Ideas for an Extended School Year

Daily Yonder makes a pretty convincing case for how to extend the school year, as the President has suggested, without forcing kids to stay in a classroom and extra month or two every year:

President Obama wants a longer school year. Great. But make sure that students spend part of that year learning from and about their communities.

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In other words, meet your state’s standards, but use the community as a classroom. Knowledge needed for passing tests is important, but students can acquire that knowledge by doing. Engage students in hands-on projects with community members to build understanding, practical knowledge, and leadership skills. The knowledge and skills of adults can be used as great teaching tools with students while also improving life in the community.

And don’t forget to leave time for outdoor play so that students can exercise while being exposed to changing seasons and life in their surroundings. Creative, self-directed play, coupled with formal, guided environmental education, can foster closer relationships with playmates and nature.

This sounds like a winner of an idea to me. Having worked in public education I’m a HUGE proponent of educational opportunities outside of the classroom. Imagine then that when May rolled around, instead of kids leaving for three months, they started coming to school on half days for the next two months, with no uniforms, plenty of breaks for socialization and physical activity and time spent on field trips and/or community service projects? That’s a school I would have enjoyed attending.

In addition, rather than having the same teachers they had the previous year, they can use the summer session to begin to get to know their new teachers in a more fun and informal way. I would go so far as to suggest teachers coach intramural-type teams in a variety of athletic and non-athletic competitions throughout the summer, or even participate as a team member. The summer sessions can be used as trust-building periods and also to help socialize the students better with one another which cuts down on bullying and other social problems.

I think when presented with new and innovative approaches that give kids a more well-rounded education, most parents will choose more school if they know it is being done well. Kids might even come to look forward to the extra school time if it provides a break in the routine they can chafe against. One other idea might even to be to create smaller and more infrequent periods of informal learning opportunities. Kids can be pretty darned focus if they know that once every six weeks they get a week of casual clothes, field trips and 2 hour recesses. We just have to be willing to think outside the box to find an arrangement which makes the most sense.