There’s no feeling like fresh air to jolt your brain back into action after hours of intense academic work. Eighty-five minutes of calculating derivatives or analyzing complex themes makes even the most focused students’ heads spin, and a brief pause is often the perfect remedy.
At least, it was not until early this year that teachers received an email from Principal Dan Gutchewsky stating that “in the interest of maximizing instructional time […] not [to] use unstructured, full-class ‘brain breaks’ with any regularity.”
Yet, to pose breaks as somehow opposed to productive class time is to ignore a broad body of research showing that pauses in learning are essential for retention. A study conducted by Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, Joanna A. Christodoulou and Vanessa Singh showed that when the mind is allowed to wander, i.e., on break, it engages in a specific kind of processing not utilized when the mind is engaged in activity. The researchers found that this neural processing is associated with important social and reflective skills.
The utility of strategic breaks in learning isn’t new news, though. When students are taught study skills, teachers and counselors provide tools like the Pomodoro method, which entails 25 minutes of work followed by five minutes of pause. And when finals season rears its ugly head, they’re discouraged from spending hours on material in a given sitting.
English teacher Deana Tennill is one of many who offered breaks before the new policy. When the school switched to the block schedule, she started allowing students to take some time to stretch their legs, implementing these pauses for content-heavy days and particularly restless classes.
“If I don’t offer that break, then we end up losing class time because everybody’s asking for a break at different times,” Tennill said. “It becomes distracting for me to manage the interruptions to the flow of the class, whereas I can just say, can you wait 10 more minutes? And then we’ll all go.”
For Tennill, full class breaks are an important tool in responding to the needs of various classes on various days. While some classes can manage a whole class period without losing focus, that doesn’t hold for others—especially those in which issues like ADHD pose an additional barrier to sustaining attention.
Teachers also have to deal with the reality that learning suffers when they cannot adjust to their student’s needs. Students who could greatly benefit from breaks but don’t receive them may take less away from their classes because they are being taught in a way that contradicts how their brains function. This is not a trainable skill; few people, students or professionals, can deep focus and learn for almost an hour and a half without pause.
Alternatively, according to Tennill, students will take breaks through extended bathroom visits, an excuse to get out of class. Tennill noted that these individual excursions have not been an issue in classes where she’s offered full class breaks. However, she found they have been problematic in classes when no break is offered.
The point is that full class breaks represent one of many strategies teachers use to manage and respond to their classes.
“My reaction was, we haven’t had a conversation about this,” Tennill said. “This was something we didn’t really have any input into.”
Not only was the change unexpected, but it also contradicted the previous messaging about breaks within the new block schedule. Tennill explained that teachers were encouraged to offer brain breaks with the schedule transition. Now, they’re being told the opposite.
Teachers were told to contact Instructional Coach Donna Archer if they needed assistance brainstorming new classroom management forms, but Tennill believes this ignores the educational aspect of these breaks.
“That is classroom management,” she said.
On the student side, we have yet to see any of these new strategies implemented in class. Simply put, the classes that once offered breaks no longer do so, and we are left to push through anyway.
No classroom policy will ever be perfect, and this is no exception. Offering full class breaks has drawbacks, and these are well taken. However, we must be cautious not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. The existence of these drawbacks does not mean class breaks as a whole should be abandoned.
And just because something makes classes more enjoyable doesn’t mean it’s harming our education.
