I know this is typical for the US so this is more for US people to respond to. I wouldn’t say that it is the best system for work, just wondering about the disconnect.
There are compelling reasons send them 9-5
There are also compelling reasons not to
-
Teachers spend a non-trivial amount of time post class working on previous assignments, future assignments, setting up tests coordinating with other teachers and staff. If they start all this at 5, they’re stuck at the office until very late.
-
Busses/kids on the road before rush hour
-
Extra-curricular activities are better off earlier than later, don’t want clubs running into diner time.
-
better chance of getting home before dark in winter at Northern latitudes
Better chance of getting home before dark in winter at Northern latitudes.
Cries in living at 62o north
- We shouldn’t be forcing our children to spend the majority of their waking lives chained to a desk doing menial work mixed with some valuable education and instead allow them to actually be kids and be outside doing kid things.
I’m a private teacher and I see so many kids who are like, I am in school from 8-3:30, then from 3:50-5 I’m in softball, then I’m in a study group from 5:30-7. I go to bed at 9.
Kids aren’t allowed to be kids much of the time anymore. Most everything seems to be in the duality of either “Glued to their devices” or “Endless cycle of extracurricular and studying”
I absolutely refused to do homework back in the day. I had one math teacher that took your median grade and used that as the final grade. I would calculate to the assignment what it took to get an a, and do that much homework between arriving to class and the time she checked homework in.
I would always rush to complete my assignments early in other classes do any homework that I could get done before class change. I always aced my tests.
I think the worst was when the teacher would assign us to read ahead of chapter for the next days lesson. Yeah so you want me to be miserable tonight, and double bored tomorrow.
I also hated that the teachers never communicated. They would unintentionally group-assign hours of workload in non-GT classes.
For #4, with current school hours, you either go to school in darkness or you go home in darkness. That’s just reality for those who live further north.
This is true, I would argue that it’s relatively better have the darkness be early in the morning less mischief happens.
In the winter, even at the most southern point (Windsor, ON) Canada gets dark around 4pm.
-
Schools don’t exist solely to prepare you for soul crushing work. It is supposed to actually educate you.
Unfortunately, nowadays, the schools fail at both
America moment
A lot of the school system is set on many of the people in the country being farmers so you do a lot of scheduling to allow them to work on the farm. This is why do you get the summers off and some other vacations that fit with other major times for growing crops?
I’m pretty familiar with the farming aspect of all of this, but clearly we are way beyond needing children for farming (except for some child labor law changes that I’d like to ignore in this case). To me, it sounds like a legacy issue that was never changed with the times. Just my observation
And there’s no reason urban and rural schools need to run on exactly the same schedule. Urban districts have been experimenting with things like year-round school for decades.
Instead of adopting the archaic 9-5, how about just eliminate homework?
How about we eliminate homework and switch to a 32 hour (or whatever) work week…
As a teacher I 100% support this, it would be much better for teachers and students. It won’t happen though unless parents are also given a 4 day work week so they can look after their kids.
The homework aspect in theory helps with the University structure.
Perhaps. But only the last 2-4 years. No student below high school should have homework (there is research to back this up). And they can do it in study hall, not necessarily at home. College courses have like half the class time, so professors hit the hard parts and expect students to read and get the rest on their own.
A lot of schools are going to this model now, at least in Texas around me. Texas requires interventions if kids fail the STAAR (the statewide test they take that shows they know the material they’ve learned during the school year) so a lot of schools have built in an intervention period (or whatever the campus calls it) to give those kids the intervention time. My kid doesn’t need intervention so they just do their homework during that time. They can sign up to go to certain teachers to get help, too. And a lot of schools/teachers have gotten away from assigning homework, since it just punishes the kids who don’t have support st home.
I guess that’s another suspect of eating away people’s time. If university takes more than 8 hours then it is also in question. If people want to be subjected to work outside of their 8 hour window, they should be allowed. Forcing this is crazy.
