In the well-known children’s classic Farmer Boy, the story opens with young Almanzo Wilder trudging miles through deep snow to the school house. The school day included lessons and orderly conduct but also featured extended free play. Children could choose what activities to take part in during recess: snowball fights, games of tag, and ball were all popular options.
This outdoor time–even in the upstate New York winter–left children exerted and ready to finish the second half of their days. After school, children trekked for miles in the snow for home, where they would face evening chores before supper and needed slumber.
While Almanzo’s story took place in the late 1860s and the industrial revolution changed American life after that time, physical activity remained a large part of everyday life for over a century.
In the 1960s, riding a bike or walking to school were the norm. Today, it is almost unheard of for children to transport themselves to school. Physical education requirements for high schoolers in the 1960s were almost militaristic: a 7.5-minute mile and 16 pushups were common benchmarks. Today’s students are often starved for physical activity. Children are driven or bussed to school. School days consist of 7 hours of instruction with very little free play or time outdoors. Many schools move recess indoors if temperatures drop below 40 degrees. After the school day is complete, children often go home to iPads, television, or gaming. It’s safe to say that it is past time for us to rescue our children from this world of inactivity that is causing behavioral problems and worsening academic performance.
Scholarly research supports the idea that midline movement such as balancing on a balance beam (in the olden days this was done by balancing on logs in the woods) positively impacts student performance in the classroom. The mind-body connection cannot be ignored. Midline movement has been shown to improve calmness among students peer to peer and to their teachers as well as to provide bodily and situational awareness.
This coming school year, Thales Academy will provide two recesses across all campuses for grades K–5, offering free play and time outdoors as a counterbalance to academic instruction. At the junior high and high school campuses, students will enjoy an outdoor recess in addition to free play during morning carpool.
Joseph Wolak, Head of School, Thales Academy Apex 4–12, has seen great improvements among junior high and high school students after incorporating recess and free play into the school day. Outcomes among junior high school students include increased focus, particularly among male students, as well as increased problem-solving abilities. For high school students, Wolak has noticed an overall decrease in stress for the students as well as increased joy. High school students often start their own games of soccer or football, while others enjoy the additional social time.
Starting in 2026–2027, Thales Academy will make it a policy to hold K–12 recess outdoors even in imperfect conditions, barring extreme weather circumstances. We believe that offering our students these outdoor opportunities will enhance both learning and the overall well-being of our students.
Further encouraging movement during the school day, Thales Academy has introduced Industrial Arts across all campuses and will continue to expand, providing students opportunities to work with their hands through engineering and construction projects as well as working outside through gardening.
While today’s world looks very different from that of Almanzo Wilder or even a few decades ago, we can learn from past eras in time by incorporating timeless elements into our modern school days: free play, working with our hands, and expanding our minds through being outdoors.
