[originaltext] Ask a young child "How was school today?" and you’re likely t

Ask a young child "How was school today?" and you’re likely to hear about break time. My son is seven years old, and like many children at his age, break is the emotional core of his school day. Whether he comes home light- or heavy-hearted depends on what happened during the play time. This is not exactly a ground-breaking insight. Philosophers have been trumpeting the importance of play for centuries. Piaget said that children discovered the world through play. And Plato believed that children had to grow up in an atmosphere f play to become virtuous citizens. In the face of this accumulated wisdom, the question is why so many educators across the nation have, in recent years, decided that it is acceptable to reduce or eliminate break time. Those principals tend to do so for two major reasons: They feel they need to maximize every minute of instruction time to improve students’ test scores and, in many cases, break has become a behavioral headache. I attended a Playworks training program a few years ago and I was surprised by the strictness with which the organization prepares its play coaches. Trainers spent hours helping coaches with practical challenges like how to manage transitions smoothly, how to get children’s attention without yelling at them, and what to do if African American, Latino and Asian kids aren’t playing with one another. At face value, play may look like nothing special, but I saw that the training helped coaches gain a deeper insight into their work.
Questions 22 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard.
22. What is a kid likely to talk about when asked about his school day?
23. What have philosophers been insisting on for centuries?
24. Why do some principals tend to reduce or eliminate break time?
25. How did the speaker feel after attending a Playworks training program?