As I said, I have been playing with my daily schedule all year to see where I can "buy" more time. The nightmare of my realization has been that while the day does allow for the students to be at school for 6 hours, there is not 6 hours for me to use. Lunch and recess, necessary things for children take out a 40 minute block (if it is not the middle of January in the state of Maine) and a daily related arts area, another crucial piece to a child's schooling, takes another 30 minutes. So now I am down to 4 hours and 50 minutes without allowing for transition time or breaks to effectively teach 1 hour of math, 1 hour of writing, 1.5 hours for literacy and at least 45 minutes for science or social studies. It won't take any of you long to figure out that really I should have exactly enough time to get in what I need to do for the day, and you would be right, if I left out any explorations and experiences that might make the learning meaningful for kids and of course the 30 to 40 minutes worth of transition times (January in Maine) that happen everyday. And there is definitely no time for crisis.
Students are supposed to go home at the end of each day having participated in all areas of the curriculum, at their appropriate level of instruction, in a style that meets their personal learning needs.
I believe it is far past time to look at why we still do things the same as we always have. Taking on the principal for the day notion, is there a way to create a curriculum that is truly cross- curricular so that students are not "dabbling in this" and then "dabbling in that"? I know block schedules are a start and I am hopeful that my own school will be looking at that very soon, but where else can we start to make more sense of the school day so that school can be a place for students to learn and grow not only in their academics but also in their development as a person as well.
I'm inspired to see you write about the lack of time in a day and the difficulty in reaching students in such a short day! I hope my son has a teacher with similar ideals when he starts school in a few years. But to take the flip side of your argument, think how tough it must be for students to sit down and receive upwards of 4+ hours of instruction in a day. Because of the pressures of testing and the reporting of results, it must be difficult to differentiate instruction and find new and innovative ways to introduce content. Ideally it would seem that enrichment activities you discussed should ideally be the center pieces with the core components ingrained.
ReplyDeleteAs exhausted as I am at the end of the school day, I think I WILL be quoted as saying that extending the school day may not be so bad. I am also plagued by the shortness of our days and am finding it near impossible to complete an appropriate amount of work. Our school has adopted a form of block scheduling which involves four rotating periods and a couple of smaller stationary periods. We are the Schooners and have a "Schooner Time" which is purely for enrichment - specialized instruction for those who need, band & chorus for those interested, and study hall or the occasional special activity for those who are left with nothing to do. As a parent I can see how this is tempting - a block of time every day for my child to do what (s)he needs. As a teacher, it's a nightmare! Not only do we have all the "regular" classes, but now we have an hour EVERY SINGLE day for this enrichment. This does not include things like PE, Art, Chorus, CT, etc. Your post is making me wonder if all of these explorations are really making a difference for the students or if they are just stressing us out even more!
ReplyDeleteI can't tell you how many times I have revamped my schedule to try and fit MORE in LESS time! I have 100 minutes to teach ELA. My principal wants us to use the four blocks method which required more than 120 minutes of time. I'm not a math teacher, but it seems impossible to fit 120 minutes of instruction into a 100 minute block. I must say that things are better now than they were. I used to have only 50 minutes to teach the same subject.
ReplyDeleteMy friend teaches first grade in the same school and she complains that she can't fit in things like science and social studies because she has so much that she needs to get through in math and reading. I wonder if our school looked at more integration if there would be more time and more content area knowledge. Do you integrate at your school?
Wow...some good discussion here about time, what's important in curriculum, who decides what is important, and the frustration and pressure that is more and more a part of teachers' lives. And if teachers are this stressed to get more out of less time, do you think that our students are feeling the same pressure?
ReplyDeleteWhat is the essential issue here? Time or deciding on what is important?
And I hate to even ask this one, but why do we (the big collective we) assume that teaching subjects in a traditional way is the only way to respond to the mandates placed on us?
I teach second grade and try to integrate whenever possible but it requires a certain amount of resources and creativity. :) The same is true of why the big collective we assumes the traditional way is the best way to respond. When you try to get the little ones up and moving around you have to be so careful that you can defend every move you make to any administrator who might walk in and mistake "innovative" (I use this in lieu of alternative) learning opportunities for a free for all. It is more difficult to produce daily and weekly quantitative data when you have students doing explorations. Please don't think that I am saying it can't be done, I am simply saying that with the time constraints and pressure of testing and documenting results.
ReplyDeleteIt is not solely myself I have in mind when I think of my classroom. I would like more time to be able to give students the time they need to be able to explore concepts without watching the clock.