To the editor:
The principal of the Molin school and the superintendent need some lessons in child development. I am deeply concerned that the Molin school will be reducing its recess. The national trend of eliminating unstructured play and frequent physical activity for youth at all grade levels in public schools defies the research on learning theory, child development and the study of childhood in indigenous cultures.
As a licensed mental health counselor who serves the children of North Shore Massachusetts, I am intimately aware of the negative effects on children and adolescents who are confined to chairs and forced to labor over paperwork for six to nine hours per day. Epidemic numbers of American school children are presenting with profound distress signals in reaction to the developmentally inappropriate environments of public schools. These distress signals, including hyperactivity, distraction, aggression, poor school performance and school refusal, are mislabeled as ADHD, learning disabilities or mental illness in such children. The knee-jerk reaction has been to chemically control these children with powerful, dangerous psychiatric drugs.
In direct contrast, children in indigenous tribal cultures traditionally spent the majority of their day moving, engaging at all ages in intense play and physical activity. These children were not displaying symptoms of learning disabilities, brain disorders and mental illness because they were living in congruence with their nature, which is to move and play.
Although the research is clear that the very means by which children learn is through play and that physical activity is necessary for children, schools continue to treat play as a waste of time and treat children as if they are androids. Between school and homework, schools expect children to spend upwards of nine hours overriding their basic biophysiological nature in order to fulfill adult expectations that are irrelevant to a child's life. The detriments of this to children's physical, emotional, intellectual, social and creative development are lifelong and should be of grave concern to our society.
Newsweek magazine recently reported that American children's creativity has been steadily declining since the trend of standardized education became the norm in the early '90s. Since the 1990s, there has been a 700 percent increase in prescription of stimulant drugs to children, mostly boys — exactly at the same time that homework increased, recess and play were being cut and standardized testing was becoming federally mandated.
On the contrary, youth who are homeschooled or who attend democratic schools such as the Sudbury Valley School in Massachusetts have a creative and intellectual edge due to the freedom they have to follow their passions and learn by doing. In these environments, youth generally love learning because play and learning are rightly viewed as synonymous. When children can follow their own innate interests and curiosities, their intellectual and creative development can be exceptional.
For the sake of our children, rather than view energetic, unstructured play as an expendable waste of time, it needs to be restored to the oft quoted honor it once held, as the work of children.
Laurie A. Couture
Newmarket, N.H.
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