What Good is Recess?
“Leave all afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.” —Thomas Jefferson, 1790, in a letter to a young relative
Jefferson knew what he was talking about. I wish the people running our public schools were as wise.
In 2012, I was invited to visit recess at one of Boston’s public elementary schools. I was appalled to discover that these poor kids, regardless of grade level, had just one 15-minute recess a day. I then learned that this was true of all the public elementary schools in Boston and, in fact, was true of many throughout the country. Making children sit so long at desks without more breaks is, in my mind, child abuse. It damages both mind and body. I have never been able to do, and fortunately have never been required to do, what kids in our schools are required to do today.
The recesses occurred outdoors, weather permitting, and during that time children played freely, in their own chosen ways, with minimal supervision.
The trend to reduce or even eliminate recesses in the U.S. began in 2002, after passage of the “No Child Left Behind” act, which made federal money for schools contingent on demonstrated efforts to improve children’s scores on standardized tests. School superintendents everywhere believed, without evidence, that spending more time on direct instruction, at the expense of recess and a decent break for lunch (which was also cut dramatically), would improve test scores. Test scores became the be-all and end-all of schooling, students’ health and happiness be damned. By 2014, according to a study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the average time spent in recess, including any recess associated with the lunch period, for elementary schools was just 26.9 minutes a day, and some schools had no recess at all.
Even after research began to show, consistently, no improvement in test scores, and often a worsening of them, when recesses were reduced, schools persisted in their policy of very short or no recess. One of the most unifying characteristics of the people who run America’s schools is their imperviousness to the results of research (for another example of their research blindness, see substack. com/@petergray Letter #40). They just go on stubbornly believing that the more they keep children in their seats looking at worksheets the more they will “learn,” where “learning,” of course, is defined as improved scores on standardized tests. If the kids squirm, they’re diagnosed with ADHD and drugged.
I’ve spent some time recently delving into a growing research literature examining the effects of recess on kids’ happiness, mental health, physical health, prosocial behavior, and, yes, even test scores. The overall results are clear. The more recess kids have—if it is real recess, where they are truly free to play and socialize in their own ways and not controlled like little prisoners—the better they do. Here I will summarize some of those research findings.
The LiiNK Program: The Value of Multiple 15-Minute Recesses
In 2011, Deborah Rhea, a professor of kinesiology at Texas Christian University, took a trip to Finland to learn about their schools firsthand. Finland had regularly ranked at or near the top in scores on the international PISA exams while taking an approach to schooling opposite to the trends occurring in the U.S. and many other Western nations, an approach focusing on the welfare of the whole child, not test scores. In Rhea’s (2021) words:
“Finland children rarely take assignments home, and they focus more on a balance between academics and recess, crafts, the arts, music, drama, and physical education throughout the week. From the time children start school at 7 years of age, the teachers emphasize active play as part of the curriculum—not only as a content area (physical education), but also with 15-minute unstructured, outdoor breaks every hour throughout the school day.”
When she returned to Texas, Rhea developed what she called the LiiNK Project (for “Let’s Inspire Innovation iN Kids”), which incorporated one aspect of Finland’s approach to elementary schooling, frequent 15-minute recesses. She began a series of experiments in which some elementary schools in North Texas adopted the LiiNK program, offering four 15-minute recesses per day plus a 15-minute daily “character-development” class focusing on empathy, trust, respect, and fostering children’s sense of agency. The recesses occurred outdoors, weather permitting, and during that time children played freely, in their own chosen ways, with minimal supervision. In experiments, Rhea and her colleagues compared changes in children’s behavior and attitudes over time in the LiiNK schools to those of children in otherwise comparable control schools that continued single 30-minute recesses, which was standard in those school districts.
Here are some of the results of these experiments (Rhea, 2021; Farbo et al., 2024). Compared to the control condition, the LiiNK program significantly improved the children’s happiness at school, friendliness toward one another, resilience, critical thinking, physical health (as indexed especially by reduction in obesity), and ability to focus on their lessons during class time. All this occurred with no reduction in test scores, even though increased recess meant less time devoted to academic instruction. In one study, 17 teachers in LiiNK schools were interviewed about their experiences with the program. All of them described positive effects of the program on their students, and none wanted to cut out any of the extra recesses (Bauml et al., 2020).
One of the most telling findings concerning the program came from a study in which the amount of cortisol in snippets of children’s hair was measured for fourth graders in three LiiNK schools and three control schools (Rhea et al., 2025). Cortisol is a hormone released in response to psychological stress. Over time, it accumulates in hair grown during periods of chronic stress. By measuring the amount of cortisol in hair, researchers can estimate the degree to which each child was stressed over the past three months, the period during which that hair would have grown. The striking result was this: The mean level of hair cortisol for children in the control schools was more than three times the mean level for those in the LiiNK schools. Conditions as usual had, by this index, caused potentially pathological levels of stress in children; LiiNK significantly reducing those levels.
Other Studies Showing the Value of Recess
In a research literature search, I found many other studies, aside from Rhea’s, showing the value of either more recess or better-quality recess. Here, with bullets and references, I list some of them.
Heather Erwin and her colleagues (2010) found that increasing recess from one to two 15-minute breaks per day, for students in kindergarten through 6th grade, resulted in improved scores on standardized math and reading tests.
Kristi Perryman and her colleagues (2022) found that an increase from one 30-minute recess to two 30-minute recesses per day in elementary schools resulted, according to reports by teachers and administrators, in improved peer relationships, improved attention during class, increased creativity, and better problem solving ability.
