m inconsistent in disciplining students.   I can’t hide when I don’t have a full “bell to bell” lesson ready, and the kids are packing up early.   I can’t hide how few kids turn in homework assignments for the class.  I can’t hide when I resort to calling on the same students.   I can’t hide when I move on with the next skill, even when I know some students are still struggling.  I can’t hide when I am just in a bad mood and I don’t want to be there that day.

This commitment to visibility stepped up even more this year as our school has teachers take turns serving as an l Instructional Coach each Wednesday, coming into classes for short observations.  (See Hope Teague-Bowling’s post on this practice.) These new visitors bring a heightened sense of vulnerability.  My co-teacher knows my strengths and weaknesses already – but what are these new folks going to think?

During each of these visits, I felt embarrassed at different moments… why did that kid have to whisper about me to his friend during class?   Why did that one group of students show such reluctance in participating in our activity?  Why did a handful of kids pick this day to be so tired?

But for all my vulnerability and flushed red cheeks, I realize that all of this visibility makes me a more effective teacher.   

My co-teacher helps me recognize when I am inconsistent with discipline so that I can be more consistent.   She helps me diagnose why our homework return rate is low and problem solve so that we can improve it.  She takes over the heavy lifting on the days when I’m just not all there so that our students can continue to learn.

These Instructional Coaches script what the students is saying about me so that I can talk with my administrator about appropriate next steps.   They encourage me to see the reasons why a group might not want to participate so that I can engage them the next time.  They remind me of all the beauty in the groups that did participate so that I will be encouraged to continue and give the activity another try another day.   They remind me that their students are tired too so that I don’t feel so alone in the work.

And perhaps that‘s the reason for visibility.  To remind us that we are not alone.  The latter statement can be taken as a strong reminder that we have a duty to each other and our students to be effective educators.  We are all watching each other – we won’t let anyone slide.   And the statement can be taken as an encouragement that we are partners in the work and that many others are facing the same challenges.

There’s no need to hide.

Always, there is a moment in February where teaching gets a little tougher. The slog of January has worn us down. Kids have been cooped up under the grey skies of a long winter, thirsty for sunshine and fresh air. Me? I am just tired. Tired of the same old tricks, same old excuses, same old everything from the same old students. Rinse. Repeat. Stuck in the February Funk.

That is why, without fail, every Valentine’s Day, I sit my class in a circle for a major funk buster. Everyone has pencil and paper (boring Mrs. Cruden!) and writes their name at the top of their paper. We pass the papers around the circle, each person writing one positive AND specific thing they like about the person who’s name is at the top.

This is middle school. Groan. This is dumb! I don’t want to! Who cares? I am not doing it! Lame! Have you ever noticed everything at this age is exclamation points and question marks?

But I know the truth…

Continue reading →

All persuasive arguments begin with a story. That’s exactly what I was greeted with during my first “Teacher of the Year” school visit to Oakesdale elementary, middle and high school. Upon my arrival, Superintendent and Principal, Jake Dingman, immediately took me on a tour of the newly renovated building. I use the term, renovated, loosely, as the changes and additions are merely upgrades to an old foundation. You see, the Oakesdale school house was built in the early 1900’s and the last time the windows in the hallway were replaced was in 1956. They were single-pane, floor-to-ceiling, and in the last several years, they’d begun to leak during bouts of rain or snow. Over the years, the leaks worsened and students simply understood that they had to do their best to walk around the puddles flooding their hallways. Finally, one of the walls of windows collapsed altogether.

Superintendent Dingman and his staff worked for several years to pass a bond, to renovate the school, but to no avail. He informed me that rural folks don’t like to carry debt and bonds can last from 20 to 25 years. It wasn’t until Dingman tried for a capital levy that he was able to make some updates to the building. He was quite proud of the new walls and windows in the hallways. To most visitors these updates wouldn’t seem like much, but to Dingman and the students and teachers in Oakesdale, they meant freedom of movement and warmth during cold months.

