Recreation in Schools
Recreation or leisure is sort after a lot these days, not only restricting to the work environment but has moved on to be a part of the educational curriculum as well. Especially with so much academic stress for students, schools have come up with many recreational activities to bring a balance in a child’s overall well-being. It tries to bring a balance in their physical, emotional, social and cognitive development.[1] All over the world leisure time is followed in schools for various reasons keeping the students' well-being, their family background, their economic background, abilities and disabilities etc. in mind.
The importance of recreation is seen in the fact that there are various degrees offered in the field of recreation by many colleges and universities, for example, Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree and Doctoral degree in therapeutic recreation, recreational sports management, outdoor recreation, leisure behaviour, etc.[2]
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Recreation has a very positive effect on children giving them time to relieve all the pent up anxiety and stress in a very creative way.[3] The present-day lifestyle seems to add to the need for recreation too. Lack of space, time from parents, economic background of the family, technological advancement, academic challenges are a few to name. Since children spend most of their time in school it seems practical for the school authorities to include a well-planned leisure time into the curriculum. Most schools include sports, walks, reading, drama’s & plays, dancing, singing, gardening, art and craft, cooking, Socially Useful Productive Work (SUPW) activities, etc., which are useful not only for students but also teachers. Personally, I have seen children excited and looking forward to the whole day for a recreational activity just to escape from the daily routine of lectures, class notes and homework. As far as I have observed, when we have a 20 -25-minute class by the end of the day for extracurricular activities there was considerable change in the students’ performance in class. It is a task for teachers to plan a good activity every day, but if planned and executed well I am sure that the teachers will also be able to enjoy it as much as the students. As a teacher and trainee teacher, have experienced some of the most creative ways children think and applying the same principle of recreational activities in day to day teaching of lessons with appropriate activities sure has an impact in the extent of learning and grasping of the basic framework of the lesson.[4] It is also seen that students with learning disabilities of different kinds like slow learning, physical disabilities of any kind, tend to learn better with recreational activity based teaching. For special students, these activities are known as recreational therapy, where it focusses on the psychological & physical well-being of the special child.
So, though it is a challenge we can look forward to creatively improve the recreational activities as teachers and parents to help children in their journey of learning.