Students should be allowed to do homework during recess

My thanks to Dakota for his acceptance. This debate will hopefully enlighten readers on a topic that they probably, like me, have not really considered deeply before. In this round I’ll lay out what I see as the purpose and value of recess, and from there argue why activities ought not to be banned, like homework. Recess – Why do we have it? What is it’s value? Students are legally required to attend school. [1] School is society’s institution for teaching. What a school ought to try and achieve is subjective to a point, but I’m sure Con will agree that we’re aiming to produce capable, moral citizens for society. To this end, we have recess. The consumption of food is beneficial for educational purposes as energy is replenished, nutritional requirements are satisfied etc. Without eating, drinking and the like school performance would drop. Of course, we don’t just have a 15 minute lunch, we have recess. Recess is a tool that is effective at fostering social interaction, developing friendships and the like; building friendships is not just ‘fun’ – it’s part of developing capable citizens who know how to interact properly and understand the social consequences of their actions. Recess can also be used to increase fitness (as Con will likely argue), and as I will argue, lighten the homework load at home (meaning, more time with family) , allow development of hobbies, say chess, and so forth. These are crucial benefits. Obviously though Con will question why these other things ought to be allowed. He himself advocates these things potentially in the form of a second recess. That’s outside this debate’s scope – recess is a set amount of time, and the structure fairly rigid. As an aside though, it is a fascinating issue as to what amount of time should be allowed for recess – in Sendai, Japan approximately 15% of the day is spent in recess, with every lesson followed by a 10 or 15 minute recess. In Chicago children had 5% of the day allocated to recess. [2] I would strongly recommend the article for anybody interested on the subject, and other educational matters. The point though is that we’re working with a set amount of time for recess, so to mandate certain activities is to come at the expense of recess. This brings up a poignant point – why is recess more effective than forced instruction for some things? Freedom Above I outlined the benefits of recess – Social interaction, friendships are formed etc. Undoubtedly, this can occur in the classroom, but it’s not as common, nor the primary purpose. To be sure, educational benefits can be derived from efficient teamwork derived from friendship, but this is not normally the case. There’s a rigid set of rules. Recess is an escape from that – it’s a block of free time. Con sees an idyllic situation where ‘play’ occurs and is more fun than fitness classes and the like. Of course ‘play’ is generally more fun – you get eagerness to participate in the activity, competitive and capable players etc. This fosters positive relationships. Freedom, the ability to do this and choose things willingly is critical to this. Con’s plan is to make this idyllic situation mandatory, which is self-defeating. The reason this situations exists is because people choose to use their free time effectively. By eliminating that choice we revert back to a model of forced choices, forced instruction. The value of recess is in being a break from educational constraints, not simply being another type of constraint. Is the above all bluff and bluster? No. Force those who’d rather do other things to participate in a game and they will sour it – they won’t try hard, they’ll make a space congestive etc. These people will also more likely become cynical and frustrated. These people would do much better to choose their own activity, find others who like that activity, and form strong social bonds with these people. These bonds are stronger, and more positive, than those formed by shared dislike of forced physical activity. To give an example, myself and a friend of mine originally met in a day set aside for ranking chess teams. This day ran into lunch (more later on the fact that many extracurricular activities hold meetings during recess). Since that day I’ve spent many, many hours in the library at lunch playing chess with my friend. Our work made our school’s chess team get it’s best result in 50 years, formed social relationships between various years via their interest in chess and so forth. However, our friendship began to extend beyond chess and into other activities – we’re now both active members on this site. This would not have happened had we been doing forced physical activity – we are in different years and would not have associated originally under Con’s proposal. Is my friend unfit? No, he’s the second fastest medium distance runner in his grade, the best swimmer etc. Am I unfit? No. I’m the 4th fastest sprinter in my year, one of the best runners and so forth. A free environment makes scenarios like the above occur. Banning activities like homework is the start of a slippery slope to a restrictive environment. Recess is beneficial because it’s free time. Opportunity Cost Homework not done at one point is merely homework delayed for later. If a student believes it’s more productive to do homework at school then he should. If the student derives more happiness at home than at school then is it the school’s place to force the student to pursue the course of action which results in less happiness? The answer is no. Enforcement It’s a rather difficult thing to stop a student doing his homework during recess – the typical punishments are rather useless. Detention? The student will continue with his homework then. Force him to accompany the supervising teacher? That won’t accomplish any of Con’s goals, and will just force the student to do homework later, taking away from time with their family. Without a model of enforcing the proposed policy it’s pointless to disallow homework – it’s a mere waste of resources to prevent people doing homework. Physical Activity I’ve touched on this earlier, but why is physical activity better at school? My PE classes this year have not improved my fitness. School sport has done so for me, but that’s because I chose one of the few sports that actually does something at school. My point? One can push oneself quite hard at home, yet lounge at school, but homework is forced to take away from home time (as an aside, I’m also doing a debate about putting homework in school time and lengthening the school day which would render this debate moot...) . Granted the pressure of peers is perhaps the very best motivator to push oneself, but this already occurs. People are pushing themself given freedom to do so. The people doing homework at lunch, wasting time on frivolities (homework is not one of these things) are unlikely to accept the challenge of their peers head on. Conclusion Recess works so well because it’s free time that isn’t geared towards any specific activity. Con’s proposal eats away at this strength. Also, there is the opportunity cost related with doing homework at home. Physical fitness, the very pillar of Con’s case, also falls under this to a point. Finally, the logistics of enforcing such a policy are problematic to say the least. I look forward to Con’s arguments. Sources 1- http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au... 2- http://www.chicagomag.com...