The high school, on the same campus as the elementary-middle school, was built in 1936. There was a remodel in 1970, which covered up the beautiful wooden floors with tile squares, but little has been done since. The plumbing is on the outside of the walls, because the old pipes located beneath the building have corroded to the point of uselessness. Needless to say, both buildings are still in need of major renovation.

Beyond the actual buildings, Oakesdale also lacks technology. The district currently contracts with the prison to purchase computers. Inmates refurbish the units, the district buys them at a minimal cost, then they add additional RAM and programs to make them usable. With the passing of their most recent capital levy, along with additional renovations, they plan to purchase Chromebooks for the high school. The computer science teacher is very excited.

Oakesdale‘s story is not uncommon in rural areas. Often these towns struggle to pass levies and bonds because they not only count on the voters in their town, but also on voters in neighboring towns, who may not have children attending their school. Additionally, Dingman explained, the restrictions on the use of levy dollars through House Bill 2242 during the 2017 legislative session will also have a drastic impact on his school, as he may be faced with losing $300-400,000 due to levy equalization. This is particularly interesting, as equalization was intended to benefit small rural districts.

I think it’s important to briefly explain the differences between a bond, an enrichment levy, and a capital levy.

– A bond is a debt, meaning, the school district borrows money from investors and uses that money for capital projects, such as construction projects, renovations, or vehicle/equipment purchases. The bond is paid back over an extended period of time, usually over 20 to 25 years, with interest. It requires a vote by the people and must pass by 60%.
– An enrichment levy is funded through a property tax during the life of the levy, usually 3 years. It covers curriculum, programs, extracurricular activities, and anything else that falls under the broad umbrella of enrichment in a school district, but may not be used for capital assets, like building updates or maintenance. Many school districts have also used these funds to pay Paraeducators and some classroom teachers, but this is no longer allowed under HB 2242. This type of levy requires a vote by the people and must pass by 50%.
– A capital levy is also funded through a property tax during the life of the levy, usually 3 years. This levy covers acquiring, maintaining, or improving capital assets like a school building or technology solutions. It does not cover new construction or full renovations, as the funds are not adequate for such large projects. This type of levy also requires a vote by the people and must pass by 50%.

School funding is tricky. It is important to understand how legislation impacts all areas of our state, as each district has different needs. A bill, as passed by the legislature, may not do what it originally intended. We must remember that bills, even when passed, are not set in stone. I am looking forward to seeing the changes that come out of this legislative session in an effort to adjust HB 2242 to what the legislature intended, a true fix in providing funding equity for all districts.

While Oakesdale is a great example of the challenges small rural districts face in remodeling and renovating their schools and in acquiring adequate technology (including access to high-speed wifi), it is also a great example of the benefits of a small community. Class sizes are small, and teachers really know ALL of their students. There is even a community calendar that highlights important dates for every member of the community down to anniversaries and birthdays. Individualized instruction is attainable and implemented. It’s also clear that Principal Dingman and the eductors are proud of their school and love to be there. It’s super cool to see.

There are challenges and benefits to every size school district. Being Teacher of the Year has afforded me the opportunity to see them firsthand and to share them with others. What are some of the challenges and benefits in your district? Share them in a comment below.

This year I made the transition from teaching at a school with various high-needs populations, to a school with considerably lower Free and Reduced-Lunch numbers. The schools couldn’t feel less alike, and one of the greatest factors in this difference lies in the counseling offices. If we are serious about combating the opportunity gap, we need more counselors where it is needed most. It looks like Superintendent Reykdahl gets this, to some degree – he supported ESHB 2224, which passed, and will provide more funding for school counselors at the middle school level (mainly to comply with High School and Beyond Plan development for students).

I would wager that any teacher anywhere would support increases in school counseling positions (caveat: unless it means we have to give up another vital support for students). The top-priority goal of the 2013-18 strategic plan of the WA State Counseling Association is to “Pass legislation that establishes and funds lower ratios for ALL levels (elementary, middle & high school).”

As Seattle becomes less and less live-able for so many lower-income city residents, the allocation of counseling services amongst schools is especially critical, and needs to be redesigned.

