Picture this: you get home from school after two one hour-long clubs and after sports. You rush home, devour dinner, and it’s about 6:30. You still have two or three hours of homework to do. You finish your homework at around 8:30, and then play on their phone until midnight and fall asleep. Then you wake up the next morning, still very tired, and do it all over again. Sounds familiar, right? But, what would happen if the school day was longer, and there was less homework? Students need a longer school day with less homework because it reduces stress in students and adults, provides better ways to learn, and homework provides little benefit. Many may believe that homework provides a way to practice skills learned at school. Homework does sometimes …show more content…
For example, the Time to Succeed Coalition states in an article on Deseret News Education: “With more time, teachers have the power to transform the way they deliver their lessons and the way in which they lead their schools to higher achievement. Teachers can use expanded learning time to collaborate and share best practices from the classroom in order to improve their instruction.” This evidence shows that when teachers improve their lessons, they make students learn better. Adding more time allows teachers to improve lessons and inform students in a better way. An article on Reading Rockets also describes that after adding two hours to a school day, a school in Massachusetts jumped up 44 percent in math, 19 percent in science, and 39 percent in English language arts. Clearly, if it makes this much of a difference, why don’t all schools do it? That is a huge jump in math especially. This also shows that students become much better by increasing the amount of hours in a school day. Also, the same article on Reading Rockets also suggests that teachers get to answer students’ questions and many students enjoyed the longer school day. The teachers answering students’ questions help the students understand the material better. Understanding what they are learning is how students become better
When a student has an extra day off, they can spend more time focusing on their studies and taking the time to master a concept. To illustrate, Katherine Bradley states in an article for the Seattle Post- Intelligencer that “Oakridge School District Superintendent Don Kordosky reported that test scores improved after his district in Oregon implemented the four-day school week.” In other words, students academically improved after having an extra day off. The four-day school week is beneficial because it allows students to fully grasp the lesson they are learning, and if they are having trouble with a certain lesson, during the weekend they can practice it until they can finally understand the material. This is beneficial in the long run as it will allow students to get a better understanding of the material that is being taught to them, thus leading to higher grades.
This quote helps explain why we should have a four day week. This isn't the only reason though. In addition, not only are tests scores better, but also student attendance. In the article, The Four Day School Week, by Don Kordosky, the author states, “ Attendance in some schools increased 3% as against available instructional hours” (Crosscut: "The Four-day school week: why less really is more").
To begin with, going to school one less day per week means you have to disperse the hours from the day you are not going between four days. This causes students and teachers to go to school for longer hours. By doing so, students are worn out even more than usual due to longer class periods. With the shorter
Because of a four day school week, classes are extended, therefore giving the teachers a longer teaching period. Charlene Heil, a business and technology teacher says, “I actually have been able to get more done. When you have a longer time period you can have more depth of instruction.” The conclusion can be drawn that teachers and students like the four day school week that they did a better job, and their productivity was
The day that we don’t have school could be the day that we could make up work and turn in assignments online on classroom. A little homework for each class would help out a lot. Teachers want to teach students and have them know all the knowledge that they teach and maybe use it in the later day lives and longer days with longer periods would let those teachers take their time teaching their subjects. This also allows students to take their time in getting their toughest work done. The class periods would probably be over an hour long but longer school days is a must if you for sure have four day weeks.
Cutting costs may be the main reason schools move to a four day school week, but this cannot be the only benefit. Student achievement is always a concern especially at a time when accountability is at an all-time high. Student achievement seems to increase or at least be maintained in a four day school week calendar. To increase or at least maintain student achievement, however, teachers must engage the students. Some research supports that student engagement can be maintained in longer class periods if teachers change their instructional practices.
Implementing Four-Day School Weeks A student spends approximately six hours per day at school, customarily five days per week, not including any sort of extracurricular activities. Students frequently complain about having to go to school for so much time, and not getting much time off. Others could argue that six hours a day and five days a week is necessary to learn all one needs to learn in a school week, this is not necessarily true. However, a school should compensate for lost time by adding time to the end of another day that week if they found this to be an issue.
When certain schools changed their system, improvements were seen especially from Georgia State University when they said, “The researchers found a four-day school week had a statistically significant impact on math scores for fifth-grade students” (Walker). The scores proves that not only high schooler can benefit, but so can younger students with lesser days. Since math is one of the core fundamental subjects, schools want those scores to improve, showing why it is important for them to switch to four days if that is the action that it will take for the enhancement to occur. Linking to superior grades, research from
Also less teens get in car crashes and are at a big risk for drugs,alcohol,depression, even suicide. Teens get in crashes because they do not get enough sleep at night. Another is that grades up when teens sleep in and absences drop by 15% in Bonneville by starting school later. These are both examples why school should start later in the day. If we start school later absences would possibly go down like Bonneville did and grades will possibly go up as well,too.
Four-day school weeks have the capability to change student lives. Every school should invest in the four-day school week plan. Implementing this routine would allow teachers more time to teach and give students the option to do their homework during class, in turn creating student success. All of these factors would help to enhance student and faculty life, while promoting success in the classroom. Having a school system run on a four-day rotation would increase their success by offering more opportunities for lesson and work time.
It is one thing to imagine how a child learns, it is another thing to see it occur, daily, if not hourly. As a parent, I saw what worked for a young mind, what did not, and what could be adapted to allow for learning. This also allowed me to readjust my own mindset. I no longer cared only for myself, but for another human being too. As an educator, I imagine that this occurs similarly with students, but at least twenty more minds all at once.
Teachers will improve their teaching skills to their students to give them a better understanding on the material that’s being
Debate essay Ask anyone and I’m pretty sure they would tell you they want longer weekends. Students start looking forward to 3pm on Friday the minute their alarm wakes them up on Monday morning. Weekends are opportunities for students to let go of stress and to focus on the activities they enjoy. Some people just want longer weekends because they’re too lazy or busy. Longer weekends would make school more and exciting for students because it would give them more opportunities for self-directed work.
Although this could result in students being in school 30 minutes longer it gives them the opportunity to complete some tasks that would cause them stress later that
Noah Smithers While a five-day school week is good there are some good benefits to a four-day school week. If schools, go to a four-day week there might be fewer students and teachers that miss a day of school. Also, educators and children get more time to rest and more time to get things done around the house. Teachers would get more time to grade work and plan lessons. Children would have more time to be kids on a five-day school week.