Lengthening the School Day

Introduction Let me tell one of my experiences while in school. It was at exactly 3:15p.m when the physics teacher came into class. Normally the class ended at exactly 4:00 p.m.The entire lesson was quite interesting and I knew given a question on the topic I would answer it within seconds. The 4 o’clock bell rang and my mind switched to the soccer game we played the previous day. Despite the red group beating us, I knew our time to revenge had come. The teacher just assumed that he didn’t hear the bell ringing. He continued talking and talking. I realized that no one was paying him attention. Zen was busy   looking at his watch confirming the time, there were some noise in the class, books falling down ,a yawn etc.These were signals to the teacher that learning time was over, we were tired and needed a break. Finally I summoned courage and informed the teacher that time for the lesson was up.After giving me a good lecture on importance of learning, he left. There was a sigh of relief and students rushed out of class some to play soccer, swim and some to hang out. Leaning In Informal Settings Hours spent outside school and classroom setting have large impacts on high performance and social development of the students. Many people have questioned whether time outside class can boost their grades. My answer is –yes it does. Contrary to what many people beliieve, much learning takes place in outside school settings like home and the community. Hours spent outside school give a good chance of reinforcement of what is learnt in the classroom. Time Spent With Parents Parents for instance play a bigger role in student’s achievement. When parents spend time with their children, they supervise their school assignments ensuring that it’s well done. For example, my father used to check all my books after school. This made me pay attention during class time because I knew I had to explain to him why I failed some sums like in arithmetic. They do show the children their love and ensure they eat well balanced food and are generally healthy. By telling them their expectations, they reinforce high performance of the students. They share their own past experiences and provide information on how the students can access resources like libraries. They provide a link with relatives or people who have excelled in studies. All these are done outside classroom and automatically lead to high student performance. This is because the time the students are in school they will have maximum concentration due to their good health. Children learn from museums, libraries and theters.Incorperating community, family partnerships in students learning leads to greater student achievement than adding those extra learning hours in class. Sports Many times parents, guardians and even teachers think that time spent by students in sports hinders high achievement by the students. This is not true.Reseach shows that students participating in sports score higher grades than the non participating ones. Those who are always in class reading books without engaging in sports don’t score highly in tests .While many people argue that participation in sports hinders maximum concentration in studies, this is not true. Balanced participation leads to greater achievements than extending learning time for students. Good Planning Research shows that when teachers are given enough time to teach they produce better results than ‘too much time. In this case, adding an extra 2 hours to learning time is too much time. The teachers are in a position to plan their lessons well and teach effectively than adding them an extra 2 hours. Teachers can use power point handouts and small group tutorials which are more effective than too much classroom learning. Teachers can minimize time spent in school by giving group assignments . This makes students share ideas hence minimize the time used. This is very effective and improves average mean score of the school teachers go straight to the point unlike extra hours which give room for story telling and idle talk. This happens that the teachers can easily miss classes knowing they have extra time to teach. My argument is that teachers can accomplish much within time given than adding more time. Poor Concentration The human mind works well when fresh. Adding extra hours for instruction will mean that students are taught while exhausted. This will mean there is less concentration and retention of what is read. A teacher who teaches when he or she is tired will not deliver the knowledge efficiently. My experience illustrated in the introduction gives a clear picture of this. At the end of last lesson in school the mind deviates to other things like sports. Remember all work without play makes Stacy a dull girl. Extending learning hours will mean there will be dull students in class. Assignments When students are given much time to do assignments, they do a shoddy job. Ninety nine percent will never finish the work when given extra time. This means there is no need of adding the extra 2 hours to the school day as it will automatically lead to poor student’s performances. While in elementary school, Helen’s geography teacher used to give them assignments and add them extra hour to finish. It turned out that the students never used to finish the work despite the extra time given. When the teacher gave the same assignments to other students in another school she was teaching part-time, it was done well though no extra time was added. The assignment in the part –time school was well tackled and handed in on time. Over Depending Of Students on Teachers Adding extra learning hours will mean spoon feeding the students .This can be quite tiring to teachers .In any learning, it is good for teachers to give students room for personal research and study in much more relaxed environment. It is good for teaches to let students discover some things for themselves than spoon feeding which makes students easily forget what they were taught. Spoon feeding is not good for development of future scholars. It is not logical to add an extra 2 two hours to school day for greater student’s achievement. Instead of excelling, it will lead to decline in scores. Conclusion Contrary to what many believe, learning does not just take place in formal setups but also in non formal setting. This includes the family, which plays a bigger role and the community at large. Out of school experiences contribute much to student’s performance. The after school time spent by students with parents puts tremendous reinforcement to their achievement. Adding extra time will lead to poor concentration, poorly done assignments and inefficient teachers. So why want to do something poorly within much time, when you can do it better in little time?