I learned a valuable lesson from my daughter’s Kindergarten teacher last week.
Mrs. Cooper tells students to let her know when they are feeling like they want to go bananas and she will give them a body break — a short shot of supervised outdoor time to run around and go crazy.
My husband and I were of course ecstatic to hear she was employing this tactic, as we are well aware of the benefits of getting outside especially for young children while they are in school.
The concept made me think about my own students at Capilano University.
We ask them to sit for a three-hour lecture. Sure, we give them breaks, but often they resort to watching videos or updating social media especially during the fall and winter seasons. An enforced body break may actually help them re-focus and ultimately have more success in their learning.
So, I tried it out on the class — a short break where they ran around the campus and did some boot camp activities.
After one week, the results were exactly what the research predicted — students were more focused after each break and actually more excited to be there. Productivity increased among all of them.
Statistics Canada Healthy Measures survey see: (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82-003-x/2011001/article/11396-eng.htm), suggests children and adolescents should be getting 60 minutes of physical fitness each day.
In my opinion, those of us who teach have a responsibility to help our students-no matter what age-meet those criteria. Besides, the benefits to the student are endless.
It really does go to show that everything you need to know, you learn in Kindergarten. For me, I am just glad I got to learn it the second time around.
Until next time, see you out there!
