- Eli Winski
- Chesterton, IN
- United States
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Should kids have longer school days?
It could increase knowledge, but it will cost more money.
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Bob Shingles 10+
If a student is forced to learn five to seven different subjects during the day, I imagine retention would suffer.
Silvia Marinova 20+
May be some of these school subject can make the longer day at school more fun and effective. :) Enjoy!
Silvia Marinova 20+
Patricia Gomes
I tend to agree with most thingssaid by both of you. Anthoni, most parents desperatly need to learn what is their role in a child's education and intellectual development. Instead, most just complain about the failing grades and lack of motivation on the part of their kids. I totally agree that learning can take place anywhere and that most of it happens outside the classroom. But how to get parents who were educated in a creativity killing system realise that? The role of standard/public education is exactly that of trying to do the bare minimum kids need. I only think that this bare minimun has increased, and so should the number of hours, at least in my country. I think 6 hours of school would be ideal.
Now the answer reaches Zdenek: in developing countries there are several other things to be taken into account when talking about increasing the number of hours a child spends in school. One overwhelming barrier for underpriviledged kids to overcome is actually hunger. Lets take the example of a kid who studies in the morning period here. They would arrive at school at 7:30 am, without having had breakfast at home, because there literally is none. Actually, one of the biggest motivator of going to school is the certainty of a meal at around 10:00, their midmorning snack provided by the public school. In my opinion, those first 2:30 hours of classrom were lost. Then, they have more classes from 10:30 to 12, and go home for no lunch, and an afternoon of wasted time. In places where the schools actually changed their schedule to 9 am and started providing breakfast before class, lunch, and a midafternoon snack, the productivity improved immensely. So, yes, US and Europe have a totally different reality, but when we talk about countries like Brazil increasing the number of hours kids spend in school also increases govnm. responsibility over their food safety and well-being, and that makes all the difference
anthony bruni 30+
I feel the best way to correct this problem is to find a way to engage parents in classes as they parent. This may seem counter intuitive since parents are themselves busy raising children, but a major part of raising children is being a healthy role model. How you live your life is what their basis of normality will be. If they see you learning new ideas/ skills they will just assume that people are in a continuous process of learning and this is a good thing. That said parents are busy and money is often tight. Unfortunately as adult people are faced with a zero sum problem of college which is great if you can afford it or if you can use it to improve your job situation or no further education at all. We need to start class and workshops where people esp parents can learn in a casual setting. In short normalize the process of learning, instead of turning it into some weird way of sorting out an intellectual caste system.
Also good point about making sure children are not hungry. It seems that if you are trying to teach hungry children without feeding them you know little about children or education. It also ties into false nutrition where children have enough to eat, but it is devoid of any healthful properties. Hungry children, children overloaded with sugar will be much harder to teach than kids with a decent diet.
Zdenek Smith 100+
I think the solution is for the government and organizations to provide food and in some cases even pay parents to send kids to the school.
We also have "one laptop per child" program that helps the children to bring school to their homes through the use of cheap laptops.
Myself I sponsor a child in Dominican Republic to ensure she can attend a school. I hope more people will realize that one of the best way to help make our world a better place is through education.
Luigi Vampa
It could increase compassion and love, but it will cost time. Are we capable to afford it?.
Zdenek Smith 100+
The existing school systems need to change so that it motivates kids to learn, teach effectively and focus on learning how to communicate, team work, creativity and ethics with hand-on experience and less on memorizing facts.
One good example of such system is Khan Academy and some school using it already. See these videos:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
Lee Miller 10+
Luigi Vampa
anthony bruni 30+
How about instead devoting time to read with your child. Not to him but just have some books laying around, you read one for a while while he or she reads one. Take your child for a walk exploring whatever nature you have around. Learn a thing or two about your natural environment so you can point out stuff to him or her. Make sure they are expose to a wide variety of interesting people. Teach them to cook a meal, make a fire, fix a bike, program a computer.
I feel maybe instead of more school for children we need schools to empower parents to take some responsibility for the intellectual health of their child.
Salim Solaiman 50+
I see longer school time means detachment of family and friends for longer time.
Lower play time, longer time of killing creativity (Ref: Prof Ken Robinson)
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
Patricia Gomes
1. Unless children are very lucky to have one stay at home parent, or a parent who works from home and can spare time for them on regular basis, spending 2 more hours at school will not detach them from family
2. Most friends kids make are actually in school... so more time in school means more connection with friends.
Now, I can agree with you that more time in the models of school we have today would equal longer time killing creativity. However, as Prof Robinson proposes, if we remodel schools, more time whithin a system that values art, sports, creativity and yes, play time as well it would benefit both the kids themselves and the society they are part of.
Another point I'd like to add is that in several societies (mine included, I dont know about yours), kids are no longer allowed to play outside or to hang out in groups in the streets. Here, urban violence in big cities have escalated so much, one would be crazy to allow kids to play on the sidewalk (in rough numbers, there are around 200 deaths a year in the israeli-palestinian conflict... in my city we had more homicides than that in a period of 5 months). SO kids end up confined to their homes, spending countless hours on computer or video games or in front of TV. That is not much help either.
I prefer fighting for a change in the school model that would include an increase in the number of hour, coz I think that would be the most beneficial use of taxpayers money.
Salim Solaiman 50+
Yes even i can't allow my kids to play outside without supervision , and my kids always say me that I was luckier as I told them my childhood strories.
All my best wishes of remodelling schools soon really. Untill then lengthening kids time to school will not bring much benefit interms increasing knowledge (my viewpoint current system is just a certification system not knowledge enhancing system)
Moreover if we really think serious about kids well being we have time find time in any way to give them for family time, more love...
Patricia Gomes
In terms of cost, sadly I come from a reality in which appart from paying the taxes which were supposed to provide us school for our children, I have to bear to cost of my child's education. At least in my country, it would be nice to see the government spending more money in education (and spending it more wisely as well) and kids spending more time at school, not as a prison or obligation, but actually learning things that will be useful for their future at the same time as contributing to the future of our country as a whole.
As of the last 5 years or so, Brazil has witnessed unprecedented growth. For the first time people have faith that this country may actually live up to its potential. Yet, as the number of jobs increased and the companies started paying better salaries, they have also become more demanding. The general complaint around the country has shifted from "there arent enought jobs" to "there arent enough people capable of taking the jobs that have been created". The saddest part is that the requirements are not that high: most people dont get a placement because they dont have HIGHSCHOOL LEVEL READING SKILLS. So what do we do now? Stop growing?
It is high time government understood that INVESTMENT in education is not SPENDING.
Rebecca Cutts
Rebecca Cutts
Shokrullah Amiri 10+
There is a limit of school hours which makes it different from jail. Referring to cost, it is not expense, it is long term investment. However, the solution lies in improving the quality of education; not the hours.
Micheal Savage