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More handpicked essays just for you.
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Persuasive essays
Persuasive essays
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As I wearily sat in my seat, writing an essay on the importance of electricity in the modern world, I caught myself glancing repeatedly at the clock that was so carefully perched above the teacher’s desk. “Ten minutes, only ten more minutes left until school is over and I get to go home!” I told myself. In most schools, the average school day is about eight hours long. Eight hours of continuously sitting in a chair taking notes during lectures, doing classwork, projects, etc. During these eight hours of school, students deserve a short, outdoor break in which they can isolate themselves from the stress of working all day and just relax. Studies have shown that people who take short breaks throughout the day to do light, outdoor breaks are more productive than those who do not. A short, outdoor break will benefit students due to the fact that students will have time to relax; students will be able to focus more, concentrate, and be more productive; and teachers will have more time to prepare for the next class coming. A short, outdoor break will benefit students by allowing them to...
The first major step in healing America’s exhausted teenagers is to reduce the amount of homework they receive. Kids from the ages of fourteen to twenty-two alike are expected to play sports, join clubs, and hang out with friends – all on top of an average of three and a half hours of h...
With an increasing demand for higher standardized testing scores, schools are finding themselves in a tough position. The huge question being asked is how do we create more time for students to learn common core. The simple answer is, we don’t! Incorporating more time for recess is the key to success for students everywhere. Many researchers and educators alike agree that participating in recess increases students’ cognitive, academic, and social skills. The amount of time allotted for recess should be increased for students of all ages. A child’s well-being encompasses more than just academia. Children spend almost eight hours a day at school, sometimes more. The school system and
The most exciting play in basketball is the fast break. This poem outlines every detail of the fast break and does a great job using the words to create a fantastic visual for the reader. The title of the poem, “Fast Break,” is actually what the whole poem is describing. The visual that is created is one of the reasons this poem is so appealing. My love for the game of basketball, more specifically at the collegiate level is another reason why this poem catches my attention. The author, Edward Hirsch, is probably the speaker and also a coach or fan of the team that is playing. I would say that he was a player, but all five players of the team are outlined in the poem and it’s not written in the third person. The author might also be mistaken as the head coach of the team; however the poem is in memory of the late Dennis Turner, whom I believe to be the Head Coach. A fast break lasts approximately five seconds on the court and the poem outlines every motion of both the offense and defense. The author puts the fast break in slow motion for the reader so that they can understand and re-live the play in their imagination.
Children can burn off bottled up energy at recess that they have accumulated while sitting through their teacher’s lessons. Lahey mentions that “studies have found that students who enjoy the benefit of recess are more attentive once they return to class”. This is helpful because the child will be focused on what they are learning instead of fidgeting in their chair. Also, providing breaks to students while they are learning can result in longer attention spans. Recess is a break that recharges the brain and allows elementary students to control their desire to adventure. Young children are easily distracted, so recess regulates this by providing them with their own free time. Students become more self-contained after they return from recess due to their tiredness. This is useful in class because children will be less hyperactive. The absence of recess would not permit students to learn self-control
In the “The Crucial Role of Recess in School” (2012) article it explains, many schools are beginning to replace physical activity, like recess, with more attention to academic subjects. What these schools are forgetting is that well-supervised recess also has benefits that surpass academics. They help make a well rounded student because recess offers cognitive, social, emotional, and physical benefits to the student when they are young that they carry with them into adulthood.
In her Huffington Post blog article titled Here’s One Way to Wreck a Child’s Education: Take Away Recess, Haley Krischer takes an emboldened stand against the practice of eliminating recess; which is often done as a punishment or to make more time for instructional learning. I stand in agreement with Krischer. I do not agree with schools taking away recess for any reason with the exception of dangerous weather or environmental circumstances. Yet, research indicates how common the 86-ing of recess is occurring in schools. A study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (2010) revealed 77% of school Principals reported taking away recess as a punishment, and 81.5% of schools allow students to be excluded from recess. Krischer begins the article by introducing her 9 year old son and his affinity for recess: “the only subject he will talk about”. She gives examples of how recess benefits her son such as other students who help him troubleshoot technology issues and challenging him to improve his sports skills. Indeed, the unstructured playtime allows children to explore their environment and develop new ideas and understandings of it and those within it (American Pediatric Association, 2013). Kischer also expressed that children need active play to combat restlessness and that this is especially important for children who may suffer from ADHD, noting that taking away recess as a punishment for misbehavior may be counterproductive and result in increased behavioral problems. A longitudinal study that followed over 10,000 students between the ages of 8 and 9 concluded that student recess of at least 15 minutes resulted in better behavior as rated by teachers (Samuels, 2009).
Everyone knows that recess is good for children, but most people do not know why, thus leaving room for schools to cut down or altogether cut out recess. This can damage children and inhibit learning. In 2005, an estimated 40% of schools had cut back or eliminated recess from the average elementary student’s school day (Bland). Teachers may need more instructional time to meet the new demand from standardized testing, but extended unstructured play is essential. It increases children’s cognitive abilities by promoting healthy chemical exchanges within the brain during physical activity, giving more room for creativity, and improving social skills.
