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I think a pretty obvious starting point is the supposed decline of recess in schools. I couldn't find any numbers on how many schools had recess as a normal par

I think a pretty obvious starting point is the supposed decline of recess in schools. I couldn't find any numbers on how many schools had recess as a normal part of their day or rates. However it does seem as though in many schools, certainly more than ever before, there isn't any recess time. Which is sad because a very common trope (especially for young boys) is recess being their favorite "class". It is also pretty well documented to help in all kinds of behavioral issues as well as being a valuable learning environment in its own right. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/131/1/183 http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/131/1/183

soundwave106 9y ago
This is definitely a starting point. I'm not finding any hard numbers for a "decline" either -- the one table I found (from 2005) indicated the average was about 27 minutes a day. (https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/nutrition/tables/tab15.asp https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/nutrition/tables/tab15.asp) and this hasn't changed too much recently (see 2017 data -- https://www.aft.org/ae/spring2017/ramstetter_and_murray https://www.aft.org/ae/spring2017/ramstetter_and_murray), but I'm having trouble finding any studies with past data from, say, the 1950s and 1960s. Little nuggets of data I'm finding suggest more that the problem is inconsistency -- half an hour might be "okay", but some schools don't even implement any recess at all... which for many little children sounds like it would be awful. Most of the research out there seems to support the idea that recess or other unstructured play is quite beneficial, for quite a number of reasons, so it's quite possible that half an hour is not enough. I'd certainly suspect more recess would do a lot more good for energetic children than powerful stimulants!
- supreme_sublime 9y ago
  Hmm, that seems like an odd way to represent how much recess time kids have. I'm not familiar with elementary schools, but I'd guess that class periods are somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour. The average kid is getting less than 30 minutes of recess time which seems to indicate that this average takes into account kids who don't get recess time at all. If recess periods for schools that have it are an hour long, then less than half of the kids actually have recess. Anyway, what a frustratingly useless statistic since I didn't know how they got it.

soundwave106 9y ago

This is definitely a starting point. I'm not finding any hard numbers for a "decline" either -- the one table I found (from 2005) indicated the average was about 27 minutes a day. (https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/nutrition/tables/tab15.asp https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/nutrition/tables/tab15.asp) and this hasn't changed too much recently (see 2017 data -- https://www.aft.org/ae/spring2017/ramstetter_and_murray https://www.aft.org/ae/spring2017/ramstetter_and_murray), but I'm having trouble finding any studies with past data from, say, the 1950s and 1960s. Little nuggets of data I'm finding suggest more that the problem is inconsistency -- half an hour might be "okay", but some schools don't even implement any recess at all... which for many little children sounds like it would be awful. Most of the research out there seems to support the idea that recess or other unstructured play is quite beneficial, for quite a number of reasons, so it's quite possible that half an hour is not enough. I'd certainly suspect more recess would do a lot more good for energetic children than powerful stimulants!

supreme_sublime 9y ago
Hmm, that seems like an odd way to represent how much recess time kids have. I'm not familiar with elementary schools, but I'd guess that class periods are somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour. The average kid is getting less than 30 minutes of recess time which seems to indicate that this average takes into account kids who don't get recess time at all. If recess periods for schools that have it are an hour long, then less than half of the kids actually have recess. Anyway, what a frustratingly useless statistic since I didn't know how they got it.