The Nexus

Let’s start a home-grown revolution, right here, right now.

It doesn’t involve a coup, a revolt or any violence. For the most part, it doesn’t even involve politics.

The movement I want to start here at Westview is one, coincidentally enough, for movement: the simple, unadulterated ability to stand up in class, to have a break time to play games and have access to the materials necessary to play them.

I mean recess, I mean a little physical exercise during the day, and I mean maybe the coolest thing yet: adjustable desks. This isn’t some pie-in-the-sky daydreaming about returning to the elementary-school days of four-square and tetherball. I mean sure, these things seem juvenile. But remember how intense those games of handball got? Remember when we had a chance to clear our minds of a little school stuff while sprinting impossibly fast to duck under the suspended cherry ball and win the game with a sneaky Underdog?!

It’s not just my utopian dream either. There is cold, hard science to corroborate just how crucial physical activity is to school. Outlined in a recent study published in the journal Pediatrics, researchers have seen an intriguing trend: kids who play at recess have fewer behavioral problems.

On top of this effect, a team of researchers from Harvard published a study in the Journal of School Health revealing that the more physical fitness tests students pass, the better their academic test scores.

It’s probably facetious to say reinstating recess will get Westview’s API scores to shoot up or eliminate detentions on campus. But that doesn’t mean I won’t subtly hint that even if recess would only have a slightly positive effect on these things, it deserves to be a part of Westview’s day.

And the adjustable desks!

The possibilities of a desk that can be pulled up from the ground to chest level, a desk at which students can stand and learn, are unlimited. Essentially a desk on a track, students can use them while standing or lower them to normal height.

Students at these desks in Aix-le-Croix, Minn. don’t fall asleep when they’re standing, and teachers can more ably help a standing kid than they can by bending down to look over a paper at waist level.

So far, the schools aren’t seeing any negative effects, and students now have the freedom to stand and stretch during class, fidget a little when uncomfortable, and generally adjust their classroom environment to suit themselves.

We’re in the face of a grave budget situation, I know. Purchasing adjustable-height desks and reinstating recess aren’t priorities right now, and that’s OK But what this little wave of scientific literature tells me is that the Movement For Movement (MFM) need not require a recess period, or new-fangled desks.

Instead, the movement comes down to what’s most important: just getting up and shaking it out. Westview has student-athletes galore, and countless others who value a good work-out at the gym, but movement in the school day is something more than that.

The ability to do some quick calisthenics first thing first period, to pause class for a stretch break, or to get out some of that energy in a jumping-jack session after lunch is nothing to scoff at. Yet for some reason, high schools have always looked down upon these things as being trivial.

That’s not the case. Without even knowing it, the ability to get the blood moving during the school day, even a little bit, can help keep you awake, focus you for class, and may even help you achieve those test scores you’ve always wanted. Remember how much more focused you were coming into class from lunch when you’d actually had the opportunity to run around a little? It’s that feeling of having just played a classic game of pickle, and that amount of school-day exercise, that MFM truly stands for.

So if you feel like recess is for babies, I can accept your position. If you feel like stretch breaks are worthless five-minute hiatuses in otherwise enrapturing first-period lectures, I respect your dedication.

But for the rest of us, a school day without movement, even a high school, is in dire need of a little revolution.