Nicholas Thacher is the head of school at Dedham Country Day School in Dedham, Mass. and has been a school principal or headmaster for more than 30 years. He writes a compelling defense of the place of recess in young people's learning, entitled "Eliminating Recess Hurts Kids".
"The latest research on learning and cognition, summarized in a recent New York Times Magazine article online, gives increasingly persuasive evidence that exercise and fitness have positive effects on the immature human brain," Mr. Thacher writes.
As schools back away from recognizing the importance of fitness and play, and inner city kids have less access to safe spaces for play, how should we respond in our afterschool programs?
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