Morning Track Sessions

There are 19,000 students in Naperville District 203 (west of Chicago). In 1999, the eighth grade class of Naperville, along with over 200,000 students from around the world, took the TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study exam). They finished 6th in math and 1st in the WORLD in SCIENCE. The average American high school scored 18th in science and 19th in math that year. Why did Naperville score so high? Why does Naperville consistently rank high in its test scores and graduation rates? According to Dr. John Ratey, in Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, it is primarily due to Naperville's revolutionary approach to PE. Here is a snipit of info from the book.

At 7:10am, Naperville begins its day with Zero Hour. The kids run. They wear heart rate monitors. They are graded on how long they keep their heart rate above a target. The kids don't have to be fast, but they have to put in a good effort. They run every day. Then they go to their most important classes, like math and reading and science. In essence, they flood their brain's with Miracle Grow for the brain, a protein called brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF), which is produced during strenuous exercise. The role of BDNF is to strengthen synaptic pathways, so that information learned may be retained. In essence, the students at Naperville are smarter because they exercise before school.

I run every week on the track of a local high school, alongside high school PE students who truly depress me. Two weeks ago I spoke with the PE teachers and suggested they read the book Spark. They both acknowledged the research, the data on the positive benefits of exercise and the brain that has flooded neuroscience in the last few years. They say their school administration knows of this research as do their staff and board. And yet, this year, they cut PE from 3 times per week to 2. The students running on the track are truly pathetic. There are only a handful who can complete a mile, let alone run it under 10 minutes. Most of them, in my opinion, are overweight. Maybe I'm a bit too critical. They certainly are not fit.

These days, Alex runs a 1/4 mile as his warmup. I take him and Izzy to the track before school, mostly because if I don't, they turn my house upside down doing laps around the kitchen island. I prefer to have them run freely in the open space of the track. Alex loves to yell out as he finishes his first lap, "I'm running so well, Mamma!" If there are any spectators, and especially if one of them makes a comment, like "nice running", Alex turns up the juice and picks up the pace, clapping for himself the whole way. Izzy prances like a foal, effortlessly moving through space. They inspire me, and their smiles make us all happy. Hopefully, when they go to school and work on reading and block building and colors, their BDNF will be working its magic. Running is clearly working its own magic on their self esteem.

I wonder how hard it would be for a school to open its doors an hour earlier, to offer the locker rooms for showers, breakfast in the cafeteria, and a volunteer staff person or two to monitor the exercise. The program might begin voluntarily. Kids who want to run sign up. They might be graded for PE. Or, they might be recognized at the annual awards banquet. Maybe as their classmates witness changes in the runners' appearances, their increased self-confidence, their higher test scores, and their bonds of friendship that only form over hard labor, the inactive ones would sign up and the attendance rate would grow. It seems like it would be worth trying. Isn't that the single responsibility of a school system, to give their students the best opportunity possible to grow, physically and cognitively--in essence to create the opportunity to run? It almost seems negligent to do anything less.