Obama's new announcement yesterday got me thinking.
There is no doubt that the American school system needs an overhaul, but I don't think arbitrarily adding 3 extra hours to the school day is the answer.
I already see high burn out rates in teachers and students alike.
Compared to my elementary education in the 1970's, children are being pushed harder to learn concepts at an earlier age, given more homework/busy work and given less time to be 'a kid'.
Adding an additional 3 hours to the average school day will completely take away any chance for a childhood and severely impact parent/child relationships.
As it is now, most working parents only spend on average 3 hours or less a day (Monday-Friday) with their children. In that 3 hours, a parent needs to help with homework, make dinner, get their children ready for bed and spend quality time with their children. Forget running errands, cleaning, and extracurricular activities. Add more children to the scenario and it's next to impossible.
When we lived overseas the monkeys were in the American School system. Lucky for us, my husband's company paid for their tuition(can you say cha-ching).
Their school day started at 8am and ended at 3pm. Because most of the kids attending were from expat families, the school understood the difficulties expats experienced and kids were rarely given homework. All school work was finished at school (made sense to me). Every student attended a study hall class.
The differences here in America are staggering. Even though the girls attend one of the best public schools in America (98.7% of the students go on to 4 year university), the parents are expected to supplement the kids education, (i.e. I often feel like I'm repeating the 5th and 10th grade).
I remember my father helping every now and then with a book report, but my parents were never expected to sit down everyday at the kitchen table and help me with my homework. My brother and I still had plenty of time to be kids.
School was where the teachers educated the kids, home was where the parents parented the kids, weekends were for family time and the two never met except at fundraisers and parent/teacher conferences.
I already see kids who feel the pressure of enormous amounts of homework. My eldest spends approximately 2-3 hours a day on homework...my youngest 1-2 hours. I remember the time chart parents received when I was a kid...
Kindergarten - no homework
1st grade - 10 minutes/a day
2nd grade - 20 minutes/a day
3rd grade - 30 minutes/a day
4th grade - 40 minutes/a day
and so on...
Teachers didn't send home 20 pages of dittos of busy work.
I had time to go to piano lessons once a week, soccer practice twice a week, and still be home at 6pm for dinner.
Our teachers are already underpaid and our kids overworked, I'm just not sure this is the answer.
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13 comments:
Hmm.. I have a couple of thoughts on this. I can definitely see a need for more time in school.. but I think they should maybe extend the school year... I just don't know how you'd cram all of that in a day and then expect kids to go home and do homework... they would have no down time, and kids are already overscheduled. But when would they fit in sports practice, band practice etc.
But by the same token.. If they go to school 8-2.. and you extend that.. say 2 hours... you may take away alot of the latchkey kids whose parents work (like me).. but the hours of 2-5 where most kids get in trouble would be seriously reduced. If they do extend the school day, they need to add phys ed back in... Kids need more exercise.
What do you think?
I totally agree, there are pros and cons. But the biggest con being, the over scheduling of kids. Let's say the kids go to school from 8-5...are they then going to have homework on top of that? What about ballet, soccer and music? Are they going to add back in all the classes they've cut out due to $$$$ shortages.
At that rate, most kids won't get to bed till 10pm at the earliest. My 5th grader needs to be in bed by 8:30pm or she's a total grump
The teachers I know work their ass off. Are they going to have a break during any part of that longer day?
I realize a lot of working parents have trouble with school schedules, but how about after school care/activities, that are automatically seen as part of the school curriculum? Like music, art, pe, etc...that kids with working parents can know their kids are safe and still having their minds exercised?
Homework is the bane of children's existence, without proper education structures around them it's fruitless. If you increase school hours you better reduce homework responsibilities, for both the students and teachers sake.
Oh yes MG, I totally agree with you. I'm not sure what the answer is...
I do know some teacher's now that are resentful b/c they have so much to teach, and so little time.
I for one, think they should have just left long math alone. If it's not broke don't change it. I don't understand it? :)
I don't know if I agree with longer school hours or not, but I do know that in most other industrialized countries, the kids go to school longer hours and Saturdays, too. At least in Japan I know they do, because I went there in 7th grade as an exchange student and taught English. I don't remember them having a ton of homework, though.