The thing about university “requiring” people to work more than 8 hours is this: It’s not a human right to become a system architect, physicist or engineer. Universities typically don’t require more than 8 hours per day, but a lot of studies in practice require more than 8 hours if you want to be able to get through them. Relaxing the requirements for passing a degree would mean less competent professionals leaving the universities, and I don’t think anyone getting on a plane or going into surgery wants that.
Because kids are too young to drink.
And the teachers aren’t supposed to.
Now I have been outa school since 2008, but back then, in public school, they didn’t teach us shit. Like actual useful things. How to deal with emotions, personal finance, How to deal with police, mindfulness, critical thinking…nothing. all busy work and history through the American lense (propaganda). I even had a science teacher who was super religious and said earth was created 6000 years ago…it was geology ffs. Math was the worst imo. Solve for X, zero context. The only reasoning they gave to learn it was “to get in to college”.
Safe to say I didn’t go to college.
If you didn’t learn that stuff, that’s on your parents, not your teachers. They’re not there to raise you.
Yeah, it’s not like they are part of an institution designed to ensure a baseline level of education within society. Oh, wait.
That’s right, to educate you, not to raise you.
A basic level of education to function at work. That’s literally why modern schooling was created during the industrial revolution.
What the fuck do you think parents are supposed to do? Just pop you out of a vagina, feed you, and leave everything else to other people?
I’m sorry your parents were so shit, anon.
How to deal with emotions, personal finance, How to deal with police, mindfulness, critical thinking…nothing.
All of that seems fairly important for continued success at work.
What the fuck do you think parents are supposed to do? Just pop you out of a vagina, feed you, and leave everything else to other people?
Unfortunately, much to my dismay, being a parent has no requirements or standards. As such, in order to ensure a baseline, that should be available in school. In addition, how are those parents supposed to learn how to parent… if that isn’t taught in school?
Fuck orphans?
Cute, but complete crap.
Ah yes, I can’t believe I didn’t look at it that way. What wonderous intelligence you have been blessed with.
It means that you’re being deliberately obtuse in order to pretend that you don’t understand that you’re wrong. If you don’t understand how to admit that, it’s nobody else’s problem.
Some people don’t have parents. But I generally agree with you.
You had me until math. I used algebra every day of my blue collar life. Fun fact, the more math that you know directly correlates to your income more than any other subject.
I use math everyday as well in the trades. Not too complex math, but my point was not the math itself, rather the way it was taught to me and the context given, which was none. I’m definitely not saying don’t teach math, quite the opposite. I’m a hands on learner. Math for the sake of math to 15 yr old me seemed like an empty exercise. If I could do it again, I’d probably be good at it. But that’s life.
Pure math is just too abstract to make sense. When a teacher says the only reason to learn it is to get in a college, yeah, that’s terrible teaching. A halfway decent teacher would at least orally give some RL examples people might need to use mental math, like calculating whether the 300g or the 500g packet is cheaper per gram
They did that a tiny bit in early math classes. In high school, none. I failed every year cause I didn’t care about what X is. I erased the problem. No more problem. I was a dumb kid with shit teachers. And here I am using math everyday and finding I’m fairly decent at mental math and weird fractions. Guess I’m a hand on learner. I dunno. I agree with you.
If you have to deal with police you SHUT THE FUCK UP. You can’t beat them at their own game
Which should be taught, imo. police are not your friends. They arrest you for profit. I learned how to deal the hard way. But least I know now. I guess teaching it would be counter to the whole reason of policing so yea. 🤷
When would the teachers have time to lesson plan or grade if they’re teaching kids 8 hours a day?
Just because students are at school from 9 to 5 doesn’t mean every single teacher has to be in front of a class from 9 to 5.
I mean, nationwide teacher shortage, overfilled classrooms… If the kids are there then all the teachers are working the whole time.
While the kids are doing whatever they used to call homework in class. Split classes between teachers: one supervises while one works.
You don’t manage a lot of kids, do you?
