I have one. You have one. My colleagues have them. Your colleagues have them. Your students have them too. Sometimes they are strong. Sometimes they’re not. Some folks get right in your face with theirs. Some folks sit on the fence with theirs. What’s great about this thing is there isn’t a right one and there isn’t a wrong one. Yes sirree, I talking about an opinion—something Merriam-Webster’s defines as “a belief stronger than impression and less strong than positive knowledge.”
Now that we’ve established that we each have opinions, it’s time to share one! Will a longer school year help or hurt US students? Feel free to add in some persuasive details if you like!
On the fence,
Diane
I don’t really think this is so much about students as it is about teachers. I believe students can adapt to longer days, a longer year, a year round model, having Fridays off, or simply a standard school year. However, I don’t think every teacher can teach longer days, longer years, year round, or be forced to get everything in in four days as opposed to five. I think teachers have a harder time adjusting their schedule, with their own kids if it means being at school longer, i.e. who will watch my kids?
That said, a longer school year five days a week would be great for kids. My father, an immigrant from the Soviet Eastern Block, was taught six days a week, it makes a difference.
I think preschool needs to be mandatory. Too many children are coming to school in kindergarten and worse…first grade without any school experiences. They can tell you more about scary movies or killing zombies than about letters of the alphabet, colors and shapes. We need to have the time to teach social studies and science just like we do language arts and math. We need PE every day. We need music and art. These things shouldn’t be things we teach when we have a few extra minutes or by taking minutes away from math and language arts.
I think we are all heading towards a longer year. I only hope it includes more time for the kids to have phys ed, music and art. And of course time for kids to go outside and be kids.