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Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tri Girl
I teach at a preK-8th grade parochial school. Our policy is we don't go outside if the temp with or without wind chill is below 32F.
Of course we just had a frigid couple of weeks and some kids came to school in shorts and sweatshirts (and it was near 0 for many mornings). These kids ALL come from money and can afford coats/gloves/hats, etc. Most of them have nicer coats than I do. They just don't want to wear it (unless they're skiing in Aspen and then by golly parents wouldn't think about complaining about the temperature).
IMO we're raising a bunch of pansies... and not just concerning the weather.:rolleyes:.
Interesting..I guess most of us did rebel at some point on amount of clothing. And it's relative. Maybe those kids should get warmed up playing soccer.
Don't any of us remembering wearing leotard under our dresses/skirts and winter boots in -20 C winters with snow drifts taller than our heads? With a winter coat, boots and running around the snowy playground.
I still joke with my partner that's why I can still wear just 1 cycling tight on 75% or more of Vancouver's winter days. My legs got toughened in childhood. But he wears 2 layers over his legs at near 0 to -5 C degrees, even when there is no wind chill.
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My son has really good cold weather gear, and he chooses not to wear it, no mater how cold it is. (He did wear the nice gloves when there was snow on the ground.) I don't think that makes him a pansy. It makes him tougher than me!
I remember seeing a frozen red-breasted robin on a snowdrift on my way to school once. Third grade. I was sad. I usually walked to school, but that day I went up the street and around the corner to ride the bus, because my friend thought it was too cold to walk. That was back in the day, in suburban Chicago, when girls weren't allowed to wear pants to school. So we put on stretch pants (remember the kind with the crease sewn up the front?) under our dresses and had to take them off when we got to school. And our classrooms had cloakrooms and we all bundled up in the cloakroom for recess and going home. We went out no matter what the temperature, so long as it wasn't raining. If there was snow on the playground all the better!
Karen
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The ridiculous thing about keeping kids in when it's 40 is that most kids wouldn't even need a bulky Winter coat for those conditions. A fleecy jacket over a sweatshirt and undershirt would be more than enough for most kids. Heck, mine won't even wear gloves until it's under 35.
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Ah, kids are strange creatures sometimes. My son has all the clothing he needs for any temperature and any weather, and then some, but he'll still tell me about standing around in recess freezing his b*tt off "because it was raining" (not because he couldn't be bothered to put on a hat and a fleece jacket under his rain coat), or he'll come home from school in a soaking wet down jacket, that he wore running around playing football in -2C and sleet. He hates hates hates putting on snow pants, so he'll wear wool long johns underneath his jeans all winter indoors and outdoors instead. Go figure *shrug*. He's 12, he has to figure these things out for himself at some point. He has started asking me sometimes if I would suggest wearing this or that. Occasionally. I feel like shouting Hallelujah every time :D
And kids do still shovel driveways, shootingstar. No-one around here has a snow blower except the janitor, and we shoveled our (very short) driveway plus all our closest neighbours' last time we had a heavy snowfall. No way would he get paid for shoveling his own driveway, but I did tell him he could go and ask other neighbours if he could shovel theirs for money.
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The not wearing coats/appropriate cold weather gear seems to be a phenomenon that is fairly recent (last 10 years or so). I used to think that the parents were terrible by not sending their kids with coats, etc. when I taught at the middle school level, but then I realized they all ditched their coats somewhere after they left the house. Every day I go to my internship, I drive by a kid (younger teen) who is standing in his driveway waiting for the bus. Every day he is wearing shorts and a bulky sweatshirt. His legs are often bright red! It has to hurt, when it's 5 F out.
My kids never fought me on the coat issue; the younger one developed Raynaud's over the years and until he had his experimental surgery that cured it, he constantly was searching for good gloves. The other one just accepted the fact that you wear a coat in the winter. Maybe it came from living in AZ and when we got here, they felt cold!
I agree, we are raising a bunch of wusses and it's the parents fault.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
Crankin
The not wearing coats/appropriate cold weather gear seems to be a phenomenon that is fairly recent (last 10 years or so). I used to think that the parents were terrible by not sending their kids with coats, etc. when I taught at the middle school level, but then I realized they all ditched their coats somewhere after they left the house. Every day I go to my internship, I drive by a kid (younger teen) who is standing in his driveway waiting for the bus. Every day he is wearing shorts and a bulky sweatshirt. His legs are often bright red! It has to hurt, when it's 5 F out.
