here is the link to familiarize yourself with what I'm commenting on:Fischbowl
The point is brought up of 180 days of instruction in the school and is there really 180 days of instruction or not. Then there in a power point showing the deductions of days from instructional days for things like, exams, regular testing, state testing, pep rally, snow days, average sick days, movie reward day etc. So that you are left with something closer to 120 days of so called instructional days for teaching.
My opinion is that we need those days of pep rallys , reward movie days,exams, and etc. If 60 more days were added to make up for all these lack of days then, first, you loose two months of summer. Second, how many days of those 60 days would then be lost? People get sick so there goes some of those 60 days and its summer so people will take a vacation. Now are we going to add days to make up for those days in order to reach 180 days of instruction in the school? Third, When is enough, enough? Kids in the first grade come home with homework that takes 30 min. to 1 hour each night. Why? Most of this should be covered in class. I thought that was the point of school. A first grader, a child, spends more time doing instruction and school work with just barely enough time to complete home chores and spend time with family, and then squeeze in a few min. of bike riding. (not all children are raised spending the afternoon on video games!) And now please explain to me why we need to add more school time in when our kids now barely have time to be a kid!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I think my point was not to add days but to re-think how we use the days we have.
sorry if i miss understood, but I personally think we are cramming our kids with to much now, and we need some time for fun and other activities.
What other activities do you think schools should have, especially when students are graduating high school without skills to succeed in college, work, and life?
First grade in our local school this year is learning the basics of cursive writing. I learned this in the third grade. This has not made me short on life skills. I think we expect more at a younger age, taking away their childhood freedoms. My first grader spends 30 to 45 min. per afternoon on Monday -Thursday doing homework. By the time he is done with homework and afternoon chores it is dinner time, bath and then off to bed. So speaking of younger children i do believe that there should more time to breath the clean fresh country air that we are so privileged to live in. Let these kids have their class parties and field trips.
Now as for High Schools, at least the one I attended did not have a college prep. class or anything with a this is what life is like. Seniors need a welcome to the real world class to prepare for college and life skills. A class that shows them how to apply for a job, how interviews go. How to apply for college and what is expected once they are apart of the college life. With Randy Pausch in mind when I say this: It would be a class with no books. Learning based on teams, bonding and the final project of being able to walk out of that class knowing how to apply for work, apply for college and other life skills. There is no class for this in any schools I know of yet. They teach them 4 years of English Literature and they make them read Beowulf and other "great" novels. What life skills does this contribute?
Post a Comment