Tampabay: Play time? It's not in teachers' lesson plans

Play time? It's not in teachers' lesson plans

Teachers and administrators in Pinellas County say pressure to perform well on state tests is squeezing out time for holiday celebrations and other fun.

By KELLY RYAN

Don Cartwright used to have all kinds of time in his elementary school classroom for birthday parties, art projects and impromptu kickball games.

Now, even in third grade, he has too much material to cover.

"Today, you would never want to be out there (playing) because if your class tested low, they would say, "They're outside playing all the time,' " said Cartwright, a Belleair Elementary School teacher with 34 years' experience.

With escalating pressure on Florida schools to excel on annual accountability tests, there's less and less time for fun for fun's sake.

At all school levels for the past few years, teachers have had to look quizzically at field trips, parties and pep rallies. If special events aren't tied to student achievement, they have to be cut short or cut altogether.

This change is most pronounced in elementary school, where the act of playing historically has been seen as an important part of a child's growth. It's even more pronounced this time of year, when young students used to dress up as goblins, pretend to be pilgrims or make holiday gifts.

Now, students learn how pumpkins grow for Halloween. They read books about pilgrims, rather than acting out a Thanksgiving feast. If there's time, students might have a quick lesson on Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and other winter holidays.

In some ways, teachers and principals agree, this new mindset is for the better. Yet some worry that replacing spontaneous fun with scripted fun might not be healthy for students, especially those who keenly feel the pressure of testing and state accountability.

"You keep thinking, "What do you remember from elementary?' It's those fun things," said Sandra Leanes, principal of Plumb Elementary School in Clearwater. "I wonder whether they will have those fond memories."

Several teachers said they try to make time to let kids be kids, but usually it is tied into learning something.

Instead of making pumpkin pictures for Halloween, students at Cross Bayou Elementary School in Pinellas Park learned about the skeletal system. The school does not encourage dressing in costumes for Halloween because the students get distracted, thus the whole day is lost. Since the practice ended, the school has noticed improved behavior on Halloween.

For the winter holidays, teachers are encouraged to talk about them all so no one feels excluded. For some teachers, there's no time for a comprehensive lesson on world holidays.

"Right now, there is so much curriculum to cover, it's just impossible to get it all in," Stone said. "You have to make some tough choices."

At Belleair, principal Marcia Gibbs said students will get to celebrate the holidays a bit in art, music and physical education classes. But academic time is strictly academic -- and that means no more Halloween parades.

"You just don't take a whole day or an afternoon to celebrate something," Gibbs said.

How serious are Pinellas schools about not wasting time? Starting in kindergarten, many students keep data folders to track the letters they have learned and the ones they are expected to know by the end of the year.

"They have some socialization in their classroom, but the time in their classroom is usually very, very structured," Gibbs said. "The children have very little free time."

Even with a strictly business approach in the classroom, teachers lament that they don't have enough time to cover the material. Some feel guilty when the students have a single non-academic moment.

Take, for example, a choral performance at Cross Bayou Elementary.

Fourth-grade teacher Pam Cheney said it's tough to free her students to practice for the performance. But she and her colleagues agree that, in the end, the brief time away from reading and writing will be worth it.

"It takes a lot of time out of the classroom. We need to give into that," Cheney said. "It's good for the kid, good for the family. We have to pull back from it sometimes and realize it's not all numbers and not all tests."