Are teachers reducing or increasing behavior problems? A look at the practice of withholding recess from students as punishment for misbehavior.

Purpose The purpose of this presentation is to address the issue of withholding recess from students in elementary schools as punishment for behavior problems. The intent of this paper is to inform the audience on the benefits of recess and why it would be contradictive to remove recess as a punishment for misbehavior. Audience The audience for this presentation would be parents, teachers, and administrators of elementary school students. This presentation may also be of importance to daycare workers and others that interact with elementary students in or out of the classroom. Significance School recess has been an issue for schools for many years. The Office of the Surgeon General defines recess in a report to the president as regularly scheduled periods within the elementary school day for unstructured physical activity and play (Archived Promoting Better Health for Young People Through Physical activity and Sports Appendices, 2000 p 16) . With increases in demands on educators and administrators to increase performance of students, and the push for competence on standardized and high stakes testing recess has been cut or eliminated from many school schedules. Students are spending increasingly more hours in the classroom and with the increase of technology usage in most homes children are spending less time at unstructured free-play both at home and at school. Students affected most are students from low income areas that are generally high crime areas and therefore may not be able to safely play freely with their peers in their community. For those students recess may be the only social time they have with peers. Plan for Presentation Introduction Attention-Getting Opening In the days of educational reform and trying to increase time spent on academics in the class rooms more and more schools are limiting or eliminating recess for students. Teachers are dealing with increased behavior problems in the classrooms and using recess time to punish students for