It would solve lots of problems we have in America with the latchkey kids and kids getting in trouble because they have nothing to do. The idea that most kids wouldn't have as much time with Mom and Dad doesn't ring true with me, as most Moms and Dads have to work, so they aren't home to be with the kiddos anyway. It does seem like the schools would be able to reinstate PE, art, music, etc, to an extended day, and could even squeeze time for homework in there.
Just because the idea is floated out there doesn't mean it's a bad one because it hasn't been flushed out yet. I saw give it time to get the details worked out, and maybe we'll all be surprised.
CM,
When I lived in Singapore,public school kids went to school for 8+ hours, including kindergarteners. That seems like an awful lot for a 5 year old, teachers, too.
I agree that it's only in the idea stage, however, we've screwed up public school education so much here in America already, i.e. NCLB, and I'm skeptical.
As an artist, our removal of music, art, in some cases language, is robbing kids of a well rounded education. If the extra time spent in school was to add back these vital classes, I'd be more supportive.
I'm OK with the extra school time, so long as they use it to focus on something outside the core curriculum; i.e., physical education, the arts, etc. Zombie defense tactics and theory too.
Theory of the un-dead?
I definitely could have used that in elementary school.
...I don't know....
When our oldest come in and announces what she WILL BE doing over the weekend or when our youngest has a melt down because she "...can't read ALL THE BOOKS IN THE WORLD..." after asking her to read for only 20 minutes.
Three more hours seems quite reasonable.
GWTMG,
With one teenage monkey and one pre-teen monkey, boarding school is looking more and more appealing, don't you think?
I'm not sure we can handle all the teenage drama. It's fucking exhausting.
xxoo
Great discussion! Please let me know the name of the boarding school you guys pick - I'm ready to send Daring Daughter off.
I LOVE the idea of longer days with more PE and art, very limited homework. This sounds like a good idea to me. A shorter summer break, ONLY if we get more short breaks throughout the year.
Oh, and that zombie training sounds reasonable too.
I could not have said it better myself, MG. Standards are two grades lower than they used to be, in every grade. We feed kids breakfast, lunch and snack, and keep them until as late as 6 p.m. in after school programs. More kids are coming to school with poor support at home, higher rates of special needs and learning disabilities, and teachers are required to spend so much time on language arts and math that science, social studies, music and art are lost in the shuffle. My fifth grader is a smart kid, but he can't keep up with the homework load (for the record, no studies have ever found a conclusive link between homework completion and achievement). The public schools, once the cornerstone of an educated populace so necessary for our democracy, are now the scapegoats for all that is wrong with society.
Let kids come home and play outside. Let 'em read with their families - for the joy of it, not points. Let them lie on their backs in the grass and wonder, if somewhere out in the world there's another little kid like them, lying on his or her back, looking at the sky wondering the same thing...and give our teachers a little credit where it's due.
Instead of vouchers and merit pay, let's put the cash into investing in more school counselors, more computers to replace the 15 year old ones most schools have, and some new playgrounds and science equipment. Instead of penalizing schools for not making 30 point gains, let's reward them for consistent, sustainable gains over time.
None of this will happen, the pendulum won't swing back for, I'm predicting, at least 2-3 years. But when even the upper class, high socioeconomic communities are considered failing schools because they did not meet the unattainable federal goals, then those parents will be pulling donations aout of their representatives' and senators' pockets, and things will start to swing toward a more reasonable middle ground. And we will have well-rounded kids again who know the houses of Congress and learn about The Bill of Rights again.
Oh, and I;m all for that whole zombie training thing, for the record. Great post, MG. You always know how to get people talking!
Just found your blog on the MomsRising blogroll and I love it.
I'm not sure about a longer school day. I do work and my daughter attends an after-school program. But, I still wouldn't want to extend the actual school day just so I won't have to make the additional arrangements for that. I agree that it would really limit the time kids would get to spend with their parents, at outside activities, and just being kids with their friends.
Mostly though I think that just adding hours is just a band-aid reaction that won't really help the situation. Adding 2 or 3 more hours to the day if most schools just keep going about things they same way the already do won't change anything. There needs to be some fundamental changes to the way many schools operate. Throwing more hours at them won't help any more than throwing more money at them does.
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