Tag Archives: school

Adolescents Need to Move!

Schools risk losing the interest of broad swathes of their students when they ask younger adolescents to stay quietly inside all day. Some students can handle a full day of table-chair activity but many are overwhelmed by restlessness and become alienated when most of what they do from morning until mid-afternoon is sedentary in nature. […]

Do We WANT Maine’s Schools to Fail?

It almost seems like our governor WANTS our schools to fail. On the one hand, Governor LePage has called Maine’s schools among the worst in the nation and Maine’s schoolchildren among the least accomplished. On the other hand, he threatens to impoverish our school districts so that school boards are compelled to cut programs and […]

Recess and Physical Education: The natural language of children is motion

The natural language of children is motion. This is truest of the very young but remains relevant through the middle school years (and should remain true throughout life if we are to stay healthy). Increasing numbers of schools demand that children remain physically inactive for long periods of time during the day. This goes against […]

Taking the Fun Out of School

For a lot of kids it’s not much fun going to school these days. Many schools have cut recess. Lunch lasts twenty minutes at best. The arts, languages, physical education, and social studies all occupy  positions on the back burners. Teachers avoid project-based learning. Taking the fun out of school is a mistake. We lose […]