Interesting new study - here is a good summary quote
“Our thesis is that a primary cause of the rise in mental disorders is a decline over decades in opportunities for children and teens to play, roam, and engage in other activities independent of direct oversight and control by adults.”
Nuance is important here. Claire Cameron discuses the need for “guided play” - less structured and exploratory activities. So, this does not mean (IMO) let’s give students a 3 hour block or recess. Instead, allowing students to tinker, play, and explore with low-floor/high-ceiling tools like VEX GO/123 and VEXcode VR can be very valuable. Moreover, the more we incorporate those tools into our reg ed classes, the better.
Would love to hear your thoughts. Here is a link to the paper.
1 Like
This was an interesting read, especially since it’s written for a pediatrics/pediatrician lens. But I think there is a lot of value here for educators and parents in a more general sense.
This quote in particular resonated with me “The increase in school time and pressure over decades may have impacted mental health not just by detracting from time and opportunity for independent activities but also because fear of academic failure, or fear of insufficient
achievement, is a direct source of distress.”
For years the summer camps I worked with were 6 hour camps (9am-3pm) and when we made the shift to a 7 hour camp (9am-4pm) there was a distinct difference in the general energy levels and attitudes of the campers. That single hour of additional instruction and activity made a clear impact on the campers and the cognitive load they were trying to process with those additional activities. When I was teaching that summer, I frequently would turn to a more free-play style for the end of the day because they needed that freedom to explore and investigate on their own terms. So seeing this data very much validates my experiences in the classroom with the amount of time students spend in a desk or in these highly structured activities.
If I was in the classroom still, I would use this as a driving force to bring in more of that free play time. I love the suggestion about using materials like VEX GO or VEXcode VR as a tool or conduit for this exploration. Students still have valuable time exercising computational thinking skills or spatial reasoning skills without the need for a discrete, direct lesson that puts additional pressure on them.
I would love to hear what other people who had a more traditional classroom experience think about this as well!
1 Like
