When I read this article, my guttural response was, "Six days a week?!?" Really?" This is a heated issue that has incredible political implications, but I truly believe that the budget cuts and shortage of teachers that have resulted from our flailing economy could not support extending school hours. The teaching programs that currently exist are struggling to survive in spite of massively decreased funding. The test scores of American students especially in mathematics and science are appalling, I won't disagree with that, but forcing students to attend more school time isn't going to motivate students or ensure that they receive quality, efficient instruction. Comparing American students to students in India in China isn't necessarily the best basis of comparison, either. Perhaps, they are both two unhealthy ends of the spectrum. In my personal experience, I teach music lessons to a family that recently moved to California from Chinese Taipei, and have listened to their opinions regarding the American school system. Their consensus is that American school standards are too low. I tend to agree. However, they believe that their education in Taiwan was far too time consuming and didn't allow them to pursue any other interests besides homework. While I don't have any specific solutions as to how to efficiently improve the quality of the American school system (that''s a complex issue that would take more than just a blog to address), I'm not at all convinced that just adding more hours into the school week is the best solution.
This article can be found in ISTE Learning and Leading with Technology Vol. 36. No. 8, June/July 2009.
Like with everything else in life, finding the balance is key. Like you stated, neither extreme rigidity nor leniency should have a place in the education system. I do not know how the balance between the two extremes would look like, but I certainly know that attending school six days a week is not a solution. Not only are schools unable to afford it, students will end up being burnt out, uncultured machines Furthermore, they will miss out on family and play time. Our society needs to redefine success, it should not be all about scoring the highest, obtaining perfect grades, and being better. In my opinion, success is building strong interpersonal relationships, being culturally diverse, and finding happiness and validation from within.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with the comment that kids don't need more school, they need better school. I don't understand how this "solution" even came about. California, as a state, is in major financial debt so I can't see how the state would be able to pay these educators for one more day of work every week. If the state had money to give to the schools it should be for things such as music programs, special education assistants, and resources such as technology. Having more of those things listed would improve the quality of teaching and learning and the test scores would naturally increase. Simply making the school year longer would not be the solution.
ReplyDeleteI do not think making students/kids attend school more will actually help them, I think this would discourage them from doing better. I think what should be done is may be make certain subjects longer in time. I remember in middle and in high school class were like 55min long and I feel like that is not enough time to teach a course especially math and science. Maybe school should be a little longer have block schedule in were students go to certain periods like 1,3,6, and those classes are like 1 hr 45 min long. Which I feel would be a benefit vs. having 6 days of school for 11 months.
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