Is the Traditional School Schedule Outmoded?

Is the Traditional School Schedule Outmoded?

Education Week Teaching Ahead blog  June 21, 2012

How do you think schools can maximize what time they do have with students?  How might teachers’ time be structured differently to achieve better results for students?  Is the traditional six-hour day/ 180-day year still the most viable or productive student schedule?

There are countless options for restructuring “school time” that have yet to be explored.  What do you imagine the school “day” or “year” could look like in the future?

I’m so glad that we’re finally asking these types of questions and really examining how we’re preparing our children to be productive members of the world society.

Our current structure for teaching children was born in the days of the industrial revolution where everything was done on a production line according to a set schedule, and all the products had to be the same.  Our society is no longer in the industrial revolution, why is our method of schooling still stuck there?

It’s unfortunate that it has taken this long to finally come to this discussion; and unfortunate for all of the children who have endured their tradition-bound schooling for the past decades.