More School: Obama Would Curtail Summer
I know many have posted about it, but I was very concerned about the report that came out Monday discussing Obama's plans for lengthening the time spent in school. Obama believes that our "agrarian centered" school calendars are outdated and we should spend more time in school because students are falling behind other countries. In the article, the AP states we spend more hours per year in school than students in Asian countries who frequently outscore US students in math and science. The problem has become that time addresses everything, which it does not. We should begin to look at several factors affecting our school systems. This includes the concept of "highly qualified teachers", how instructional time is spent, and the inconsistencies in our national views of education. With the NCLB act, school systems are being forced to comb through massive amounts of applications to find highly qualified teachers. I am amazed at some of the people these systems hire. Just today I went to a meeting on obtaining full certification for my county and was amazed at some of the questions people were asking about how to become a fully certified teacher. They had never taken the time to do research on their own, email our HR department, or had never made the connection between passing a teaching test in Georgia with the Professional Standards Commission. It befuddled me to see adults so lost in their own responsbilities. It made me wonder who is really teaching these students in the classroom if the teacher can't take care of their own business. Secondly, a lot of questioning has come of how we are spending instructional time. There has been a massive movement towards teaching with standards and to restructure the way we teach students. In this comes how we spend the allotted time with them. In my classroom, I do everything I can to maximize the students' LEARNING time and minimize transitions, breaks, or lulls in activity because I only see students for 90 minutes every other day, effectively seeing them for 21 or 22 days out of a 9 weeks period. I see other teachers constantly struggle to have enough work for their students to do all year and I am trying to pack things in right after another. Adding 3 more hours to our already 8 hour day will do nothing but tire teachers out quicker, lull the students to sleep or carelessness faster, and ruin the way we provide effective education. I am personally not going to work an extra 15 hours a week, when I already do that without the students to prepare my room, and not get paid 10 to 15 thousand more a year and ruin my already short summer vacation. In Georgia, we do not go to school from labor day to memorial day. About 95% of schools start around the first week of August and we go until the last week in May. This works out to be 10 months of school with intermittent breaks throughout the school calendar. That is a lot of time spent in school! The 180 days drags out to be about 280 when all weekends and breaks are taken into account. Lastly, when looking at other countries' educational systems, they are all nationally standardized. In the US, we have 51 different systems, rules, and standards. How do we expect to be successful as a whole of millions of students when they have to follow 51 different sets of expectations. It simply cannot be done and be expected to compete at an international level. We are simply wasting more time by adding hours to the school day. If things were done effectively and efficiently, we could probably wipe out about an hour of school a day and be more intelligent that we are now.
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I will admit I am a proponent of more time in school. Not a longer day but fewer 3-4 day weekends, vacations, etc. Some school holidays seem unnecessary; I think we could observe Columbus Day in school. Come January Maine students will return from the holiday break Jan 2, next Martin Luther King Jr. provides a long weekend, followed three weeks later by a week long February break. Toss in 2-3 snow days between January and February and it seems like we can't keep any momentum in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteYou do make a very good point about efficiency. I too see my students every other day, but just for 45 minutes. I quickly establish a routine to get into class and exit class with clean-up as quickly as possible to maximize instruction time. I would say my desire for more time is to teach more depth than I am able to now.
I've often wondered with all the changes in standards and NCLB why the US didn't standardize curriculum nationally. I would prefer to align my lessons with ITEA standards but I have to align them to the science and math Maine Parameters.
Hey Cory, you and I are on the exact same page! I also used this for my blog and I have the same thoughts you do. There is no way my students or myself could go to school extra hours each day. I'm exhausted by the end of the day and I need to have a couple hours free at night before I correct papers and prepare for lessons for the remainder of my night. I put in so many extra hours outside of my work schedule that there is no way I could keep up if days were longer and I would go insane if I did not have my summer. I use my summer to reflect on the year and change for the next while taking some time to not think about school.
ReplyDeleteI think it is kinda crazy to compare our school system to an international one as well. I think we should just concentrate on how we can make ours better within our current system. I think weeding out poor teachers would be a great start. I do not like tenure to be honest, I think teachers should be evaluated on their performace constantly and if they don't perform well they need to be let go whether they have taught five years or twenty five. I know this seems harsh but I work a couple bad teachers and nothing is done, it is very frustrating! Have good teachers, have great education for our students!
Cory,
ReplyDeleteYour post this week was very interesting. I've been dealing with changes in our school's hours in different ways. As far as the time spent and whether or not more or less is the answer, I think the jury is still out. If you review my #6 blog, you'll find a school that is in session for 200 days a year. That's 20 more days, basically a month longer than most schools in the nation. They also require more homework than the average. They had in increase in API scores from the 400s to the 900s in eight years.
If we spent longer hours in the classroom, I think it would probably help, as long as we can keep things fresh and moving every 20-30 minutes within class sessions of 60-90 minutes per class. However, we're talking hours and hours of additional effort for planning. My first 3 years of teaching, I spent almost 80 hours a week working in my classroom. That is something that is impossible to maintain.
So anyway, I don't think more hours will hurt, but I wouldn't support them either. We need to decide, however, what our goals are as a nation. If we want education to bring about hard working people, then longer hours are important for our kids to understand life isn't just a piece of cake all the time. As far as the information is concerned, I do think there is a limit to what people can learn in a period. Sometimes too much info is overwhelming.
Randy B.