First Day of School

I'm probably not going to earn a lot of friends from this blog entry.

As I grow older, I've begun to think that having school year round might not be a bad idea. I know that sounds revolutionary, especially to those teachers who work in an actual school system, with a union and everything, but I truly believe we are doing are kids a diservice by sticking to the old "School starts in the fall" routine. I'm dreading walking into my classroom for the first day of school tomorrow. My reason? Over the 2 1/2 months that my students have been on 'vacation' it's going to take at least a week before their brains return to keep their bodies company.

Think about it. For the past 2 1/2 months, my students have set their own time schedule. They've gone to sleep when they wanted to, gotten up when they wanted to, and pretty much got out of any kind of routine. Although some of them were in summer school, even that is a false sense of routine, with classes only four days a week, and only until noon. Now, we are requiring them to return to school at 8:00 a.m., go through an hourly rotation, eat lunch when we say,not chew gum or snack when they want, until they are finally freed from jail at 3:00.

While that routine wouldn't really be solved by year-round school, the year-round routine would at least allow for less time to get used to an unstructured schedule. Most year-round schools are 6 weeks on-2 weeks off, much more conducive to retaining information and routine than 10 weeks of free time. As for the teachers, it would allow us more manageable blocks of time, within which we could do more structure lessons and learning would be done in easier to digest chunks, rather than having to cram it all in over a 9 month period.

Just something to think about.