Timed Out

Really interesting article over at Edutopia. Thanks for the heads up DW.

David covers one interesting part that I'll not repeat. But I will add a few more snippets of my own ... hoping to compel you to read the entire article. Here goes:

A Foundation of Sand

Unyielding and relentless, the time available in a uniform 6-hour day and 180-day year is the unacknowledged design flaw in American education. By relying on time as the metric for school organization and curriculum, we have built a learning enterprise on a foundation of sand, on five premises educators know to be false.

These include

• the assumption that students arrive at school ready to learn in the same way, on the same schedule, all in rhythm with each other.

• the notion that academic time can be used for nonacademic purposes with no effect on learning.

• the pretense that because yesterday's calendar was good enough for us, it should be good enough for our children -- despite major changes in the larger society.

• the myth that schools can be transformed without giving teachers the time they need to retool themselves and reorganize their work.

• the new fiction that it is reasonable to expect world-class academic performance from our students within the time-bound system that is already failing them.

The graphic they use to illustrate the article is really clever, too.

Comments

[Oliver Dutta]

That was interesting. As a student, I totally agree. I can't tell you how many times our class hasn't covered the assigned textbook. Around the end of the year, we have these crunch times where we'll do quick browsing, and mini-tests to finish whatever's missing.
Anyway, good article, thanks for posting.