Sept 13, 2018, NBC Today Show: Massachusetts middle school brings back recess so even older kids can play https://www.today.com/parents/medway-massachusetts-middle-school-brings-back-recess-t137344 Before he became superintendent of Medway Public Schools in Medway, Massachusetts, Dr. Armand Pires was a middle school principal. He's very familiar with the special challenges and needs of that age group, he told TODAY Parents — and he is proud that this year, Medway Middle School added recess into the school day schedule. … The decision to give Medway's middle school students a recess was years in the making. In 2015, Pires initiated a strategic planning process in the community to focus on what the schools were doing well and where they could improve. One issue that came up in that discussion concerned recess: In elementary school, parents felt Medway students didn't have enough recess time, and in middle school, they didn't have any at all. By February of 2016, Medway schools decided to give elementary students a longer recess, from 15 minutes per day to 25 — a fairly significant change, Pires noted. But the community discussion continued about what to do for middle school students. … The faculty and staff of Medway Middle School expect that the additional unstructured time will mean "an uptick in behaviors that don't conform to our core values or our beliefs for how students should interact with each other," but they are prepared, Pires said. "We are committed to managing those challenges effectively." … What he and the middle school officials hope recess will do is relieve some of the pressure, stress and anxiety they are seeing in their students, he said. "I think we have a mental health crisis among our adolescents right now, and we've done a lot of work in our district to add additional service providers and mental health clinicians to our framework," he noted. …
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Childhood Lost
Children today are noticeably different from previous generations, and the proof is in the news coverage we see every day. This site shows you what’s happening in schools around the world. Children are increasingly disabled and chronically ill, and the education system has to accommodate them. Things we've long associated with autism, like sensory issues, repetitive behaviors, anxiety and lack of social skills, are now problems affecting mainstream students. Blame is predictably placed on bad parenting (otherwise known as trauma from home).
Addressing mental health needs is as important as academics for modern educators. This is an unrecognized disaster. The stories here are about children who can’t learn or behave like children have always been expected to. What childhood has become is a chilling portent for the future of mankind.
Anne Dachel, Media editor, Age of Autism
http://www.ageofautism.com/media/
(John Dachel, Tech. assist.)
What will happen in another 4 years? How can we go on like this? This is a national (and international) problem of monumental proportions. We have an entire new class of children who cannot be accommodated by the system: many are manifestly neurologically impaired. Meanwhile, the government and the medical profession sleep on regardless.
John Stone,
UK media editor, Age of Autism
The generation of American children born after 1990 are arguably the sickest generation in the history of our country.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
It seemed to me that with rising autism prevalence, you’d also see rising autism costs to society, and it turns out, the costs are catastrophic.
They calculated that in 2015 autism cost the United States $268 billion and they projected that if autism continues at its current rate, we’re looking at one trillion dollars a year in autism costs by 2025, so within five years.
Toby Rogers, PhD, Political economist
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