It’s literally what they do in my wife’s class where they have 24 each but hey what would I know
“My wife’s a primary school teacher so I know enough to solve education issues”
Here is a functional solution you want to ignore because you look down on primary school teachers
No its because I am a teacher and you have no idea what you’re talking about
18 hours to think that up? Yeah, you’re not a teacher.
So are you asking for twice as many teachers or twice as many kids per teacher?
The struggle to hire teachers is already high and the GOP is trying to put as many obstacles as possible to slowly strangle public schools and shift to charter/private schools.
I’m from Morocco, and school usually goes from 8 to 12, then again from 2 to 6, sometimes 3 to 7. Yes, we can leave school as late as 7 in the evening sometimes. During the winter, that’s exactly when the sun sets. Also, you have lunch at home. Every. Single. Time. Also, only Wednesdays are exempt from afternoon school, but only if you’re in primary school, because as soon as you enter secondary school, the whole week is filled up to the brim. And add homework on top of all this. And usually we get that from every single subject (yes, even PE). In many ways, this is worse than what you Muricans are doing. If you guys are being tortured, we’re being sent to hell and back 5 days a week every single week for the most part. Also, 1 week holidays every 6 weeks. That’s it. And since we’re Muslims, we don’t even get the 2-3 week “Christmas break”. You stay home on January 1st, and go to school the very next day if it’s not a weekend. We even study during Ramadan. It sucks less because we leave earlier, but it still sucks. Also, we don’t have snow days. Only a super small part of the country gets snow, and you still have to go to school even if that happens. And during the final years of high school, you have a final exam that contains EVERY SINGLE LESSON IN THE YEAR. All of them. Both semesters. And you bet that I hated this when I had to go through it.
deleted by creator
It’s interesting how different the quality of schooltime can be, and how perception of said time can differ for school kids as well. I was in a “full day” school starting from age 9 in a country where regular schools end at lunch time. Our school had the same curriculum to go through as every other, but lots more time to do it. The extra time was filled with dedicated self-learn time ( basically to do homework, but you have your classmates around to talk and help each other and can reach out to teachers if you really struggle with something) and elective extracurricular activities. It was mandatory, but you had free choice between all the offers. Teachers had to offer something, and usually offered their personal passion activities/hobbies. This led to these activities being the highlight of every kid’s week, because there was enough variety to choose from to find something you liked. Kinda like club activities in US schools, but much less codified and without competitive objectives. Some examples are photography, pottery, soap box car building, school beautification ( we literally were allowed and encouraged to graffiti/mural the school walls :D ), gardening, natural science ( basically constantly doing fun physics and chemistry experiments without boring theory), electronics etc. . This was intentionally kept separate from sports or music, which also were partially elective: you had to do sports and music, and some basics were mandatory for all, but you could opt for specializations. All this semi-forced mingling served well to prevent the formation of strong clique boundaries, without inhibiting kids from pursuing their talents and passions.
All that had huge advantages. Kids from troubled families had a much easier time of keeping up with everyone else, as help from home was hardly necessary. Lunch was provided by the school. Wasn’t stellar, wasn’t horrible. But it was available to all students for free, and that can be very important to some as well. It took me a long time, often only after visiting school friends for the first time or even after schooltime was over entirely, to realize how crazy rich or poor some of my friends’ families actually were, or what difficulties they sometimes faced at home and that there was a reason we never were invited to visit them. At school, it simply didn’t matter to us. Sure, some wore more brand clothes than others, but nobody thought of using this as a measure of personal quality. Class cohesion also was usually strong. Sure, kids still were assholes and bullies like everywhere else, but it usually got solved internally quickly, because it was harder to keep it up for full days with plenty of “forced” social time, and you ended up being more confronted with the damage and hurt you caused. And in really bad cases the proximity to school made it much easier for teachers to pick up on any developments in their students and classes and react quickly. There also were some mandatory “social skill” classes to teach everyone basic conflict solving and mediating. It was only one or two sessions per year, but I think it actually helped, even if we kids usually scoffed at it at the time. It was very clear the school philosophy was not to push through a curriculum, but to use the extra time to help explore and form personalities that later will hopefully enmesh well in society. And yes, our school had a bit more teaching personnel than other schools to fill all the time slots and extra activities, but we still had 25-35 students per class, it was not some utopian dream.
