Quality or Quantity?
Does more time in school matter? Several scholars have argued that simply extending school time in and of it will not produce desired results. However, in recent years some notable extended time programs have produced gains in test scores, graduation rates, and college attendance by increasing the amount of time students spend in school by nearly 60%. Do you think by extending the school day and/or school year students would benefit and there would be an improvement in teaching and learning?
12 comments:
This is a very interesting topic. I believe extending the school year would benefit teachers but I do not think it would improve students’ learning overall. Teachers would benefit because they have more time to develop topics and cover more material in the school year with the extended time. However, I feel students would not be so thrilled with the school day or school year being extended. Students toward the end of the day become restless especially the younger children. The younger children can only pay attention and sit for so long. I can see this in my own classroom that I am observing. After lunch, the students ask how much longer until they go home. They cannot sit still and they are less attentive then the morning.
Also, when the spring and summer comes, children are focused on the beautiful weather outside. If school was extended into summer, I feel that children would be frustrated because they are stuck in class. They will become antsy that they are not enjoying the weather outside. This can possibly reduce student learning because their focus is not there. Overall, I do not believe extending the school year or the school day would improve a student’s learning overall. I believe students learn because of the effectiveness of the teacher and teacher strategies as well as the students desire to learn.
I think that students have trouble retaining information learned over the school year and students/parents who are interested in extending the time in school for students should be allowed the option. Perhaps an overall opinion poll should be taken district-wide to ascertain whether or not it is a feasible idea and or solution to problems with learning retention and tactile and visual stimulation. If the district can support it financially or if the parents would like to financially sponsor more fields trips during this time that can foster scientific study, literature and writing studies can be explored would be wonderful for students who are gifted and talented or just because students are limited in the field trip experience during the school year. Yeah, I know financially times are extremely difficult, but not everyone is suffering quite as much as some others.
I think that extending the school year would be a great benefit to both the students and the teachers. The school day is already too long, especially for the elementary students. They are not able to sit still and focus their attention for a long period of time. Whether it is extending the year into the summer or taking some of the already existing vacation days for students, more school days should be added to the year. Teachers would no longer feel pressured about time for their lessons and students would get more time to absorb the material instead of having a teacher rush to cover it.
I really enjoyed this post. I feel that because American children have consistently tested poorly across all subjects when compaired to the rest of the world, as future educators and administrators, we need to rethink the strcutre of the school day and academic year. Historically, the current public academic year has not changed since its inception in the early 20th century. This is due to the fact that our country based our school day on the harvesting schedule of our widespread farming communities because chidlren had to come home and work the fields. This is why we have summers off. In other countries, for example in Japan, they go to school from 8am-3pm, have an hour or two of tutoring afterwards, and also have school on saturdays! No wonder why we have fallen behind academically. I'm in favor of restructuring our academic calendar and school day to catch-up with the rest of the world because the gap is truly widening each year. I think the time has finally come for our educational system to be put on its head and we must start to look outside of our country for models for us to adopt and modify to keep pace in our increasingly interconencted and competitive world.
I can say that extending school year and school day can result to the improvement and advancement of the students because there are some whose learning and understand are through gradual process. For this type of students, they need step by step teaching and learning and a lot of repetition will be needed. So they will need more time to complete their syllabus. For those who are highly intelligent,their learning and understanding is not all that difficult but they need more time for exploration and research so that their learning, understanding and knowledge will be deeper.
I agree with the first two comments. I think that extending the school day or school year wouldn't really benefit kids because they can only sit and pay attention for a short period of time. However, I think that extending the school year would benefit teachers and the only way it would benefit kids as well is if teachers changed their way of teaching and made it more fun for kids. Then students might actually want to learn and be able to sit in school longer.
I agree with Alissa and Teresa. I feel that extending the school year wouldn't be desirable. I can see why parents and administrators might want to extend the school year because during the summer students don't retain everything they have learned over the short months of summer vacation. However, I think students need a break from school and summer is the perfect time to let them just be kids. I think if the school year was to be extended longer into the summer months, only the students that enjoy learning would benefit. Sadly many students don't look forward to school on a daily basis and extending it into the summer would allow these students to act out and become frustrated. If the students don't have a desire to learn then extending the school year would only hinder their learning.
Although there are benefits to more time in school, I have to disagree. Considerable mental and physical growth comes from outside the classroom. It is important for students to spend time with family, friends, traveling, participating in individual and team athletics, pursing other interests etc. Some of our country's most prominent innovators did not attend even attend college.Not that I am advocating the non attendence of college but look at the Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Steve Jobs (Apple) of the world. Education is paramount yet some people do not neccessarilly attribute their success in the end to the education they recieved.
Knowledge, interpersonal skills, and achievement occur outside the classroom!!! It is the foundation for prominent teaching techniques such as collaborative learning and teaching outside/beyond the classroom.
The question also relates to the debate on homework. What's more important quality or quantity? Instructors should not not assign homework to keep students "busy".
Overall too much homework and too much school may discourage or take away the opportunity for students to pursue individual interests, additional courses, clubs, community service and so on
I agree 100% with Jeannie on this one! Children are in school from Kindergarten (if not before, i.e. day care or pre-k) all the way till high school! That is A LOT of months in school! Children need to be activie in other things outside the classroom to be able to grow into a well rounded individual. They should be involved in sports or camp! School work and homework are being pushed onto children at eariler and eariler ages and i think it is really important to allow children to be children. To let them use their imagination and think for themselves and that is only going to happen if they can be a free spirt kid and have a soical life.
I feel that the amount of time that students are in school is sufficient. Students should be able to have time away from school to reflect upon the day and what they have learned. Doing homework and discussing what they have learned with their friends and family actually helps them make inferences and retain more information. Also, I believe that spending time with their family, friends, and being active in after school activities helps their mental, emotional, and physical body replenish itself.
My children come home from school and start homework immediately, then they play sports, eat dinner, and it’s back to homework until bedtime. They also have homework on the weekends, which I feel is too much. This should be their time to spend with their families. Also, summer vacation is a necessary break for not only the students but the teachers as well. Too much overload causes “burn out” and it can cause depression, anxiety, and other illnesses in some people.
There are always going to be school which produce better than other schools. But persnally I do not think extending the school day will reflect positive on the majority of students and schools. The extension of a school day would make it a longer day for educators as well as the student. Some students are not quite able to retain what is taught to them in a regular school day. Adding another hour to the day may do more damage than good. When the new last hour wold be approaching you might unfortunately have a lot of students watching the clock rather than trying to learn.
I feel that school time should not be extended. Children are in school for about 6 hours. They are up early and even after school some students are in after care till 6 at night. By the end of the school day many students are tired and unfocused so by making the school day longer would not benefit the students. I feel that the amount of material they learn within the school day is more important than how long they are in school. Therefore, I believe that quality should be placed over quantity.
Also, students go to school from September to the end of June. They are in school most of the year. By extending the school year, I feel the only way to do this would be by taking away certain days off/breaks that students get during the school year this way they can attend school more without going into July which would only make the students more tired and unfocused.
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