Okay, that's not the real question I have today. That is the question from an old Bill Cosby monologue from a record of his. (Yes, vinyl!) The point is that I sometimes want to ask a question about something that many educators take for granted.
Why does the schedule give equal importance to all core subject areas?
At an elementary level schools do not do this. The way I have observed the elementary schedule is that five core subjects are taught. (Reading, writing, math, science, and social studies) Of the five subjects reading is usually given more time than any of the other four subjects. When students come to a middle school reading and writing are called language arts and given the same time as the other three subjects. Does reading become less important at the middle level?
At the middle level, we conveniently split the day into equal sections and hire the same amount of math, science, social studies, and language arts teachers. Added to this fact is that many language arts teachers take class time for silent sustained reading (SSR). The SSR activity has research to back up the importance of the activity. So, should we have a section of the day devoted to SSR that doesn't come from language arts?
If I had to guess, I would say that the middle level schedules that are so common in America today are not based on research in student achievement. I would guess that the schedules came from convenience.
I need to find out if other middle schools have found better solutions to the management of the day or if what we have now is the best solution.
Please share your thoughts.
posted by MiddleSchoolPrincipal @ 9:13 AM
3 Comments:
I believe that language/communication/speech is very important to understanding any subject, but I'm not sure how I feel about giving L.A. more class time over other subjects. How much time for S.S.R.? How would this affect spec. ed. and at-risk students? There are other ways to communicate besides reading.
You may want to check out the North Hills Classical Academy of Grand Rapids for a possible solution to your question.
What you propose is a paradigm shift for many educators, parents and students. What we do now is simple too convenient - never mind that, I beleive, we chose convenience over learning.
As you know, it is extrordinarily difficult to sell students on relevance in any content area if they only see purpose and use for it in the 55 minutes they spend in class each day.
But imagine the school that integrates curriculum seemlessly - a Middle School History lesson that uses science and math to explain carbon dating of artifcats, technology to research first hand accounts of the historical event, phys ed to hike for "hidden artifacts" on and around school grounds as kids become archeologist, and the language arts applications are endless! Now, that's what I call a history lesson.
We don't live in a Subject-An-Hour world, why do we insist that our kids learn this way? "Cells and bells" allow for predictability/convenience, but they also close off middle and high school teachers to the whole academic picture our kids face. To make the change you propose in any school requires a change of heart and mind before a change in policy and schedule.
That's my 2 cents from the West Side. (I would have posted earlier but I was busy on my 2 SNOW DAYS IN A ROW!);)
http://www.classicaled.org/classical.asp
I know that there is talk about 2-1/2 hours of LA for next year. I don't see how this is going to work. Every subject taught is important in it's own way. Just because we didn't do well on the LA MEAP, shouldn't justify "skimping" in other core subjects. Let's take a better look at the LA curriculum. In my experience, any time added to a class over an hour, becomes nothing but a "free reading" time or an opportunity to do your homework.
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