Students should be allowed to do homework during recess

My apologies to Dakota and readers, this was meant to be a 4, not 3, round debate. That is my fault entirely. This means that Con is allowed to bring in new evidence and arguments this round, otherwise he would have had no chance to rebut my R2 arguments! On students attending school, fair point, but not a critical matter. To arguments. The Importance of Exercise I completely concur with Con that exercise is of the highest importance, and that no Sicilian or Caro-Kann defence can help with health problems. I am the first to stress improving physical health. It is a travesty that so many children and teenagers are unfit, lethargic and often lazy; I am as eager as Con to improve the fitness of children. Eliminating recess is not the answer to this problem. The Value of Recess Recess has many benefits derived from it’s status as a form of unallocated free time; time for the students to relax, to do something of their own choice. These benefits are gone if the time becomes allocated, if it becomes supervised and choices narrow; Con advises this narrowing. In R2 (I understand that the rules prevented rebuttal... it is a shame I can’t counter Con’s next rebuttal) discussed these benefits extensively. The fostering of social friendships from interaction (which is more positive when the task done is enjoyed... which is derived from choosing a task!) , unwilling students congest space (most schools don’t have the facilities for every high school student to perform physical exercise simultaneously) and de-motivate others, the opportunity cost – homework not done at school is done at home, students enjoy an activity through the act of choosing it (ever lost interest in an activity because you had to do it?) etc. I discussed these benefits in depth in R2. Readers can examine that for a more detailed examination of my case. But I said that I’m eager to improve fitness, so shouldn’t I support the resolution? There are many important things in life. Con is completely right in saying that health is important. But that doesn’t mean, say, education isn’t important. We’d all laugh at the idea of replacing the entire school day with exercise, a ludicrous idea, right? Education and exercise are both important in life – we need both, we need a balance of things. So what else do we need? We need some free time – that free time is recess. To talk about 6-7 hours of limited options, directed work and no freedom. That has consequences. Productivity will rise by keeping recess – students benefit immensely from a touch of freedom. We need exercise and freedom. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, in this case robbing freedom for exercise, is not ideal. We need to retain both, lest we face adverse impacts as with the case of education and exercise, while implementing a host of policies to improve fitness. Examples: Using fitness classes more effectively Enable students to wear sports gear to school (In uniformed schools we wear our school uniform, then change, play sport, and change back; waste of 10 minutes) Put sports lessons back to back – less time spent setting up equipment Don’t spend an entire term on a dance unit with 90 students on 1 basketball court (a personal anecdote) ; physical education classes (as distinct from ‘sport’ as a separate school activity) ought to be more intense Logistical Policies Extend the school day; this can enable more free time, reduce homework loads and, more physical education can be built into the school timetable! See http://www.debate.org... ; my rounds explain my claims. Instilling student desire for fitness Assess students’ fitness by drills like the Beep test (it has many names) ; “The results were astounding. Just six weeks after the [Beep] test began the participating students had increased their fitness levels by 17 per cent and are now among the fittest in their age category in Europe” [1] ; Remember, more time in school for such tests (extend the school day) and there’s a swift 17% improvement. Also, from the same article: ’The PE teachers have seen their students embrace the idea. They’re cycling, they’re running in their own time as well as the activities during school time,” Ms McAteer said’ Furthermore, why not have ‘pass’ marks for fitness? You can fail a mathematics exam yet never fail anything to do with fitness. Note that exceptions would be built in provided physical disabilities existed for a child, a leg had been broken etc. The point is that a fitness assessment, and a required minimum, increases the importance of fitness in a parent’s eyes as failing a subject can have severe consequences for being allowed to move up a year. The Value of Activities at Recess I’m probably guilty of portraying Con’s idea as a regimented, systematic activity of physical activity at recess. What I want to address right now though is that even if Con’s proposal had every student, of their own volition, choose physical activity that doesn’t diminish the value of other activities. For instance, Con discusses the mental benefits of exercise, and attacks things like chess and homework. Except, chess has very, very positive benefits, such as raising IQ scores, fostering creative thinking, demonstrate the importance of flexible planning, concentration, and the consequences of decisions etc. [2] There’s a reason Armenia made chess compulsory in schools! [3] Imagine the health benefits of being able to evaluate the consequences of one’s actions on one’s physical fitness. Also, extend the point about optimal social interaction occurring given choice. Enforcement and Logistics In R2 I talked above the difficulty in enforcing a policy of no homework. Imagine giving a student a detention for doing homework. They turn up to detention and quietly go do... homework. Resources are wasted and the like with a policy of enforcement. I discussed this last round. However, I actually forgot about a much bigger point logistical point last round – meetings are commonly scheduled during lunchtime, and so are activities. Just today a good 20 students were operating a food stall for our school’s multicultural day. I was an aid for this. That’s 20 students not performing physical activity of some sort, but they were performing a service to the school. Or what about mock trial, debating and chess? Teachers frequently schedule practice sessions during lunch. For mock trial I was having at least 2-3 meetings a week, many during lunchtime. Debating also had a weekly lunchtime session. Chess occasionally demanded us to talk to the teacher in charge on a Friday, or to help out juniors etc. All these vital activities were conducted during lunch. The performance of these teams would decline if practice was eliminated. So, move it afterschool? For many teachers this is a problem, not to mention students. It was a nightmare organising afterschool mock trial meetings considering many students in the team worked after school some days. Even if practice occurs, it’s at the expense of time at home. So many school activities occur at lunch. To mandate physical play prevents this. If exceptions are granted... back to chess it seems. Enforcement issues. Summation We need exercise. We need free time amongst school days of 6-7 hours. Don’t rob the only free time, recess, to ‘pay’ for exercise. Recess has benefits derived from freedom (see R2) , there’s the opportunity cost, the severe difficulties of enforcement of Con’s idea (meetings at lunch...) and clear ways exist to improve fitness, like beep tests on a frequent basis (17% improvement) . My thanks to Dakota for the debate. I apologise for this being only 3 rounds. Voters, vote fairly based only on the debate. Sources 1 - http://www.irishtimes.com... 2 - http://www.nswjcl.org.au... 3 - http://www.guardian.co.uk...