This year at one middle school in Montana, students have a 15-minute break at 10 a.m. for a snack and conversation. Discipline referrals have dropped dramatically since introducing snack time.
This year at one middle school in Montana, students have a 15-minute break at 10 a.m. for a snack and conversation. Discipline referrals have dropped dramatically since introducing snack time.
Most people think of “snack time” as well-suited to kindergarten. When DeSmet Middle School principal Matthew Driessen noticed a trend of middle school students being referred to his office for disruptive behavior between 9:45 a.m. and noon, he often ended up giving them a granola bar. Then he attempted something new.
At break time, students line up in the hallway to choose snacks from a food cart. As reported in the Missoulian, kitchen manager Anne Brown cooks and arranges several snack options, including some baked goods she makes from scratch.
There are homemade muffins as well as cheese sticks, yogurt, sandwiches, and fresh fruit. Brown also has a new blender for making smoothies, which the students love, she said. “The smoothies are great because I can sneak in the veggies,” Brown joked. Grant funding paid for the cart and the extra food
Since introducing snack time, discipline referrals have dropped by 80%, and test scores improved. “Our average was an entire grade increase in one semester in math and English language arts, so it has pretty profound effects as part of a whole program,” said Driessen.
Nutrition is part of it, but Driessen doesn’t discount the social element: “The other thing is that they have extended social time. The kids get to sit and talk and visit with each other over some food, and it’s relaxing.”
Driessen is experimenting with school culture in ways that recognize the fundamental humanity of his students. They need food, and they need relationships in order to sustain their focused attention on learning.
The Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture’s School Cultures and Student Formation Project studied the practices and policies of a broad sample of American secondary schools. The findings, published in The Content of Their Character, emphasize that “school practices are as important as words. How a school is organized, the course structure, and classroom practices” are important not only for reducing behavior referrals and improving test scores, but also for “the moral and civic formation of the child.”
For educators who want to build a more humane schedule that helps children to learn and thrive, the evidence seems to be on their side. Time Health provides an overview of the benefits of unstructured time for student health and learning.
