Brain breaks - high school edition

What is a brain break?

Well, that concept is a bit foreign to us in secondary education. But for the little ones (you know, those screaming balls of energy that elementary teachers like to teach), brain breaks happen all the time. Basically, a brain break is something that students do whenever they start to get jittery and bored from sitting for too long.

Brain breaks come in a lot of different forms, depending on the teacher's preference. I have seen students do yoga or some other form of stretching. I have seen students play a quick game that has nothing to do with whatever academic subject they are studying. (Or, better yet, learning in disguise.)

I really don't know why high school teachers don't do brain breaks. Do we really expect that students will be able to sit still for 40-90 minutes? Really? No stop. Reconsider that. Could YOU sit still and listen to someone talk for 40-90 minutes straight? Why do we expect teenagers to be able to do it, if we can't?

But isn't it more effective to work longer? No, not really. Need some research? That's okay. I brought some.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/jobs/take-breaks-regularly-to-stay-on-schedule-workstation.html?_r=0
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3132583/?tool=pubmed
http://turbinehq.com/2013/benefits-of-taking-breaks/



My coworker recently showed me a brain break website that is pretty awesome: https://www.gonoodle.com/

Gonoodle has a bunch of short videos (about 2 minutes) that take the students through some silly movement routine. The videos seem very elementary, but high school students love to be silly too! At the beginning, they will probably scoff at you. Come on, they are high school kids. They scoff at everything. You could bring them ice cream and they would complain that it's too cold.

The students that have used this find the videos to be very fun. They have even been caught showing their friends the moves at lunch time, and have requested brain breaks whenever they start to get stressed.

Whatever you're method, brain breaks are totally worth it. Try it out!