My current middle school has almost 900 students and 3 full-time counselors – one for each house/grade (6th-8th grades). My old elementary school has a highly fluctuating number of students – more on that in a bit – which generally totals around 250-300 students (grades PreK-5th), and a half-time counselor. Looking strictly at enrollment numbers, this seems fair: the more students at a school, the more counselor FTE (percentage of full-time position), a school gets.

But not all students have equal need for a counselor. School counselors serve students in a number of capacities. Historically, they started as vocational advisors. ”The role of school counselors continued to develop in parallel to changes in education and society. As the momentous social issues of the 1960s arose, the field focused increasingly on the developmental, personal, and social issues of students and on cultural sensitivity. In the late 1960s and the 1970s, the work of counselors became more entwined with central school goals for student academic success (Gladding, 2012).”

Doesn’t it make sense to base the number of counselors (and percentage of full-time work), based on the school population’s individual needs, rather than enrollment numbers alone?

This is sort-of already happening at Seattle Public Schools. According to this year’s Weighted Staffing Standards, an elementary school receives a half-time position for EITHER a counselor, a social worker, or a head teacher IF it qualifies as “Focus or Priority (the school is not doing well by various metrics); has Greater than 50% poverty per OSPI; or has a Social/Emotional Behavior program.” Excellent! But don’t make us choose!

At my old school, the half-time counselor tried to the best of their well-qualified ability to meet students’ needs. But the school included all downtown housing shelters, and the school population includes a huge, and growing number of students whose lives are in major turmoil and transition. Students regularly show up at the main office with no records of any evaluations for special ed services required, and no information about their academic and behavioral needs (which are often plentiful, due to the trauma they were/are experiencing). They stay for a month, a quarter, sometimes more. Special funding pays for a Family Support Worker, who does incredible, on-the-ground work to coordinate families with various resources. But we chose the half-time counselor position over the Head Teacher position, which was very much needed, too. KUOW recently profiled the school, and brought up the need for more staff development around trauma-informed instructional practices. But when you have a number of students who didn’t sleep the night before because of noise in the shelter; who are not yet evaluated for special services, who are shutting down or starting conflicts; who don’t yet feel safe and trusting of the classroom…no amount of professional development will be enough. You need more trained professionals in a building to meet needs, particularly counselors.

At my new school, we have monthly house meetings, led by our counselors, to examine the academic, social/emotional, and physical needs of each student in the school. Students of concern are discussed by all of us, and we look for gaps in how we are serving them. Recently, one of my 6th graders shared with me that he hadn’t slept the night before. This happened again, and again. I started checking in with him a little more frequently; he was on my mind more than others. When he told me that he hadn’t slept for the three prior nights, had been walking around, and that his mom didn’t know, my concern grew. Was this enough to warrant a report of potential neglect?

I went to the 6th grade counselor for advice and help. She was on it immediately because she was available – she wasn’t stretched between hundreds of kids with similar concerns. She met with the student the next day, learned a lot more about his life, and determined that his home is stable and loving. We got some additional supports in place for him: a schedule change to include a study-skills class, some regular appointments with the counseling office. His vocational future is inseparable from his current well-being and his on-going academic success. Having counseling services to support him in all of this is invaluable.

I hope that the particular needs of students at a school shapes the way we fund counseling positions; it’s an issue of equity and teachers, alone, can’t meet the social-emotional needs of students.

I have been teaching middle school for a long time, but it never fails to make me smile when the following happens at a dinner party:

“What is it that you do?” asks a completely genuine person after they have told me of their grand office adventures.

“I teach (a smile starts to turn up the corner their lips)…. middle school” (smile transforms into awkward grimace). I am always intrigued by the shift in smile as it crosses the person’s face, I can’t help it. What is in that shift? A recalling of their own painful middle school years? A flash of sitting alone at lunch, head-gear on the table next to their institutional green tray? The aftereffects of what this unique age and stage represents in a person’s life fascinates me.

I also relish it because inevitably the person stumbles for words and then says something to the effect, “I could never do that.” One woman even exclaimed, “You must have a secret super human power!”

