What was the best part about elementary school when you were a kid? Probably, recess. So would it shock you to realize that recess for your own kids is endangered, maybe even extinct?

Twenty  minutes of recess each day is pretty much the minimum. In one major American city of 69 elementary schools, only one school, in 2010 offered its students less than 20 minutes of recess each day. Two years later, the number had grown to six schools. Now, in 2014, 11 elementary schools – more than one-sixth – offer students little or no recess at all. The number of schools affected by recess reduction in this district has doubled every  two years. Why?

It used to be that educators said they cut recess because they needed more minutes in the day to concentrate on academics. This is a lousy reason, of course, since no one can sit still and learn without a break. Think of your own need for a break in the middle of your work day! But now, not even academics is the excuse for cutting recess. A recent investigation in that major school district found that the reason why recess has been cut or reduced is because it’s too much trouble to have recess. Principals eliminate recess to eliminate the ordinary sorts of issues kids have when they play together.

In the district I’m talking about, recess at some schools is as much as an hour every day. Guess which schools get the most recess and which ones get the least? You probably already know the answer. Kids in more affluent neighborhoods – where parents know the value of recess and demand it – get the most free time. Kids in poorer neighborhoods – where parents are too busy with other issues to think about their children’s play – get the least.

Naturally, this adds to the problem rather than eliminating it, if the problem is student behavior or student achievement. Children with no opportunities to learn how to get along don’t learn how to get along better. Children with no opportunities to take a mental and physical break from their school studies pay attention less in school and learn less. Children in better neighborhoods have a more humane, child-centered school experience, do better in school, and stay in school longer. Children in less-privileged neighborhoods are handed a rigid, controlling school experience, do worse, and leave school as soon as they legally can.

What does this mean for you and your children? It means you must ask about recess.

1. If you’re choosing a new school for your kids in the fall, ask how much free time kids get during the day. Remember that 20 minutes is the minimum (and we’re talking here 20 minutes all at once, not five minutes here and five minutes there. We’re also not including the time it takes to put on jackets and get outside and the time it takes to line back up to come in.) In the best schools, where children are most successful, they get much more outdoor time.
2. Find out what happens at recess. Is recess really free time or is it all choreographed by teachers around organized games or “learning activities”? Once again, think of your own experience at work. Is your entire day scheduled – even your lunch – as a group activity? Do you have no time to even go to the bathroom on your own or take a walk during your break time? There are labor laws that regulate your own freedom during the day. Your kids deserve at least as much.
3. If your children are already settled in a school, make sure they get as much recess as possible. If they don’t, or if recess is left up to teacher discretion and not required, make some noise. Your children’s health, happiness and school success depend on this.
4. Finally, notice if recess is used at your child’s school as a hostage to good behavior. You probably remember being kept in at recess because you misbehaved or you remember the entire class being kept in because too many kids misbehaved. Recess is a right, not a bargaining chip. If your child’s teacher withholds recess because he cannot otherwise manage his students, there’s something wrong with the teacher, not with the kids.

Do you want your children to stay in school, do well in school, and be happy? Getting a couple breaks during the day, getting out in the sunshine, and running around with friends is what your kids need.

If they’re not getting that, stand up for them and make sure that they do.

© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Join Dr. Anderson in an online conference for teachers and parents. Find out more at Quality Conference for Early Childhood Leaders.

The key focus these days in education circles is on “executive processing” skills of persistence, attention, and self-control. The truth is that learning the alphabet and numbers, even learning to read, are fairly simple for a teacher to orchestrate.

More difficult and more important are development of children’s attitudes towards learning. The problem has been that no one knew if some children are just born more disposed to learn or if teachers could do things to help executive processing skills along.

Now we have an idea. A study just published in School Psychology Quarterly found that teachers who support a “positive emotional tone” in their classrooms have students with better ability to pay attention, to stay on task, and to control themselves and who wind up learning more.

Researchers measured the achievement and executive processing ability of 800 preschool children enrolled in 60 schools in five school districts across the Southeastern United States. They also measured interactions between teachers and these children. Children whose teachers were more positive and less negative in their interactions developed children’s executive processing skills and their academic abilities. Lead researcher Dale Farran said, “Oddly, a positive tone in the classroom does not just affect children’s social development. The more positively welcoming classrooms are, the more children are going to learn in them.”

