How long should the school day be?

[Bateluer]

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/11/02/many-parents-think-7-½-hour-school-day-too-long/?hpt=us_bn6

CHICAGO (CBS) – Mayor Rahm Emanuel is turning his campaign for a longer school day up a notch, while some parents and teachers argue that A 7 ½-hour day is just too long.

So why is the mayor focused on that number?

Few dispute the Mayor’s claim that the current school day is too short, but there are those – teachers and even some parents – who feel his proposed 7 ½-hour day might be too long.

The article doesn't mention what grades or ages specifically, but I get the impression that 7.5hrs will apply to all public schools. Seems long for younger grades to me. Now, middle school through high school grades, should be ~8hrs. Mirror a typical work day.

Other than my senior year of HS, when I only needed to take a handful of credits to graduate, did I attend school for anything coming close to 5.5hrs. If I recall, I started at 8a and finished around 2:30p, getting home ~3p.

 

[ThatsABigOne]

Just as long as a regular work day. ie 8 hours.

 

[lxskllr]

8 hours, no homework.

 

[shortylickens]

These days school is more like day-care than an educational institution. The main reason people argue over the length of the day isnt because they want their kids smarter, its cuz they dont wanna have to pay for after school supervision.
Also because people like me who pay taxes and dont have kids get to share financial burden.

 

[bfdd]

There's so much fucking wasted time in school, why else would they give homework? lols.

 

[Patranus]

Its about efficiency when children are at school NOT how long the day is.
If schools spent the amount of time they spend on making children "feel good" on actual course work, they might improve their overall scores.

 

[bfdd]

Its about efficiency when children are at school NOT how long the day is.
If schools spent the amount of time they spend on making children "feel good" on actual course work, they might improve their overall scores.

And get rid of bullshit. So much bullshit shit going on in schools holy shit.

 

[Jaepheth]

10 hours.

Start at 7:30am, end at 5:30pm to allow parents who work 8-5 jobs to drop-off and pick up without inconvenience.

1 hour for lunch, 3 hours allotted for monitored study and homework. 2 three hour class periods, or 3 two hour periods per day. Homework assignments do not leave the monitored study rooms.

All student attire must fall between business casual and business formal.

shock collars optional

 

[lord_emperor]

10 hours.

Start at 7:30am, end at 5:30pm to allow parents who work 8-5 jobs to drop-off and pick up without inconvenience.

1 hour for lunch, 3 hours allotted for monitored study and homework. 2 three hour class periods, or 3 two hour periods per day. Homework assignments do not leave the monitored study rooms.

All student attire must fall between business casual and business formal.

shock collars optional

Agree with all but the shock collars, which should be mandatory and trigger at random intervals to remind them where they are.

 

[zokudu]

I support this if they remove homework. That's the biggest bullshit part of school is while your only there for what 6? hours or so you end up having to go home and do 3-4 hours of homework. My sister is still in high school and she spends almost all night at the kitchen table doing all of her homework. Its sickening.

 

[shortylickens]

I support this if they remove homework. That's the biggest bullshit part of school is while your only there for what 6? hours or so you end up having to go home and do 3-4 hours of homework. My sister is still in high school and she spends almost all night at the kitchen table doing all of her homework. Its sickening.

Its probably got more to do with her motivation or parents pushing her.
Many kids can do their homework half way decent by just working at it during the school day, study hall, or lunch break, and have most of it done when they get home.
I'm in college and dont have 3-4 hours every night.
Of course, my teacher may be slacking on me.......
:hmm:

 

[zokudu]

Its probably got more to do with her motivation or parents pushing her.
Many kids can do their homework half way decent by just working at it during the school day, study hall, or lunch break, and have most of it done when they get home.
I'm in college and dont have 3-4 hours every night.
Of course, my teacher may be slacking on me.......
:hmm:

I was one of those kids :awe:
I also skipped a lot of assignments and prioritized what was important to my grades. She does EVERYTHING. She doesn't do well on tests though so she does well because she tries really hard with her homework.

 

[ShawnD1]

10 hours.

Start at 7:30am, end at 5:30pm to allow parents who work 8-5 jobs to drop-off and pick up without inconvenience.

That's not a bad idea actually. Kids with 2 working parents or a single parent already live like this.

Countries like Sweden and Norway operate like this too. Day care and school are still separate, but day care is free. Just say "day care" is an extension of school and Norway looks exactly as you describe.

 

[ShawnD1]

I support this if they remove homework. That's the biggest bullshit part of school is while your only there for what 6? hours or so you end up having to go home and do 3-4 hours of homework. My sister is still in high school and she spends almost all night at the kitchen table doing all of her homework. Its sickening.

Actually that homework makes her smarter. A lot smarter. Students almost always do better in classes where they are given consistent (not necessarily a large amount) of homework.

Unfortunately I experienced this first hand in grade 10 and it was in the wrong direction. I was in the hardcore English class where the teacher would give daily assignments. Students read a story then write an analysis of it. I was doing great in that class and I actually liked that class. Then I was transferred from that class to one where we did almost no homework at all. My grades in English dropped a lot. We were told to read things but we never had to write a paper about the story, so the story would be skimmed over once and not fully understood; there was never any practice writing about the stories we read. Then the mid term hits and we all did horrible because we were not doing any practice work up until that time. The guys in the other class destroyed the midterm because they had been writing things like this every single day for the past month. In my class, this was like the first time we had to write something. It's no shock to find that we all sucked at it.

 

[ElFenix]

I support this if they remove homework. That's the biggest bullshit part of school is while your only there for what 6? hours or so you end up having to go home and do 3-4 hours of homework. My sister is still in high school and she spends almost all night at the kitchen table doing all of her homework. Its sickening.

i was always amazed at how teachers would dump homework on students as if no other teachers gave homework assignments.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Ehh...

from my experience, there's less than 1 hour of "content" each day ... so it's next to impossible to hold kids attention and focus most of the day ..

Thus, make the school day 1 or 2 hours, get rid of all the superfluous stuff and reviews. Keep the kids longer who need the help. The ones who got their shit straight can go home....

 

[Rage187]

8 hours, no homework.

We have a winner.

 

[Chaotic42]

9 hours, no homework, mandatory PE in the morning (outside if possible)

 

[Bateluer]

Why the hate against homework? I had plenty of homework when I was in school, but it didn't take me hours and hours after school to finish it. They just need to get off the smartphone, twitter, facebook, etc, while they're doing the homework.

There are some projects that cannot be finished at school due to scope, materials, location, etc.

 

[HeXen]

16 hours or 12 hrs/7days a week. kids are getting too stupid

 

[FoBoT]

i'd run a school just like a cube farm @ MegaCorp

8 hrs a day, 52 weeks a year
you get 2 weeks vacation to use anytime

 

[olds]

Just as long as a regular work day. ie 8 hours.

My employer thinks that since the day is 8 hours long, I should be able to teach 2, 4 hour classes. I guess class set up and tear down should be on my dime.

 

[bhanson]

9 hours, no homework, mandatory PE in the morning (outside if possible)

This.

 

[xanis]

9 hours, no homework, mandatory PE in the morning (outside if possible)

This.

 

[dan4patriots]

9 hours, no homework, mandatory PE in the morning (outside if possible)

whats the point of 9hrs of school if you give no homework to reinforce the teaching, and PE is useless