Schools more and more resemble maximum security prisons: schools without playgrounds, children without recess, and kids without play
EducationJan 5, 2012
Picture of Thieves in Dante’s Hell
A new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) indicates that children in poor urban neighborhoods need more chances for old-fashioned playtime in their daily lives. A number of experts in the report have raised concerns that in the current climate of treating youth not at risk, but a risk themselves, children have little time for unstructured play — which, AAP says, is important for kids’ physical and mental development. Perhaps the lack of play is due to the fact that more and more students are spending all day in school classes, hunched over desks preparing for standardized tests under the corporatized Obama educational policy, Race to the Top. The (AAP) report seemed to think this was the case noting that even U.S. suburban children are “over-scheduled” with formal classes and lessons, leaving them little time for simple play (Poor kids miss out on playtime, pediatricians say, http://bit.ly/udH1U2 Pediatrics, online December 26, 2011).
A 2009 report by the Alliance for Childhood surveyed kindergartens in New