“Positive interactions” include being aware of children’s likely reactions to learning assignments and being proactive in guiding them to effective behavior before disruptive behavior occurs. What the researchers call “behavior disapproval” – signaling to a child that she is doing something wrong – has a negative effect on learning. Farran said, “The teacher must anticipate what’s coming up and not redirect after the fact. It’s a more subtle kind of planning that takes a lot of skill on the part of teachers.”

It’s a straight line between how teachers interact with children and the development of children’s ability to learn and their actual level of learning. Positive, proactive teachers get better results.

What does this mean for us? We usually have little control over how our child’s teacher does her job. What can we do?

1. If you do have a choice, choose a preschool experience or a teacher who is socially skillful and child-centered. Look for teachers who are calm and who seem able to think one step ahead of the kids.
2. If your child’s preschool or kindergarten teacher seems harsh and demanding, strongly consider other options. Executive processing skills and attitudes towards learning form early and last a lifetime. Early learning should be positive. If your child’s situation isn’t, then see if you can find another classroom for him.
3. Practice positive interactions at home. You know your child even better than her teacher does, so you have an advantage. You understand what she will find difficult, where she is likely to get confused, and when she is likely to give up on a task. Be one step ahead of her. Guide her development of persistence, attention, and self-control by being positive and proactive, not negative and reactive.

Keep in mind how important executive processing skills are, for getting along at school and also for academic success.

Pay attention. Be persistent in your guidance of your child. And exert self-control so your guidance is positive, not negative.

© 2013, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s new book, Developmentally Appropriate Parenting, at your favorite bookstore.

Now that school has started again, the usual comparison of children’s teachers begins too. Maybe you hoped your child would get a particular teacher this year and maybe you got your wish. But maybe you got another teacher, one who doesn’t come with a lot of recommendations. You might be wondering, how teachers are assigned to their classes.

Research has long demonstrated that schools that serve different populations of students get different sorts of teachers. But now a study in the Sociology of Education of the Miami-Dade school district shows that even within the same school, some teachers get better classes of students than others. Your own child’s classroom might have more or fewer of high-achieving students, well-behaved students, and students who are independent, creative learners.

Researcher Demetra Kalogrides reports that teachers who have more power – because of their years of experience in the school or their leadership roles – tend to be rewarded with “easier” classes of better students. At the same time, other teachers with less experience, who graduated from less-prestigious colleges, and teachers who were women, Hispanic or black, were more likely to be assigned lower-achieving students. These patterns were the same at both the elementary and secondary levels.

Previous studies have shown that high-quality teachers can significantly improve the success of the students they teach. In addition, it is more likely that new teachers assigned more difficult students may leave the teaching profession in frustration, leading to greater teacher turnover at the school and reducing overall teacher quality.

These trends may not be at play in your child’s school. The researchers found that schools with fewer experienced teachers and schools under a lot of pressure to show improvement are more likely to assign the best teachers to the most challenging classes. But what if you fear this trend is going on in your child’s school? What should you do if you think your child’s teacher isn’t so good as another teacher in the same grade?

1. Be visible to your child’s teacher. Be friendly but let her know you are paying attention. Children whose parents are engaged are more likely to get individualized help.
2. Be helpful. If you can, volunteer in your child’s classroom. Show up for parents’ night. Especially if your child’s teacher is new, she needs all the positive vibes you can send her way.
3. For many inexperienced teachers, the biggest problems are classroom management and discipline. If your child’s teacher seems especially unreasonable, coercive, or punitive, act quickly to bring this to the principal’s attention. No child should spend his days in a fearful situation.
4. If you have other questions or concerns, talk with the teacher first. Go to the principal with your worries only after you’ve discussed things with the teacher and no progress was made.
5. Be ready to fill in the gaps in your child’s education, by supporting learning at home, or, if things are really out of hand, even switching to another school.

Understand that assigning children to classrooms is an imperfect science and every great teacher once was a new teacher. Certainly young, vibrant teachers with new ideas can be more effective than more experienced but burned-out ones. So don’t jump to conclusions.

But as the school year gets underway, it’s time to get involved in your child’s education. No matter who your child’s teacher is, parent involvement is a key to school success.

© 2013, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s new book, Developmentally Appropriate Parenting, at your favorite bookstore.