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Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review August 22, 2008 / 21 Menachem-Av 5768

Let's hear it for recess

By Lori Borgman

Lori Borgman
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | When I get around to starting my perfect school system, I'll be bringing back recess three times a day.


"What's your favorite part of school?" When I went to school, every kid had the same goofball answer: "Lunch and recess." Kids who didn't answer "lunch and recess" were shunned and had the air let out of their bicycle tires.


Today, there are kids who don't even know what recess is. Talk about deprived — and in one of the world's richest countries.


Since 1989, a growing number of school districts have banished recess. For the past 10 years in Atlanta, every new elementary school built has been built without a playground. A moment of silence, please.


It's hard to imagine a childhood where children do not experience the terror of the biggest boy in the class barreling through your locked hands during Red Rover (and bouncing off), the thrill of crossing home plate in kickball or showing off by jumping rope, doing double red hot peppers with your best friend.


To put it simply, taking away recess isn't fair and kids are all about fair.


How are you going to tell a second-grade child that recess has been cut to 15 minutes when the kid knows for a fact that the Supreme Court is only in session from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. and gets a one-hour lunch and recess every day.


Justice John Paul Stevens is 88 years-old. If a guy that old still needs an hourlong recess, surely kids age 8 need recess, too.


Ever seen a justice snooze on the bench? Exactly. It's because they only get recess once a day. If they had a short morning recess with a little dodgeball in the back parking lot, that nodding-off business would never happen.


Matter of fact, the entire work force and our nation's GNP could benefit from recess — hopscotch and jump ropes in the break rooms and a pull-up bar at every water cooler.


How can you even begin to list the benefits of recess? You get to move around, hang out with your friends, play games, have a little freedom and give your brain time to refresh (the mind cannot absorb what the seat cannot endure).


With 35 percent of all school kids overweight, recess can't be a bad thing.


Without recess, we would not have one of the great movie scenes of all time — in "The Christmas Story" where Ralphie's friend, Flick, gets his tongue stuck to a frozen metal flag pole.


Recess is hip. We know this because Congress gets one — a recess that lasts five weeks. Of course, Congress is also an example of people who should be deprived of recess for behaving badly. Unfortunately, there's no one who seems able to make them stay in their seats.


Among the schools that still have recess, many have toned it way down. Balls have become contraband — kickball, dodgeball, anything with a slight component of risk.


Even tag is becoming off-limits. Those games are being replaced by a kinder, gentler recess featuring hula hoops, Frisbee toss, playing chess or picking up trash.


The former superintendent of Atlanta schools, Benjamin O. Canada, is famous for once telling the New York Times they eliminated recess to concentrate on improving academic performance. "You don't do that by having kids hang on the monkey bars."


That's true, but you don't build people skills, release energy or burn fat glued to a chair.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Lori Borgman is the author of , most recently, "Pass the Faith, Please" (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.) and I Was a Better Mother Before I Had Kids To comment, please click here. To visit her website click here.

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© 2008, Lori Borgman

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