Teachers Give Students Mental Mind Breaks
By Bibi Sediqi
By Bibi Sediqi
When students are overworked over lengthy periods of time, their work ethic goes down. Long class times require students to sit for longer amounts of time, which might result in unmotivated students. To combat this issue, some teachers have opted to take a brief break during their lessons.
Math teacher JennieRae Paker gives her students five minute breaks during the middle of the lesson because she feels that breaks are essential to maintaining good student mental wellbeing.
“Students need a break to get up, stretch, and move around. They also need some fresh air and a chance to relax the brain. When students are getting easily frustrated when trying to solve problems, I know it’s time. After a break, they are usually more willing to tackle the difficult problems,” said Paker.
Mental health breaks are important because students will often start to show signs of weariness that distract and lower class time productivity. Math teacher Cem Yesilyurt gives five minute breaks to his students when he feels it to be beneficial to them and their productivity.
“When students are not focused on the topic at hand, talking with others, or on their phones, it signals to me that we need to transition to something else. If the students are quiet but not engaged, we take a break. If they are loud and not paying attention as a whole class, we go outside and practice being quiet. Then when they are ready, we re-enter the classroom and continue the lesson segment. Usually that clears up any off-task behavior,” said Yesilyurt.
Although many teachers like taking breaks during class, some students, like Ashley Luna, 9, see this method as counterproductive.
“I find that sometimes it just completely makes me forget about what we were just doing in class, when we come back it’s nice to have a break so I can think about other things but I would rather the breaks being scheduled more efficiently,” said Luna.
Others, such as Yesliyurt, think that this method is good under specific circumstances. Although Yesilyurt finds breaks to be helpful for his students, he doesn’t think it’s something that all teachers should be forced to implement into their classes.
“I am for the idea of scheduling breaks, but I want to clarify a few things here. First is that however a teacher decides to manage the classroom, it is their classroom and their rules should be respected. Just because Mr. Yesilyurt is saying that he schedules in breaks does not mean that every other teacher needs to do things the same way. And there are many teachers at Pioneer who have more teaching experience than I do. Having said that, I do think it is a good idea. It builds trust with students and gives them a greater sense of autonomy while still helping them focus on learning in class. I will say that I have gone through many iterations of what break style works best,” said Yesilyurt.
Although the breaks are more present during the block schedule because of the hour and 40 minute classes, they are still used in the normal schedules to help combat boredom during class. These breaks usually last between 5 and 10 minutes, depending on the teacher, in order to ensure that students get a break while not taking out too much class time. Math teacher Whitney Goodman gives her students breaks in order to prevent them from being burned out. She likes that after walks, students are ready to work again and have refreshed their minds.
“I think our block classes are too long not to take a break in the middle somewhere. It also serves as some motivation to keep students on task,” said Goodman.
Goodman and Paker also point out that these breaks are not only useful for students, but for teachers as well.
“I need a reset during long classes as well. It helps me break up the lesson into manageable chunks,” said Goodman.
Many students like Luciana Nava, 9, find these breaks helpful and look forward to them in class.
“I actually really enjoy these breaks, like it’s so nice to be able to take a break in the middle of the longer periods especially, it’s great to get a mental break and I actually find myself more focused and engaged when we come back to our lesson. I just wished more of my other teachers would also do it, but I get it sometimes it doesn’t work for some people,” said Nava.
Math teacher JennieRae Paker gives her students five minute breaks during the middle of the lesson because she feels that breaks are essential to maintaining good student mental wellbeing.
“Students need a break to get up, stretch, and move around. They also need some fresh air and a chance to relax the brain. When students are getting easily frustrated when trying to solve problems, I know it’s time. After a break, they are usually more willing to tackle the difficult problems,” said Paker.
Mental health breaks are important because students will often start to show signs of weariness that distract and lower class time productivity. Math teacher Cem Yesilyurt gives five minute breaks to his students when he feels it to be beneficial to them and their productivity.
“When students are not focused on the topic at hand, talking with others, or on their phones, it signals to me that we need to transition to something else. If the students are quiet but not engaged, we take a break. If they are loud and not paying attention as a whole class, we go outside and practice being quiet. Then when they are ready, we re-enter the classroom and continue the lesson segment. Usually that clears up any off-task behavior,” said Yesilyurt.
Although many teachers like taking breaks during class, some students, like Ashley Luna, 9, see this method as counterproductive.
“I find that sometimes it just completely makes me forget about what we were just doing in class, when we come back it’s nice to have a break so I can think about other things but I would rather the breaks being scheduled more efficiently,” said Luna.
Others, such as Yesliyurt, think that this method is good under specific circumstances. Although Yesilyurt finds breaks to be helpful for his students, he doesn’t think it’s something that all teachers should be forced to implement into their classes.
“I am for the idea of scheduling breaks, but I want to clarify a few things here. First is that however a teacher decides to manage the classroom, it is their classroom and their rules should be respected. Just because Mr. Yesilyurt is saying that he schedules in breaks does not mean that every other teacher needs to do things the same way. And there are many teachers at Pioneer who have more teaching experience than I do. Having said that, I do think it is a good idea. It builds trust with students and gives them a greater sense of autonomy while still helping them focus on learning in class. I will say that I have gone through many iterations of what break style works best,” said Yesilyurt.
Although the breaks are more present during the block schedule because of the hour and 40 minute classes, they are still used in the normal schedules to help combat boredom during class. These breaks usually last between 5 and 10 minutes, depending on the teacher, in order to ensure that students get a break while not taking out too much class time. Math teacher Whitney Goodman gives her students breaks in order to prevent them from being burned out. She likes that after walks, students are ready to work again and have refreshed their minds.
“I think our block classes are too long not to take a break in the middle somewhere. It also serves as some motivation to keep students on task,” said Goodman.
Goodman and Paker also point out that these breaks are not only useful for students, but for teachers as well.
“I need a reset during long classes as well. It helps me break up the lesson into manageable chunks,” said Goodman.
Many students like Luciana Nava, 9, find these breaks helpful and look forward to them in class.
“I actually really enjoy these breaks, like it’s so nice to be able to take a break in the middle of the longer periods especially, it’s great to get a mental break and I actually find myself more focused and engaged when we come back to our lesson. I just wished more of my other teachers would also do it, but I get it sometimes it doesn’t work for some people,” said Nava.