Authored by Aaron Gifford via The Epoch Times,
Spencer Taylor describes his high school experience as a dark time, rife with detentions, suspensions, and over-medicated peers who acted up because they, too, couldn't sit still in class all day.
New students tour Nora Sterry Elementary School in Los Angeles on Jan. 15, 2025. There is a nationwide push to bring back or increase recess time for public school students. (Chris Delmas/AFP via Getty Images"You would have maybe five minutes to go out and see the sun," the Michigan native recalled. "We just needed to run around. We just needed to get all our energy out. ... I barely graduated."
Fifteen years later, Taylor released a documentary about a similar problem affecting millions of U.S. students, "The Death of Recess."
He researched laws and policies across the nation and visited schools across several U.S. states and Europe. He snuck into a national teachers union annual meeting to understand why so many competing interests continually overshadow conversations about school recess time.
"There's no voice that represents the parents and students," Taylor said during a June panel discussion hosted by The Heritage Foundation in Washington. "Everybody's trying to get a hold of those valuable minutes of the kids being in the classroom because they view that - they all view it - as social engineering."
The film, released earlier this year, coincides with a nationwide push to bring back or increase recess time for public school students based