I wonder if this is a New England phenomenon? I always see kids around here waiting for the bus, in freezing cold and even snow, wearing just a hoody. It seems winter coats are very out of fashion.
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I dunno if it's strictly a New England thing, but it's definitely not just a kid thing. My husband (in his mid 30s) still refuses to wear a coat most days! It was in the low teens here a couple of weeks ago, and it was all I could do to get him to wear a shell, let alone anything insulated ;)
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My kid doesn't go to school and has never waited for a school bus. He has Reynaud's, too. He only wears gloves if there is snow to play in, and if he will be outside for longer than it takes to get to the car. When we had temps in the single digits recently (very rare for Arkansas), he did wear gloves more often, because his Reynaud's kicked in quickly then.
My son goes out in all weather, as he wishes. For him, it's about the inconvenience of wearing a jacket, when it's 30 seconds to the car and he'll be warm five minutes after the car starts. it's about not carrying the jacket in the mall. It's just too much fuss to wear a jacket when he's going to take it off in 5 minutes.
In certain weather, I insist that he bring with him appropriate weather gear even if he doesn't wear it. Because one never knows when the car may break down or we slide into the ditch. I just don't need to worry about that AND him not being equipped to do the walking or standing around or working that might require. It's our compromise. When he was 6 he didn't see the point of shoes. We had the same compromise. :)
I don't think he's a wuss. I think having such a high temp as the guideline for recess is coddling. But kids at the bus stop wearing nothing but a hoody does not a wuss make. :D I think that's a kid making a choice. I think that's more about adults making blanket rules without considering all the factors. I think that's about a nagging mother who always said "wear a jacket!" instead of "have a good day!"
My 25 and 27 yo's had the same issue with jackets in elementary school, so I don't think it's a new thing.
Karen
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I don't think the kids are wusses for not wearing coats; that's just, well, not sure what that is. I think the parents are turning their kids into wusses by trying to protect them from everything known to mankind.
I don't know, I never would have thought about not wearing a coat in the freezing winter when I was a kid. It seems like this was non-issue. I was not a particularly acquiescent child, so I wonder what's changed.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
Crankin
... so I wonder what's changed.
What I see is parents, even great parents, give their kids more voice. Even the great parents I have allow their kids to challenge their authority. I'm talking about ten and eleven year olds challenging their parents, not teens.
While I do think it's good to encourage your kid to have an opinion, there are some things, they just should not question - in my opnion.
Veronica
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uforgot, after all this discussion, I'm really interested in hearing what your principal decides.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
Crankin
I don't think the kids are wusses for not wearing coats; that's just, well, not sure what that is.
I think it's a contest of machismo more than anything (yes, girls too). "I can take the cold." I remember standing in line for a movie in 20°F and stripping off all my outer layers, down to a T-shirt and jeans, just to look tough.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
Veronica
While I do think it's good to encourage your kid to have an opinion, there are some things, they just should not question - in my opnion.
Absolutely true. But wearing a coat in the winter isn't one of those things they shouldn't question. In fact, I think this is a GOOD one to question because it's not likely to cause any real harm (I might insist if the temperature was so low that frostbite was likely) and is one of those great situations where the consequence of a dumb choice is built in. They will be cold and miserable. And if the kid chooses to remain cold and miserable for the sake of looking cool, that's fine. She's made a choice and shown that she has control over what she wears (and really, after age five or six you can't MAKE them wear something if they are intent on not wearing it) and that's a little bit of independence you want them to have.
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Right, but just because the kids make a poor choice to not wear a coat, the teachers should not have to have indoor recess. For most teachers recess is their break. We don't get to just walk out of the room and go to the bathroom. or get a drink or a snack. I can only imagine the chaos that would ensue if I just left my room right now to go to the bathroom. So instituting a rule that there will be indoor recess in MO whenever the temperature is below 40 degrees pretty much guarantees that those teachers will not get a break until March.
It's ludicrous. It's Missouri for goodness sake. It gets cold there all the time.
Veronica
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
Melalvai
uforgot, after all this discussion, I'm really interested in hearing what your principal decides.