“Oh, I do!” I replied, “ I have no sense of smell!”

Fast-forward to 2018. My New Year’s Resolution is well underway. I have changed my diet drastically, eliminated my allergies and now… I can smell! I have lost my super human power and I am experiencing the world through a fresh set of nostrils.

Morning math class, Struggling Student, with serious math woes that compare nothing to his home-life woes, comes up for help. A wave of alcohol stench beats him to my desk. What?! This is middle school! He has been drinking? When? Where? Did he come to school this way? Even before he opens his mouth to speak, I have a mental plan to be in the office with this student and the principal. I help him find “X”. I eye him intensely as he ambles back (unsteadily?) to his desk.

I reach for the phone to call the principal. Sweet Girl, the class peach, walks up. Again, a cloud of alcohol fumes wafts towards me. What? Not Sweet Girl…not the class peach! What is going on? I stand up, walk around my desk and survey the room.

It is flu season and a big, green bottle of hand sanitizer has been placed by the sink. Yes! Whew! I do not have a class of prepubescent drunkards…I have a class of rightful germophobes!

And then it hits me. I had quickly jumped to judge Struggling Student as wayward child, while it took Sweet Girl’s presumed innocence to make me go upstream and seek the truth. My conscience slunk into my gut and sat down hard. I never wanted to know I could be that kind of teacher – the kind who falls prey to the Pygmalion Effect.

I clearly recall sitting in my teacher prep classes in college and learning about the Pygmalion Effect. This concept was presented by Dr. Rosenthal in the 1960s and holds that teachers’ expectations of students greatly influences their learning and behaviors. Dr. Rosenthal found that when teachers were told their students were on the brink of a massive intellectual blooming, their IQs did indeed rise over the course of the school year. The kicker? All were truly just average students. The Pygmalion Effect has been supported by numerous studies since it was first discovered.

I was a Pygmalion Effect participant. I was not happy, nor was I proud about that. How had I come to this? More importantly, how could I improve my thinking?

So many data points track our students year-to-year, classroom-to-classroom: Response to Intervention data, state test scores, in-district test scores, behavioral referrals and IEPs are just a few. Most are aligned to statewide policies that require teachers to review, analyze and adjust their instruction for improvement. I cannot help but wonder what effect this information has on a teacher’s subconscious mind as she participates in a thousand little interactions with each student over the course of the year. It is very easy to see how I could have come to this; how any teacher can come to this.

How can I improve? How can any teacher improve? In all honestly, I feel like I am a very fair and equitable teacher. I keep mental track of whom I have called on, I am careful in my praise to ensure students know they their efforts are meaningful. I am cognizant of each student’s abilities as I prepare materials that will push each child to the high end of their Zone of Proximal Development. And yet, those are all very conscious choices I am aware of. What about my unconscious actions? My implicit biases? Perhaps I “feel” like a fair and equitable teacher, but do I subconsciously think like one?

I am intrigued by the work of Dr. Pianta in this area. He experimented with an intensive behavioral training program which provided teachers with a whole new set of teaching responses surrounding student behavior. A quick review of his work gave me a series of, “Aha” moments. In essence, he found that teachers who undertook skills-based training to ameliorate unconscious biases actually increased student learning for all of their students. Many of my students come from deep poverty and face many struggles in their daily lives. Interactions with their teacher should not be one of them. Most of the time, I am keenly aware of this; my moment was an eye-opener for me. I realized I needed to do everything in my conscious AND unconscious power to ensure this to be true ALL the time; throughout all those thousands of little interactions that grow students’ belief about themselves.

My New Year’s Resolution has found me experiencing the world through a fresh, new set of nostrils. I have added to my resolution to view my students through a fresh, new set of eyes.

Two things you should know prior to reading this post: 1) I am writing through the lens of both a parent and a secondary educator (meaning I’m far from being an expert), and 2) my child has two amazing Kindergarten teachers. They are passionate and kind, they ensure my son loves school, and I can tell they care deeply about him. This is what every parent wants for their children. With these two admissions, I will proceed. I recently received two unsettling emails from my son’s teachers.

