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ABSTRACT Breaktimes have long been part of the school day and often justified on the basis that children need to go outside to play in order to release surplus energy presumed to be built up as a consequence of prolonged sitting in class. This paper looks first at the origins of this theory and then points to evidence that it is still used as a rationale for breaktime in schools in the UK, USA and Australia. A critique of the theory follows which shows that it has very little foundation when one looks closely at what children actually do in the playground at breaktimes. Alternative explanations are offered as to the restlessness and inattentiveness which teachers claim is evidence of the need for a break. The article concludes by offering reasons based on recent research as to why breaktimes are important for both teachers and children and should be retained in schools.
If then, in school, we take from him, to a great extent, his power of spontaneous locomotion, we must compensate for it with periods of exercise both in school and out of it. The younger the child the more does he require. (Currie, 1862, p. 137)
The idea that children need regular breaks between classwork in order to compensate for the prolonged periods of sitting has been a major reason for the timetabled breaktimes which have long been part of the school day. The point made by Currie over 100 years ago lives on today, despite the fact that what we now know about how and what children play during these breaks challenges the very basis of the argument. This argument rests upon Surplus Energy Theory.
Surplus Energy Theory
It was Friedrich von Schiller, an 18th century poet and philosopher, who first suggested that play was essentially `the aimless expenditure of surplus energy' (Rubin et al., 1983). Schiller suggested that play resulted from the superfluous energy that remained after the primary needs were satisfied. `Young animals and children, because they are not responsible for their own survival, were thought to have a total energy "surplus". This surplus was worked off through play' (Rubin et al., 1983, p. 694).
It was Herbert Spencer (1873), however, a l9th century British philosopher and psychologist, who...