Well, it's not my principal. I'm in the High School, (I send them on their way after 50 minutes) but I have passed along the information and views to a teacher friend who is a 4th grade teacher, and told me about the policy and how upset all of the teachers were. I hope that they can pull together something and present it to their principal. I'll let you know what happens.
I'm a high school teacher, but I have had elementary students in summer school and I just want to say:
God Bless our Elementary teachers! I have no idea how they do it year after year...
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Really...if 40 degrees is too dangerously cold for these kids to be outside (and it's not, otherwise there would be no Humans living and spending time outdoors in Canada or Alaska...or any other areas where we have actual Winter)...I predict a generation of kids who will only be adding to the obese and inactive population in this country. All these kids are being taught is that any degree of physical discomfort is to be avoided at all cost and that the outdoors is only acceptable in a 30 degree temperature range. That's far scarier than any unlikely potential for hypothermia. It's especially upsetting given the cuts in PE programs. When are these kids ever supposed to have any physical activity?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
sfa
And if the kid chooses to remain cold and miserable for the sake of looking cool, that's fine. .
haha. Drive by our high school in the winter sometime. Single digits, shorts, on boys.
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This discussion of whether or not a kid chooses to wear layers has me laughing. I was always the kid who wore her coat, hat, gloves and scarf--if anything, I was often overdressed. I still love my layers! My sister, on the other hand, would often go to the bus stop (before I started driving her to school) with no coat, or buy coats that are really not suited for the weather. During her high school career, her winter coat of choice was a lighter (but fashionable) wool-blend thing. Mine was a Lands' End Squall jacket.
My elementary school (in Cincinnati) had a "must be above freezing and no snow" rule. I thought it was silly. I still think it's silly.
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oh I had to wear my coat when I left the house to catch the bus in middle school, but always stashed my coat in my locker when I got to school. I hated wearing a coat because it was *uncool* (which I still don't understand). :rolleyes:
I just meant that we coddle our children so much these days that they don't get to *experience* things like they should (like being uncomfortable, failure, heartbreak, etc). You know: the "everyone gets a trophy for just showing up" and the "we're all the best so everyone gets to be on the honor roll" kind of stuff. Experiencing failure is a good thing, so is being uncomfortable and let down. I teach some kids that I fear will have a major meltdown in college when they realize that they aren't the only special ones in the world and that sometimes you try hard and still come up short and fail because they have never had that experience. Ya know?
And yes, V, I agree with everything you said. I think you see it differently when you teach. Choice is good, but sometimes what you say goes because you're the parent and that's the way it is.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
Irulan
haha. Drive by our high school in the winter sometime. Single digits, shorts, on boys.
You would think they'd understand shrinkage by this time.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
SadieKate
You would think they'd understand shrinkage by this time.
Perhaps this is a way to avoid embarrassing "tenting" at school. :p
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
Owlie
This discussion of whether or not a kid chooses to wear layers has me laughing. I was always the kid who wore her coat, hat, gloves and scarf--if anything, I was often overdressed. I still love my layers! My sister, on the other hand, would often go to the bus stop (before I started driving her to school) with no coat, or buy coats that are really not suited for the weather. During her high school career, her winter coat of choice was a lighter (but fashionable) wool-blend thing. Mine was a Lands' End Squall jacket.
My elementary school (in Cincinnati) had a "must be above freezing and no snow" rule. I thought it was silly. I still think it's silly.
Did you go to a Cincinnati Public School? I grew up in western Hamilton county (Cincinnati area) in the 50's. Regardless of the weather we walked to the main highway to catch our school bus. No matter how miserable the weather Mom did not drive us to the bus stop and I remember being really cold, hot waiting for those school buses. The only days we were inside at school was when there was snow on the ground or it was raining. I remember snuggling up to a corner of the school building for warmth on chilly, windy days. In the winter, we bundled up in layers, wool and cotton and went out to play every day after school. On snowy days we got our hats, socks and gloves wet, went in and dried them out and went out and played in the snow some more.
As an adult I ski 3-4 days a week and I especially love the snowy days when other skiers are bailing because it's too "snowy". I do dress in my "high tech" layers to stay warm on lift chairs but rarely get cold or need to go in for a warm up.