Ideally, extending the school schedule into the summer equals more learning. Because students are not dedicated to their studies, often they do not retain the information they learned over the school year during summer vacation. According to the article “Will Longer School Year Help or Hurt US Students” Smyth notes that, “Proponents argue that too much knowledge is lost while American kids wile away the summer months apart from their lessons” (Smyth). Smyth argues that students clearly do not retain their lessons over the period of their summer break. However, opponents of the extension of the school schedule say, “summer breaks are needed to provide an academic respite for students’ overwrought minds, and to provide time with family and the flexibility to travel and study favorite subjects in more depth” (Smyth). Smyth’s observation not only protests taking summer away from families but also describes summer as a time needed to rest student’s minds.
All day in the classroom, kids are being told: “Be quiet. Sit still. Be quiet. Sit still,” says Nelly Torres, a parent of a first and fourth grader in the Chicago Public Schools. “That’s because they need their recess,” or look at it this way: “Think about how grown-ups would like it if their bosses took away their lunch hours and dictated how they spent it” (Adams). According to kids, recess is just a time out of the classroom to play on monkey bars or the tire swing. What students may not realize is that it actually helps them grow in many ways. Teachers can also utilize the time recess provides to complete tasks such as grading homework or revising lesson plans. Elementary students should continue to have recess because
When you're working non stop you can get overwhelmed and stressed out. When you stop and take a break and get active your brain feels relieved. When you get back into class after break your focus comes back. It makes it way easier to rejoin class and pay attention. Transitioning through seven subjects each day can get hard and overwhelming. Recess can fix this, and that's what people don’t understand. On page 30 of the article Do you Need Recess, “ According to Dr. Robert Murray, pediatrician and co author of “ The Crucial Role of Recess in School,” giving your brain a rest helps it work better. Moving from subject to subject without a brake can overwhelm your brain and make it more difficult to retain information.” When we are constantly learning we can’t get a break we need recess to help us hold onto information. Recess also gives us rest that the society needs to continue the day. Middle schooler tend to get stressed out and bored during the day so a break will snap them back into learning. When middle schoolers learn for a long period of time they tend to zone out and not listen to the teacher. When this happens they don’t get all other information that they need to know, so that leads to bad test scores. Think all of this just because middle schoolers don’t get a break. That's saying a lot. Also according to the article, Why kids need recess and exercise, “ According to study author and developmental pediatrician Romina Barros, M.D., their conduct was likely better because, after hours of concentration, they were able to give their exhausted brains a rest before going back to absorbing information--something many young kids can only do well for about a half hour at a time.” Even middle schoolers can’t focus for a long time. Yes kindergartners may be worse at staying still and focused for long periods of time, but middle schoolers have more subjects and longer days. When they are transitioning
Why, though, are breaks important from an educational standpoint? One reason is that they lightens students' stress loads. College is stressful enough with breaks; without them, students have no way to recuperate from the stress of classes. During Montana Tech's fall semester, there are over two months of straight classes that contain no breaks at all. During the spring semester, there are two more large gaps between breaks, one of which is also over two months long. Although weekends do help, these are often used for studying and homework and do little to ease the students' stress. Many students begin to dislike their classes because of the stress they cause, and as a result, some put less effort into their studying. Breaks allow students some time off from their classes to relax so that they can come back refreshed.
Break times and playtimes are ubiquitous in teaching institutions to include both primary and secondary schools. In other words, this is to say that in this setting of learning there are some set breaks meant for recreational purposes (Blatchford, 1998: 22). According to published studies, in the United Kingdom, breaks are expected to take place during the morning hours, short break, and others will take place after the lunch break and the afternoon break, longer breaks. During the break time, pupils and students have different experiences where they can evaluate their overall feelings about the school life. According to Lee (2014), ‘When kids are free to play on their own, they can use their imaginations. They can interact with each other and develop problem-solving skills, learn how to cooperate and share, develop empathy, and learn self control.’ Sadly, in some schools valuable break time has been reduced in favour of more academic pursuit within the classroom. The school playground becomes one of a few places where children can engage in free outdoor play with their friends.
Throughout the years, researchers have seen an increase in time for students spent studying and in school while there has also been a decline in time spent in active sports and out-of-doors activities over the past twenty years. ( 'Changing Times of American Youth: 1981-2003 '). Teachers assign students their usual daily pile of homework which leads to students feeling stressed as to what they must complete after school. Students are expected to manage their time according to their teacher’s schedule considering that they may not even be able to complete each assignment given to them. According to a study, students aged between six to seventeen spend on average a maximum of four hours each night completing homework. (By the Numbers: Homework).
It talked about classroom physical activity breaks. It revealed that teachers that are willing to integrate physical activity into grade level-specific lessons, in these physical active lessons the breaks recorded a 13 percent increase in the total amount of physical activity per week and a 20.5 percent reduction in time spent on non-academic tasks, such as helping student’s transitions to a new activity and class room management. That is just having students in the classroom taking breaks to have a physical activity; those activities could be yoga, a dance, or a game that the students came up with. Those same benefits can be achieved in a physical education setting. Imagine if you would increased the number of times a student came to class a week or having it required to take every year well you are in
Although some may say that physical health is more important than mental health, doctors stress the importance of someone's mental health as well as their physical well being (Reid). Being gone from school for more than twenty days could negatively affect students grades but with today’s technological advances, students can now work at home off of any electronic device. This “negative affect” on students grades is now