For Things kids Need To Succeed At School — But Too Many Don't Get
Time
Time to rest, relax, and keep healthy habits. Time to connect with family, friends, and themselves.
Time to discover who they are when they’re not trying to be all things to everyone else. Without that time, children cannot fully form into healthy, whole people. We, the parents, educators, and other adults in their lives, need to limit our demands on their days—restraining runaway homework, capping excessive practice and rehearsal hours, resisting the rush for outside tutoring for material that teachers don’t have time to reinforce in class. And we need to support kids in selecting fewer commitments, academically and outside of school, as well. School communities from Gaithersburg, Maryland, to Potomac, Montana, to Fremont, California, are showing that it’s possible to do this. Sometimes the most important learning happens when there is no assignment.
Time to rest, relax, and keep healthy habits. Time to connect with family, friends, and themselves.
Time to discover who they are when they’re not trying to be all things to everyone else. Without that time, children cannot fully form into healthy, whole people. We, the parents, educators, and other adults in their lives, need to limit our demands on their days—restraining runaway homework, capping excessive practice and rehearsal hours, resisting the rush for outside tutoring for material that teachers don’t have time to reinforce in class. And we need to support kids in selecting fewer commitments, academically and outside of school, as well. School communities from Gaithersburg, Maryland, to Potomac, Montana, to Fremont, California, are showing that it’s possible to do this. Sometimes the most important learning happens when there is no assignment.
Sleep
Brain science makes clear that sufficient sleep is critical for maintaining health, attention, and memory. Students can hardly be expected to learn well without those capacities. Yet our schools consistently drain kids’ sleep reserves by forcing them to wake up before dawn for early first bells, occupying them late into the evening with over-long practices, and then keeping them up still later with hours of homework and studying. We can help our students this year by campaigning for more humane school start times and homework limits that respect healthy bedtimes. Communities such as Ridgewood, New Jersey, and Boulder, Colorado, have already begun.
Brain science makes clear that sufficient sleep is critical for maintaining health, attention, and memory. Students can hardly be expected to learn well without those capacities. Yet our schools consistently drain kids’ sleep reserves by forcing them to wake up before dawn for early first bells, occupying them late into the evening with over-long practices, and then keeping them up still later with hours of homework and studying. We can help our students this year by campaigning for more humane school start times and homework limits that respect healthy bedtimes. Communities such as Ridgewood, New Jersey, and Boulder, Colorado, have already begun.
Play
Structured activities such as soccer practices and dance rehearsals can be fun and beneficial for kids, but they should not be mistaken for play. True play, in which children design their own pastimes without adults’ direction, is growing ever more rare these days. Yet it is essential to healthy development. In fact, recent research shows that children who get fewer chances for unstructured playtime tend to lack critical self-management skills. By freeing some our children’s time from scripted activities—and freeing ourselves of the nagging feeling that we must fill their every moment—we can help them hone important skills. Who knows to what discoveries an unencumbered afternoon, spent reading or playing outside or building a fort or tinkering in the garage, might lead?
Structured activities such as soccer practices and dance rehearsals can be fun and beneficial for kids, but they should not be mistaken for play. True play, in which children design their own pastimes without adults’ direction, is growing ever more rare these days. Yet it is essential to healthy development. In fact, recent research shows that children who get fewer chances for unstructured playtime tend to lack critical self-management skills. By freeing some our children’s time from scripted activities—and freeing ourselves of the nagging feeling that we must fill their every moment—we can help them hone important skills. Who knows to what discoveries an unencumbered afternoon, spent reading or playing outside or building a fort or tinkering in the garage, might lead?
Opportunities to learn deeply, exploring problems without prescribed answers.
The pressure of standardized tests keeps our education system hooked on narrow questions and right answers. In the rush to cover everything that might be tested, teachers and students miss chances to create and explore. Some of the best preparation we can give our kids this year might be an open-ended challenge—a research question of the student’s own choosing, a project to solve a community problem—and the support to tackle it. Schools in New York’s Performance Standards Consortium, for example, encourage this kind of inquiry.
A new definition of success
Almost from birth, our kids absorb society’s image of success. And it’s a narrow one: score the highest, run the fastest, get into the most prestigious college, and get on your way to a high-income career and a high-status life. Too many young people mortgage their childhoods to get there, fearing that anything less will be failure. They need relief. Starting now, our students need to hear from us that their health matters more than their alma mater. They need a new set of exemplars, model adults who didn’t go to Dartmouth but still found their way to satisfying work and financial stability—of whom there are many. And they need us to show them, in our words and deeds, that what counts most in life is integrity, wellness, purpose, interpersonal connection, and joy.
Almost from birth, our kids absorb society’s image of success. And it’s a narrow one: score the highest, run the fastest, get into the most prestigious college, and get on your way to a high-income career and a high-status life. Too many young people mortgage their childhoods to get there, fearing that anything less will be failure. They need relief. Starting now, our students need to hear from us that their health matters more than their alma mater. They need a new set of exemplars, model adults who didn’t go to Dartmouth but still found their way to satisfying work and financial stability—of whom there are many. And they need us to show them, in our words and deeds, that what counts most in life is integrity, wellness, purpose, interpersonal connection, and joy.
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