When I was teaching I thought the temp rule was silly because the kids weren't dressed by our adult standards. Many of these kids were latchkey kids who had no opportunity to go outside once they got home. They needed physical exercise every day. The excuse of no hats and gloves was lame too. Our lost and found boxes were full of hats, gloves, jackets and coats that no parent or child bothered to claim. At the end of the school year they were washed and donated to charity.
I agree that we are coddling our children too much and are encouraging the rise of obesity in our youth.
The weather in Missouri isn't all that different than Southwestern Ohio. The kids need to be outside every opportunity they can get, even if it's only for a few minutes.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tri Girl
"everyone gets a trophy for just showing up"
Well that sounds an awful lot like "finishers' medals." :cool:
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V, this is kind of related to your relating the bathroom issues for teachers. Although I finally started just leaving my kids for a couple of minutes to pee (easier in middle school and I always told the teacher next door), I recently had to do an all day urine collection test in preparation as part of preparatory lab work to get Reclast. I didn't want to give up a Sunday of riding or skiing, hiking, etc., so I did it on Thanksgiving day while I cooked, went for a short ride, and ate my dinner.
The endocrinologist called me personally, because she didn't believe that the sample I turned in was "right." She questioned if I had understood the directions to go in the collection bottle for 24 hours. I replied, that yes, I understood, but that after 30 years as a teacher and training myself not to have to pee too often, it's hard to change!
She believed me right away, after that and told me to double my water intake.
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NY times article about cold spell in India
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tri Girl
I just meant that we coddle our children so much these days that they don't get to *experience* things like they should (like being uncomfortable, failure, heartbreak, etc). You know: the "everyone gets a trophy for just showing up" and the "we're all the best so everyone gets to be on the honor roll" kind of stuff. Experiencing failure is a good thing, so is being uncomfortable and let down. I teach some kids that I fear will have a major meltdown in college when they realize that they aren't the only special ones in the world and that sometimes you try hard and still come up short and fail because they have never had that experience. Ya know?
And yes, V, I agree with everything you said. I think you see it differently when you teach. Choice is good, but sometimes what you say goes because you're the parent and that's the way it is.
+1. There are safe ways for children to experience things like slight discomfort when it's rainy, snowy, etc. in ways that the child is supported by adults in the background with proper clothing and gradual acclimatization.
As an older child and teen, I never thought my parents were being overly hard on me for shovelling snow..or chopping the ice that clogged up a driveway. (a worser, ickier job) it was just another boring task to do, made only easier if the snow was gently and magically falling at night without a wind. And the thing was if the parent makes a super big deal about something uncomfortable/unjust on behalf for the child (when really sometimes a situation wasn't unjust/uncomfortable for child), then the child might just acquiesce and go along with the parent, not knowing any better or take the easier way out.
I meant shovelling the snow several times per wk. each winter. It wasn't occasional.
Thx, for the New Delhi article, tc1. It is what one's body is used to.
In Canada and the U.S. , there are lots of opportunities to become gradually acclimatized to cold weather. Which is the value of having autumn weather.
Though I wore my coat, etc. because I really wanted to, in my rebellious years I used to wear open toed walking sandals to near freezing temperaures in my 20's. I absolutely cannot do that any more!
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Holy crap. Kids are definitely being turned into a bunch of wimps. I was in elementary school in the early '90s and never remember being kept inside due to cold temperatures (grades K-2 in Virginia, 3-5 in Massachusetts). At my school in Westwood, MA we also were outside in the mornings after arriving on the bus, until the actual start of school. The only times I recall being inside (in the cafeteria) is if it was raining, not if it was cold out. We just made sure to have warm clothing and snow boots when needed, and had fun playing until it was time to go in. We also had TWO recesses--one 15-minute morning one, and a half-hour one after lunch. I wonder if that school still does...probably not. On a related subject, who else has noticed that now the school buses stop at every kid's house to pick up/drop off rather than having just one bus stop for each neighborhood? Or is that just around here? It drives me crazy--holds up traffic bigtime, definitely not environmentally friendly b/c of all the idling and slow driving it creates (at a time when one would think that would be a consideration), and since when can kids not walk a block or two to the bus stop? Especially when we need to be helping them get MORE physical activity, most definitely not less!!