Dawn Hill (2014) correlated test scores on the standardized state reading test for fourth and fifth graders, across 146 public Title I elementary schools in Texas, with the amount of time each school allotted for recess compared to the amount of time for direct instruction. She found that the higher the recess-to-instruction ratio, the higher were the test scores. Title I schools are, by definition, those that serve the lowest socioeconomic group of students. This study belies the all-too-common belief that kids from economically impoverished backgrounds need more direct instruction at the expense of recess.
Caitlin Brez and Virgil Sheets (2017) found that third and fifth graders performed significantly better on a sustained attention task, and marginally better on a test of creativity, if they were tested shortly after recess than if they were tested before recess. Similarly, Alicia Stapp and Jenny Karr (2018) found that fifth graders exhibited significantly more on-task behavior in class when assessed shortly after recess compared to shortly before recess.
William Massey and his colleagues (2021) assessed the quality of recess in 26 elementary schools in various regions in the United States, where the index of quality included availability of a range of ways of playing, freedom for children to initiate and direct their own play, and overall safety of the setting. They found that the measure of recess quality correlated positively with measures of students’ executive functioning (problem-solving ability), resilience, emotional self-control, and an overall index of adaptive classroom behaviors. They concluded that quality of recess may be as important as amount of recess in improving children’s wellbeing and classroom performance.
Anita Bundy and her colleagues (2017), in Sydney, Australia, found that adding a load of recycled “loose parts,” such as car tires, milk crates, and cardboard boxes, to the playground significantly increased the amount and variety of active play, reduced playground conflicts, and, according to teachers’ and administrators’ reports, improved children’s social skills, creativity, and language development. In a similar study, Marc Armitage (2010), in England, found that the addition of Play Pods, loaded with such recycled materials as cable rolls, ropes, cardboard tubes, and old tires resulted in more active and imaginary play and more agemixed and gender-mixed play. In both studies, adding loose parts encouraged more children to engage in active play by providing diverse play opportunities, whereas previously, the playground was primarily occupied by boys participating in athletic sports.
Adding a load of recycled “loose parts,” such as car tires, milk crates, and cardboard boxes, to the playground significantly increased the amount and variety of active play.
Most studies of recess have focused on elementary schools, but some middle schools offer daily breaks for play and socialization, which in some cases are called “breaktime” rather than recess. According to at least one study, these are most valued by students as a time to socialize with friends (London, 2022). In another study, Shelton Jeri and Tafadzwa Negonde (2025) collected data, for 400 middle-school students at various schools with outdoor recesses, on the amount of time they had for such breaks and their performance in STEM subjects—specifically mathematics, science, and engineering. They found a positive correlation; the more recess, the higher the test scores. Middle-school and even high-school students have not outgrown the need for recess. (Nor have I.)
Some middle schools offer daily breaks for play and socialization, which in some cases are called “breaktime” rather than recess. According to at least one study, these are most valued by students as a time to socialize with friends.
Children’s Views About the Value of Recess
When teachers and school administrators talk about the value of recess, they tend to emphasize the physical activity it provides and its beneficial effects on children’s classroom behavior. In the few studies where children are questioned about recess’s value, they more often talk about fun, freedom, and, especially, the opportunity to socialize and make friends (Massey et al., 2019). Recess is one of the few places in today’s world where kids can interact freely with friends. Almost nothing is more important to longterm well-being for kids, or for human beings of any age, than friends. We too often forget that. When we see a group of kids just sitting and talking with one another during recess, we may think they are wasting recess, but they are not.
In one of the rare studies of children’s views about the value of recess, Styliani Prompona and her colleagues (2020) in Athens, Greece, interviewed groups of elementary school children to find out what they liked best about recess. Three main themes emerged, seemingly in this order of value: socialization, freedom, and reprieve from the boredom and stress of the classroom.
Here are three quotations from the interviews, illustrating these values:
Socialization (a sixth grade boy): “It’s nice to play with our friends. Madam, I live far from the others, so I don’t see them very often outside of school. … If we didn’t play here, we couldn’t meet each other at all.”
Freedom (a fifth grade boy and girl): The boy: “It’s fun to pretend being beaten. We pretend slapping someone but in fact we don’t even touch them. It’s fun.” Researcher: “Why do you believe it’s fun?” The girl: “It’s fun when teachers think we do it seriously, but we are just doing it for fun. And then teachers blame us for this, and we know they say nonsense” (laughter by the whole group). Freedom here includes making fun of the foolishness of some teachers.
Relief (a sixth grade boy, after being asked about why he likes recess): “To get rid of stress. To forget about classes. Seven hours here plus three hours at home [at homework] is very tiresome… When are we supposed to play? When do we get some rest? We never rest. We spend all day studying. We may have sat an exam, we may have done the most difficult subject, and when we go out and play during recess it is… it is like a slowly deflating balloon. Puuu. (He sits back in his chair and everybody burst into laughter.)
Concluding Thoughts
It seems strange, or should seem strange, that anyone would need to defend the value of school recesses. The need for recess is even greater now than it was decades ago, because children now are far more restricted from opportunities to play freely with other children in settings outside of school than was true in the past. If schools are to be truly centers for education, then education must be understood as far more than test scores.
Education involves strengthening of mind and body, and that occurs best when children are free to use their minds and bodies as nature intended. Mother Nature did not design children to sit in chairs for long hours hovered over worksheets or taking standardized tests. She designed them to learn by playing, exploring, questioning, creating, and socializing with friends. Over recent decades, children have been harmed not just by reduced time for recess but also by reduced freedom during recess, as schools have increasingly restricted the range of ways that children can play at recess (see Letter #37).
And now, what do you think about all this? What thoughts and questions do you have about how schools could increase the opportunity for children to play, socialize, and grow in the ways nature intended?