We kids loved the full day spent at school as well. No homework, and what’s better than spending the entire day with your friends? The school was far from my home, so I left the house at 6:30 and usually got back around 18:00, with about 40min of train commute plus 30min of walking (one way). Only Friday ended at lunch. Still never felt that I was lacking “me” time.
Tl;Dr : It matters a lot how the time at school is used.
I think it’s because there’s some unwritten rule about not inducing children to commit suicide. I don’t think a little kid could handle such a curriculum without getting severely depressed and offing themselves. Adult survival of this is much higher, mostly thanks to access to sex, drugs, and rock and roll, something children are not allowed to have access to, given local laws and their status as legal minors. It is correct to lie to them and make them think that if they are good students now they will be successful as adults because they are too young to be exposed to night clubs where 9 to fivers tend to find refuge and a drug dealer at the end of a tough shift to survive and avoid suicide.
In the USA, work doesn’t end at 5, and there’s always homework. That’s where your proposal goes wrong.
It does if you don’t let your boss control every waking minute
Bingo. I quite like my job and my boss. Our agreement (his idea) is that if I do any work at home, I get paid overtime for it and I round up to the next hour no matter what.
I don’t go looking for work to do at home but if a client calls it doesn’t bother me a bit.
I’m off the clock when I leave my place of business. Unless you own your own, or you’re a creative, stop doing free work at home.
I’m not sure if adding more time in school would be helpful even if there’s no homework. I have a 9-5 job, and by 3:30 I’m already mentally checked out for the day, just watching the ole clock tick slowly to five. Not to mention that kids aren’t paid to go to school, so the kids wouldn’t see any tangible benefits of a longer day. In theory they would learn more, but most kids aren’t thinking that way and there’s only so much a kid can learn in one day anyway.
When I was in high school, they added 25 minutes to every day to build in snow days. If we did not use them, school just ended earlier than scheduled. This could serve basically the same function, to shorten the school year.
However, that’s not even necessarily a good thing for learning… I think year-round school is generally accepted to be the best way to learn having many shorter gaps rather than one long summer. I suppose it could build in an extra week or two of breaks normally not present in a year-round school schedule.
My daughter has ADHD and sitting through six hours of school is hard enough of her. Eight would give her ridiculous amounts of stress and anxiety. Sure, one day she’ll have to build up to 8 hours when she gets a job, but she’s got to build up to it. Now eliminating homework (except maybe reading literature), I’m all for that.
At least with a job there is potential to find work that is mentally stimulating.
And working a job typically isn’t the same as school. School is for learning. That 6 hours where you need to be actively aware and absorbing information. Learning new things. Figuring out how those things fit into the real world. Recalling that information in stressful environments for tests. It’s mentally taxing for a lot of kids as is. When I was in school, most days I was mostly checked out by the end of that 6 hours. I can’t imagine adding a couple more hours in there. And then have to ride the bus home in rush hour traffic!
But now that I have that baseline education I can check out all day at work and still be more productive than a lot of those around me who stay engaged the full day. Give me eight hours. The most mentally taxing thing I have to do now is pretend to like some of my coworkers during meetings.
Schools in the US were designed to prepare kids for factory jobs initially. A lot of the structure related to that has changed but the amount of time you spend at school hasn’t. Realistically you’d want a kid to spend less time at school. But schools are now used to prepare kids for working all day and then giving up their free time to their employer. That may be a little tin hat-ie, but it’s at least partially true. However as a kid a few extra hours at school wouldn’t have cut it for me. I preferred to do my work at home, I was also super distractible because I had adhd. Additionally as others have said that just wouldn’t be feasible for a lot of kids/families.