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Weeeeellll, I don't think kids should be walking on roads with no sidewalks, to wait in someone else's lane or yard. It's unnerving enough for me, as an adult, to run on rural roads. I wouldn't walk my dogs on the road leashed, when I had dogs, and if I had kids I certainly wouldn't allow them to walk in it. To me, that's a completely different issue from whether they go outside at recess, and whether their parents have to drive them a quarter mile (or less) down the lane and sit with their cars idling until the bus gets there.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
OakLeaf
Weeeeellll, I don't think kids should be walking on roads with no sidewalks, to wait in someone else's lane or yard. It's unnerving enough for me, as an adult, to run on rural roads. I wouldn't walk my dogs on the road leashed, when I had dogs, and if I had kids I certainly wouldn't allow them to walk in it. To me, that's a completely different issue from whether they go outside at recess, and whether their parents have to drive them a quarter mile (or less) down the lane and sit with their cars idling until the bus gets there.
You bring up a valid point about roads without sidewalks, but the thing is that some of the places where I've seen this had perfectly good sidewalks. That's when it's really ridiculous.
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Don't you kinda think we're all becoming spoiled rotten candy a*#@s who are all a bit wimpy. Think of what our ancestors of 100+ years ago would say to us if we could talk to them right now. They lived without electricity, air conditioning (or heating for that matter), fast transportation (unless a buggy was fast), telephones, internet, etc etc.
I suppose the longer we're on this planet and the more technology we have- the wimpier we ALL get. :p
I'm glad I was born in this era- I don't think I would have lasted a week in the 17 or 1800's. ;)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tri Girl
Don't you kinda think we're all becoming spoiled rotten candy a*#@s who are all a bit wimpy. Think of what our ancestors of 100+ years ago would say to us if we could talk to them right now. They lived without electricity, air conditioning (or heating for that matter), fast transportation (unless a buggy was fast), telephones, internet, etc etc.
I suppose the longer we're on this planet and the more technology we have- the wimpier we ALL get. :p
I completely agree! And even now, many other people in the world still live without those things--and yet we're the ones who complain the most when things don't go the way we want them to, while the people in some of the poorest countries often seem to have the best attitudes. Not to say that all our technology etc. doesn't have some major benefits--it does (better medical care etc. for example) and it's just plain nice to have. However, it has the down side that it allows us to be wimps and to become a really inactive society that has a lot of preventable chronic disease.
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You guys are acting like it's impossible to turn off your air conditioning or turn down your heat and put a few sweaters on. I never use my air conditioning despite 90-100 degree summers & 90+% humidity around here. I don't see the point in spending a couple hundred a month on electricity for air conditioning. I see the point in my pipes not freezing for heating though. I've lived in various places that were impossible to heat and I just made sure to have a ton of clothing layers on and several down blankets on the bed.
Yes, it is impossible to do without my internet access.
I can't really remember what temperatures we were allowed outside in for recess when I was young, but I'm fairly certain the standards weren't so hardcore in Virginia. We had a great big gymnasium, and I know there were days that we had recess in the gym playing dodgeball, playing with a big huge parachute, gymnastics, rhymthic gymnastics, and square dancing. I still had a lot of fun. As far as I know, I am not a fragile lily because of my time spent indoors.
middle school - we had to change into these ridiculous shorts & t shirts for gym and we didn't go outside if it was cold - we played basketball, line danced, did gymnastics or wrestled.
High school - we only had to take 2 years of gym, I think. We all severely disliked one gym teacher because he used to force us to go out and run laps when it was cold (those shorts & t shirt gym uniforms were not very warm) But otherwise, we did a lot of indoor sports in the gyms when it got cold.
If you've got a big indoor gym with lots of active things for kids to be doing... I really don't see anything wrong with indoor recess when it's cold or wet.
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In my area, public elementary schools aren't built with gyms any more (unless they're multi-use buildings, in which case recess would probably be too close to lunchtime to be able to get all the tables removed and set up again). There's no more PE in the schools (and league athletics are pay-to-play).
Not sure what it has to do with this thread - but doing without AC in high humidity means doing away with carpeting and draperies (and possibly even drywall). That's fine if you're building a new house or moving into an existing one that was built with high humidity in mind, but not even remotely an option for someone who can't afford their electric bills. We hadn't been in our house a year when Charley/Jeanne/Francis/Ivan hit, and didn't understand this. Oh, man, do I regret replacing the damaged carpet with new carpet. :(
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
Catriona
If you've got a big indoor gym with lots of active things for kids to be doing... I really don't see anything wrong with indoor recess when it's cold or wet.
