Quote 1

I found the quote, “We are intent on improving academic performance. You don’t do that by having kids hanging on the monkey bars,” to be somewhat understandable for anyone that first reads it. The quote was found from my first source, “play with a purpose,” and was given by Atlanta Georgia’s superintendent of 1998. When someone first thinks of improving academic performance, they would not likely picture children running around playing on the playground at recess time. However, if someone who has done their research on physically active school children, they would know this quote is untrue. Many studies have been shown that recess improves children’s ability to concentrate on school work. Also, recess reduces the chances that children will be restless and disturbing others in the classroom. This Georgia superintendent, along with other schools around America, believe that recess is taking away time to learn. True, recess takes time out of the day to be inside the classroom, but the benefits will return. For example, a school teacher in Atlanta Georgia took a few minutes of classroom time each morning to get his students moving. Even on test days, this teacher, Christopher Gomillion, would follow his routine of physical activity. The theory of having some fun dancing to music before the lessons started in the morning was that children would be more attentive. Burning some energy did in fact pay off to the students. When the annual standardized testing scores came back, Mr. Gomillion saw some outstanding results. All but one of his students passed, which was a huge improvement compared to the past year’s students. I feel that the quote given by Atlanta’s superintendent is one that has no research or thought behind it, and that he was just speaking his first opinion.