The first email was expected, but still a bit disappointing, as we all want to believe our children are little well-behaved geniuses. So, the hard truth is a bit difficult to swallow. According to the email, my son struggles at times to pay attention, he is easily distracted by his peers, and when he becomes unengaged he is often stubborn and unwilling to reengage, especially when the task is a difficult one. Lack of focus and inability to pay attention sometimes is exactly what I would expect of a five-year-old. He is still learning to be a student, his attention-span is growing, he loves to play with his friends, and he tends to shift focus from more difficult endeavors to easier ones. As far as the stubborn element, well, he is my son. I’ve learned these characteristics are fairly common among the Kindergarten-set, as evidenced by the discussions I’ve had at birthday parties with other parents. Also, in that same email, my son’s teachers had plenty of praise for him. He is helpful, kind, and a good friend, all awesome qualities, so I wasn’t particularly concerned.

The unsettling part came when I received the next email — about recess. In it, my son’s teachers outlined the new plan. After the winter break, they would be cutting lunch recess from 45 minutes to 30 minutes (which includes time to eat). The rationale for this decision was that per district recommendations, the first half of the year, Kindergartners are allotted an extra 15 minutes at lunch to meet their social-emotional needs, but that the time should be cut during the second half of the year. The reasoning for the cut was not explained, nor the implication that Kindergartners somehow no longer need the social-emotional support of a longer recess after only four months of school. The email went on to describe the practice they’d been doing as a class to prepare for the change. They’d implemented a “quiet lunch” in which the kids must be silent during the first 5 to 10 minutes, in order to focus on eating. They could then socialize for the remaining 5 minutes of lunch and 15 minutes of recess.

I’d also recently had some discussion with area elementary teachers about this topic. Along with being a parent and an educator, I am also a teacher leader. I recently took on the role of facilitator for the Washington Education Association’s National Board Teacher Leadership Academy. NBCTs in my region sign up and we work together to develop teacher leadership plans. Through our discussions I have learned a great deal about elementary school recess and have discovered that not all schools are implementing recess in the same ways. Anecdotally speaking, schools with fewer behavior issues have more recess, while schools with more behavior problems, have fewer minutes of recess.

This knowledge in combination with the change in my own child’s recess, got me thinking about the rationale for the cut in recess time. Many of us parents received similar reports from the teachers about inattention and disengagement. This discovery led to more discussion of the consequences for such behavior, which often meant removal of free-time and/or sitting with head down while the other students participated in an activity. It appears to me there is a logical disconnect. Students are losing social-time for poor behavior, but schools with statistically fewer discipline issues have more social-time. To me, that would suggest that increased social-time leads to more positive behaviors. This thought process warranted a bit of research.

I found several studies and articles supporting my hypothesis that increased recess decreases behavior issues in the classroom. One study in particular, by Theresa Phillippo at Hamline University, was a comprehensive overview of the impact of recess on behavior in Kindergarten. This researcher found “evidence that students are able to display more self-control when given more opportunities for movement during the day. Students were also more successful at showing soft skills such as cooperation, problem-solving, negotiation, compromising, and forming new friendships.” The author asserts that “a positive connection was found indicating that recess has a positive effect on classroom behavior. Results indicate that the long-term effects of providing recess may outweigh the short-term effects or reducing recess.”

I am not an expert, and an afternoon of research into recess does not qualify me to give advice to my son’s two amazing Kindergarten teachers. I do believe, though, that our schools need to think more deeply about their strict focus on seat-time and learning, especially in Kindergarten. Free play has such a positive impact on a child’s ability to connect and bond with others, problem-solve, be self-motivated, and is just plain good to get the wiggles out. These qualities and abilities are essential to being ready to learn.

I plan on visiting my school board and giving them my opinion about district policy concerning recess in Kindergarten. I will include the research I did today, but I’d love some additional resources to support my assertion that we should be adding minutes, not subtracting them from recess and that removal of free time is not an effective consequence for misbehavior, if anything it only makes the problem worse. Do you have anything to add? Let me know in the comments below. I can definitely use the help.