Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. - (Louis) Hector Berlioz
Education has become Obama’s next target. In recent reports Obama wants to lengthen the class day for students in hopes that the playing field will be leveled against students in other countries. This is just another reason to add to my list, Reasons why Voters Were Wrong November 4, 2008, no joke, there is a list. ;) According to Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan this is the most reasonable idea and has shown success in some Charter schools in America. What I don’t understand is that we already spend more hours in the classroom than kids in schools in Asian countries who seem to be passing us by so how is adding even more hours going to help. Obviously it is not the number of hours spent in school that affect the lowering scores of American students compared to Asian students. Personally, I can barely stay awake through some of my classes that seem to go on and would probably shoot myself if I had to go to school an extra three hours out of the day. Seriously, the time I already have to dedicate after school to homework is a pain in the butt let alone having to add three more hours in class. I would appreciate a life outside of school. If they were to add three hours to the school day students would not get out of school before 5 or 6 pm. By that time it is starting to get dark during some parts of the year and would make it hard on afterschool sports teams because students would need to eat dinner before practice. Also it is likely that teachers would still assign homework which then takes another two to three hours out of their evenings. Overall a student would go to school, have sports practice, do homework and then go to sleep. Even if this was all they were to do students, which is an improbable idea, student would get few hours of sleep without even getting time to relax. There are few kids that would be satisfied with dedicating their entire lives to school and having no time to escape the stress that school brings would likely cause them to take their school time less seriously. I know that in classes where I feel my time is being wasted I started texting my friends, daydreaming or working on my drawing techniques also known as doodles :) Overall I feel that adding hours to the day will just increase the amount of time students including myself goof off and pay less attention which will not result in any better test scores.
***one of the websites that discusses this issue:
Could you add a link to some of the info you're referencing? Just two examples: to wherever you heard that Obama thinks this is a good idea, and to data showing that "we already spend more hours in the classroom than kids in schools in Asian countries".
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