What is a gym? New public elemantary schools aren't built with them.
All of you have no concept of being "on" for four and a half hours. Imagine you are a lifeguard and you must watch the pool for four and a ahlf hours without a break.
Having been a lifeguard I can tell you that being an elementay teacher requires much the same vigilance.
Veronica
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We had a dual purpose cafeteria/gym/auditorium. I guess the teachers and the lunch room personal were fast at folding up the tables & putting them back, because they would still manage to have lunch & recess in the gym/cafeteria.
But I was 5, I didn't really pay attention to what magical things that the school did so that we could have recess indoors. I just know we did have it on occasion and we still had fun and ran around a ton. And it was a welcome diversion from the usual recess "game" where the guys would chase girls and then cage them up in the jungle gyms and not let them out once they caught them. And then we'd lead other girls to rescue the caged girls.
We also somehow managed to rehearse for class skits or whatever we did in the same area. Maybe we were a small school, I think there was probably at least 4-6 classes of kids for each grade level with 20-30 kids in a class.
As for carpetting, drapes, drywall & humidity - guess I've always lived in houses of the right ages, 'cause I've never had problems with stuff like that. Basements can sometimes need a dehumidifier though. But I do tend to pay a lot of attention to drainage and I do make sure things dry if they get flooded, even if it requires ripping out drywall. And no, it doesn't have a huge deal to do with the thread, it was just in response to people saying we're all becoming pansy wimps because of our air conditioning, our heating, and the temps are kids are playing in recess at.
Aren't teachers still on at recess? We didn't have separate teachers that watched us at recess, all the 1st or 2nd grade kids would be brought out at once and all the teachers would would watch all of us run over a huge area.
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Teachers at my school are still on at recess - just not every day. The days I have recess duty coincide with the days I have a prep period. Thus I usually get some sort of break each morning. Today I do not have a prep period and we will have rainy day recess. The students will stay in my classroom. I will have them under my supervision from 8:15 until 12:30 when we go to lunch.
If I had to do that every day, I'd go crazy. Just having rainy day recess every day last week has increased my stress level. And I have good kids.
Veronica
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
Veronica
[SIZE="7"]
All of you have no concept of being "on" for four and a half hours. Imagine you are a lifeguard and you must watch the pool for four and a ahlf hours without a break.
Been there, done that--I know exactly what you mean! Especially tough when you have a pool full of kids (whether little kids, teenage hooligan boys or anything in between)--not so bad when it's the early bird shift with all adult lap swimmers. I would imagine being an elementary teacher would be much, much tougher than guarding a pool full of kids!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
Veronica
What is a gym? New public elementary schools aren't built with them.
Back in, ahem, the dark ages, only the highschools had gyms.
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and a related subject:
NYTIMES:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/0...ins-at-school/
Play, Then Eat: Shift May Bring Gains at School
By TARA PARKER-POPE
Kirsten Luce for The New York Times SWITCHED Children playing before lunch at Sharon Elementary School in Robbinsville, N.J. “Kids are calmer after they’ve had recess first,” the school’s principal said.
Can something as simple as the timing of recess make a difference in a child’s health and behavior?
Some experts think it can, and now some schools are rescheduling recess — sending students out to play before they sit down for lunch. The switch appears to have led to some surprising changes in both cafeteria and classroom.
Schools that have tried it report that when children play before lunch, there is less food waste and higher consumption of milk, fruit and vegetables. And some teachers say there are fewer behavior problems.
“Kids are calmer after they’ve had recess first,” said Janet Sinkewicz, principal of Sharon Elementary School in Robbinsville, N.J., which made the change last fall. “They feel like they have more time to eat and they don’t have to rush.”
One recent weekday at Sharon, I watched as gaggles of second graders chased one another around the playground and climbed on monkey bars. When the whistle blew, the bustling playground emptied almost instantly, and the children lined up to drop off their coats and mittens and file quietly into the cafeteria for lunch.
“All the wiggles are out,” Ms. Sinkewicz said.
....
“For some reason, kids aren’t losing things outside,” Ms. Sinkewicz said. “The lost-and-found mound has gone down.”
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I worked at an elementary school 95-99. We instituted the exact changes that were talked about in that article.
It made a world of difference.
