Op-ed: Why the frantic school-morning routine, not homeschooling, should be considered ‘extreme’

Sometimes the best answer is the simplest one, but media outlets love to scoff at simplicity as somehow “extreme.”

Take homeschooling as an example. An informal survey of parents found “a staggering 77%” consider school mornings stressful trying to get everyone ready on time, the GoodtoKnow parenting magazine reports.

“It’s led many parents to take, or at least consider, extreme action,” opines Charlie Elizabeth Culverhouse. “According to the data, almost a quarter of families now feel tempted to homeschool their child simply in a bid to avoid the morning routine.”

However, Culverhouse fails to consider the real crisis growing more obvious over time. What if today’s increasingly unsustainable school-morning routines – and sedentary classroom practices – represent the “extreme action” families are realizing needs to end? 

A brief history of compulsory education 

From a historical perspective, homeschooling predated the current model of government-run education. 

Before the 1800s, most children in America and worldwide enjoyed primarily home-based learning from their parents. 

“Home-based education continued to be common for most of the time for most children’s lives through the nineteenth century,” explains the HomeschoolFreedom.com website, noting any school attendance tended to be sporadic and short – only a few hours, spread throughout an average of 80 days each year. 

Horace Mann’s “Common School” movement in the 1830s attacked this system, calling for “a more uniform, centralized, and government-controlled education than had previously existed,” Daniel Lattier wrote in an Intellectual Takeout article. 

“Mann’s vision for American education eventually won out, but it was not without initial opposition,” Lattier noted, citing concerns from an 1840 Massachusetts legislative committee over government overreach and diminished parental influence. “Interestingly, some of the reservations found in their final report … are very similar to those you hear echoed in concerns about America’s education system today.” 

Even beyond these concerns, however, families now face the challenge of preparing their children for an increasingly time-bloated day at school. 

From wake-up to drop-off, the daily gauntlet of school mornings affects everyone in the family “as kids pick up on their parents’ rushed routine,” Culverhouse notes. 

“The stress, the research shows, leaves ‘the majority of parents’ feeling negative about the day as soon as they wake up, with this leading them to argue with their child regularly during the morning routine.” 

Recess, relaxation key to learning retention 

All this is happening against a backdrop of diminishing recess and increasing childhood obesity – even though all the research points to the importance of time off as a learning retention tool. 

While it’s not instructional, “recess plays an essential but often overlooked role in children’s physical, emotional and intellectual development,” according to Kate Rix for U.S. News & World Report. 

Children need free time away from the classroom to process what they’re learning, explains William Massey, associate professor of kinesiology at Oregon State University. 

“The way our brains work, you can’t go hours at a time and retain and store information in working memory,” he said. “You need time away to process it.” 

Recess isn’t just for elementary grades. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now encourages it for all K-12 students, explaining how it increases attentiveness and reduces behavioral disruptions. 

“One study of fourth graders in Fort Worth, Texas, found that children who had just come back to school after the COVID-19 lockdown and had 45 minutes of daily recess had significantly less of the stress hormone cortisol after a three-month period than students who had 30 minutes of recess,” Rix wrote. 

Unfortunately, schools are taking the opposite approach by condensing or even eliminating recess periods, shuffling children from classroom to classroom in a bid to raise “instructional time.” 

The COVID-19 pandemic has only highlighted the growing need for children to practice in-person social skills such as conflict resolution, sharing and taking turns, according to Massey. 

“We don’t do anything else without norms, but we do that with recess and then wonder why things aren’t going well.” 

Massey also criticizes the strategy of taking recess away as a punishment for disruptive behavior. 

“We wouldn’t have kids sit out of math or reading because they were being bad,” he argued. “Often the kids who lose recess are the kids who need it the most. They need time to regulate.” 

Problems with a sedentary lifestyle 

Additionally, childhood obesity has more than tripled since the 1970s. While many factors contribute to obesity, simple changes such as time to exercise or take a quick break can help reduce or even eliminate this concern. 

“At least 20 minutes of recess daily, along with 150 minutes of physical education a week, make a measurable difference in children’s weight,” Rix notes. 

However, current school practices cause children on average to remain sitting for more than 8 hours a day – which could cause future health problems. 

“The consequences of excessive sedentary behaviour are not well understood in the child, but there is growing evidence that with increasing sedentary time, cardiovascular risk in childhood also increases,” concluded one 2015 study from Experimental Psychology. 

None of these drawbacks need occur in a homeschool setting, where children are free to learn while running outdoors, pacing the floor, or even lying on a living-room couch. 

Parents can also splice instructional time with as many recess breaks as needed – based on the recommendation of four 15-minute breaks from Debbie Rhea, professor of kinesiology at Texas Christian University. 

“Out on the playground, kids solve their problems better,” Rhea explained. “Kids learn from each other, but when an adult gets in there, the adult changes the environment.” 

During recess, adults can (and should) act less like police and more like play facilitators, according to Rhea – again, something parents can excel at when connecting with their children. 

“When kids get bored, they have to be creative and think of something to do,” she said, noting adults can sometimes find it hard to watch children “do nothing.” 

However, boredom – just like taking the time to reconsider a rushed routine – may often work out to our benefit. 

Instead of trying to adjust to an increasingly stressful and unsustainable school model, more homeschool parents are investing time to learn alongside their children – a decision media outlets should celebrate, not consider extreme.