How About A One - Day School Week?!?

How About A One - Day School Week?

STILL TRYING TO FIGURE OUT THE FUTURE?

A student (Josh) began to discuss the purposeless of school yesterday. It is his on-going, I don't wanna be here rhythm with a high level thinking beat, educated and nurtured by the fact he is very smart. And does not like waiting for the bus every evening 'wasting time'!  True that!

He logically dwindled down how many days high school kids should attend school. I listened in part because I had just brushed next to the alternative of my own teen dropping out and just getting a GED! She like many kids now is brilliant; she can write well and knows more history than I do. She really needs to just Get Out There and start a business or work part time and do Art. But we all know that won't pay rent. Twenty years ago, the stigma of dropping out and or getting a GED at age 26 would have seemed insane! If you ask most adults, they say that a high school diploma is worth 10x more on a job interview than a GED? The reality is, you can still go to a community college and transfer to a 4 year university with a GED. You can still apply for federal loans, scholarships, and aid... 

And being in a school, as much as I love teaching and the idea of education, I have seen many many hours pass where the days did not add up to xyz, to a full glass of education.

Some kid's "education" glass needs to be filled up again...!

The concept came up again yesterday. Why not have just four days of school, 9 to 4 a wee bit longer days but one extra day off? Why not just have high school Monday to Thursday?

I was reminded of two books I have been enjoying reading over and over again. I tried to explain The Saber Toothed Curriculum to Josh. This books is a satire that persuaded the reader as if he were in a bar talking to a professor about the teaching profession to be flexible and responsive to the changing needs of each generation, to be partially based upon life experience and not 'classic' education. <He believed education needs to be responsive to the emerging needs of the life experience and he felt education in his time was sticking to teachings of old rather than of present times.> but I dunno if my theory-book explanation floated. He agreed, people want kids to learn how to learn, [the theories]  but we really do need more vocational directed stuff.  I could not even begin to glean off of Herbert Kohl and his plethora of short essays of which I read: Should We Burn Babar? Essays on Children's Literature and the Power of Stories, The New Press. (1996).  Kohl in Babar explains hauntingly how most children's picture books are full of  cultural off kilter concepts, when Babar, a tale about colonial oppression of India by England  is full of racism and privilege, and how textbooks and the way a teacher approaches children's fiction and telling of history has been and continues to be bias despite our honest and social-justice (now spittingly called "Liberal" leanings.)

Kohl wrote the book with the intention of fostering a critical children’s literature, stating that “what is read in childhood not only leaves an impression behind but also influences the values, and shapes the dreams, of children”. " (https://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/babar-the-elephant-racism-sexism-and-privilege-hesaid/)



As well, for example, the Rosa Parks tale is told in three ways: she was tired so she did not get up from the white section of the bus, she sat in the middle because the bus was crowded, or she did sit in front of the blacks only section because she was part of a protest group, on purpose. Books are able to toy with the philosophy of education but sometimes it does feel like as helpers and teachers we are all on a train just because we are on the train!  Well, everyone does it this way now. Look, we are trying to do new and innovative things! Look - we don't lecture ALL period now!  The reality is, what was created in 1880 or so, a protection of the children from the Industrial Revolution, making kids work in factories, school became an institution that enslaves kids, and preaches that this leads to college which leads to at least a $40,000 a year career. Oh, which includes paying off that university school loan!



I can't help but wonder what education will be like in ten years... I am leaning towards a system where parents will home-school their kids and only the rich (or those who can't get their kids to listen to them!) will send them to charter schools. We ponder the purpose of Algebra, as much as I got an A in it, and enjoy it, most kids on the Spectrum cannot comprehend the math and many have taken Algebra four times and not passed it. When I work at the call center, I do not do Algebra. When I teach English, I think only once did I substitute "x" for something, and when I worked fast food at Wendy's, there was only how fast, how clean, and how much can you handle customers cheerfully.

While competition is great, who got the best score, who did the best science project, who wrote the best essay, our capitalistic profit margin thinking does not work in the classroom. Instead, we want to find what Johnny needs to learn to move forward, does Dick need to learn that or this, will Jane be a child care worker, or a Politician, or a Veterinarian? The pendulum swings back and forth, and traditional education of sit and learn gets modified into how best create better citizens. 

As writer Bernard Barker said: "Our schools will not improve if we expect them to act like private, profit-seeking enterprises. Schools are not businesses, they are a public good. The goal of education is not to produce higher scores, but to educate children to become responsible people with well-developed minds and good character. Schools should not be expected to turn a profit in the form of value-added scores. The unrelenting focus on data that has become commonplace in recent years is distorting the nature and quality of education. There are many examples of healthy competition in schools, such as science fairs, essay contests, debates, chess tournaments, and athletic events. But the competition among schools to get higher scores is of a different nature; in the current climate, it is sure to cause teachers to spend more time preparing students for state tests, not on thoughtful writing, critical reading, scientific experiments, or historical study. Nor should we expect schools to vie with one another, they must readily share information about their successes and failures, as medical professionals do, rather than act as rivals in a struggle for survival."