Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m confused about the people asserting that the current school day is 6 hours long. I’ve worked in three elementary schools and the shortest day was 7 hours, with my current school day clocking in at 7.5 hours long. The upper elementary students fare better, with productivity dropping around 2:00. Their day ends at 3:30. The younger students are a mess after lunch. Some of the kids come back crying, some are hyped up and sweaty, some kids are covered in mud. . .you get the picture. Imagine visiting the park with your six year old and telling them they could play with ALL their friends, but only for fifteen minutes. Then you corral 100 of them inside at once and tell them it’s time to focus on writing. That’s recess. What can you expect?
The school day would be shorter if we structured the days the way they do in Europe, with activities in the afternoon (run by a different team of people) but parents here would never agree to it. Whether they accomplished the same amount of academic instruction and practice or not would probably be irrelevant to public opinion. I don’t think things will ever change.

How much time do the kids take for lunch and recess? How much time is transition?

That's how you get to 6 hours.

That’s like saying you’re going to stop wasting time feeding your kids breakfast and getting them ready for school so you can get out the door in five minutes. It doesn’t make any logical sense and it takes time to transition between activities. You can’t subtract the time that it takes to prepare things, move from place to place, change clothes, eat, use the bathroom, or any of the other necessary but menial activities that we complete every day. The school day is still nearly eight hours long, regardless of how long it takes the kids to pack their backpacks.

Agreed, and the way the school and the day is structured can really impact how much time and energy is spent on transitions. For instance, at our current school (which we are working to make our former school for a variety of reasons including this), lunch is done on a strict rotating schedule with very little room for error, and then kids get recess after lunch on that same schedule. The school's layout sucks and my kid is currently in "the annex" which of course is about as far from the cafeteria as possible. This means my kid's class spends a good 20-30 minutes "transitioning" to lunch, because that's how long it takes to get 20 kindergarteners to the other side of the building with all their lunch stuff and into seats and eating. The other classes have similar issues. So what happens literally every day is that lunch does not start on time, for anyone, and kids wind up spending time standing around in the hallway waiting for the prior group to finish so that they can go inside and eat, and that pushes back their recess time. So about every 3 out of 5 days, my kid doesn't get outdoor recess because there isn't time, because she's spent the better part of an hour standing around in various lines or walking down hallways so that she can eat her lunch in the room she is supposed to eat it in the order she is supposed to eat it according to the school schedule.

It's not acceptable. The fact that crap like this is why my kid's school day is 8 hours long absolutely makes me want a different approach to school that might take less time but focuses more on how kids' experience the day and what will best facilitate learning and enjoying school (enjoying school is actually really important for student retention and helps decrease truancy and behavioral issues). A 3.5 hour school day where kids don't spend any time standing around in hallways waiting to be let into rooms, followed by a lunch and recess that can be longer and more relaxed, followed by an afternoon focused on arts, outdoor learning, physical activity, socio-emotional learning, and just play (all of which currently gets shoehorned into the margins of my child's 8 hour school day because they are at the bottom of the priorities list), sounds about perfect. And there is no reason, other than lack of will and disinterest in the experiences of children, that we can't do this in the US.

There are several reasons. If every grade had your ideal schedule you wouldn’t be able to staff that many arts teachers just for half a day at a time. You wouldn’t have enough classroom or outdoor space for the afternoons either.

Anonymous wrote:I recently learned that kids in many places around the world only go to school for half days through much of elementary. Like it's common to go to school from 8:30am to 12:30 or 1:30pm in many countries, including Scandinavia and much of Western Europe. You can get some idea here: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/09/02/school-days-how-the-u-s-compares-with-other-countries/

As a parent of a child in early elementary, this makes so much sense to me. So much of their school day is filler (shuffling between classrooms, lining up in hallways, etc.) and with these little kids, the time in the afternoon spent on academics is probably not that useful because they are tired and unfocused by then. My child often does special like music, forcing language and art for part of the morning, which results in more transition time getting to and from the special, and also means that more academics are pushed to after lunch when kids are tired.

I like the idea of a more compressed school day with less random filler -- let the kids spend the entire morning in one class room with the same teacher, focusing pretty exclusively on academic subjects. Then send them to lunch, and then aftercare starts and that when you get in music, art, PE, etc. It just makes obvious sense. The idea of a 7-8 hour school day for a kid who is 6 or 7 just does not make sense.

If we did this, we could also start shifting a lot of the stuff that teachers now get tasked with to the looser after care environment. The social emotional learning, the focused help for high risk kids who need extra interventions. etc. would all likely be better provided in an after-care environment instead of during the school day when kids are already focused on academic concepts.

Studies also show that there are seriously diminishing returns when it comes to knowledge acquisition over long periods of time, and that more mental breaks actually helps with knowledge retention.

Why not just change how we do school so the afternoons are like aftercare? Oh wait, we won’t fund the staffing and space required for that

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Okay so how much is this aftercare going to cost? Sounds like a way to shift things to parents. The rich kids and then the poor kids (who get it free) get to take art, language, PE. Middle class kids just go to whatever aftercare they can afford or grandma picks them up.

I disagree with your assertion that school is too long. Most only run 8-3 anyways.

I think 8-3 is too long for early elementary. I loved my kids’ morning preschool. They got to learn and play with peers, have lunch at home, play at a playground or in the backyard in the afternoon, and I could cook dinner, get them bathed, and asleep by 7:30. I could then have a couple hours to be with my husband. Those were the days!

My kids are in bed at 8pm on school nights and they're upper elementary. There's no reason you can't do this with a full school day.

This isn't about the kids, it's about the parent. This poster wants her kids in bed and asleep so she can have time alone with her husband.

That’s basically my K’s schedule at his private K-8. Academics in the morning, broken up by recess. Lunch followed by specials and SEL. Only problem is there is one academic block (math) which is in the afternoon. It is his least favorite subject since he is tired by then :-/ I wish they could switch it up so it wouldn’t always be math in the afternoon.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m confused about the people asserting that the current school day is 6 hours long. I’ve worked in three elementary schools and the shortest day was 7 hours, with my current school day clocking in at 7.5 hours long. The upper elementary students fare better, with productivity dropping around 2:00. Their day ends at 3:30. The younger students are a mess after lunch. Some of the kids come back crying, some are hyped up and sweaty, some kids are covered in mud. . .you get the picture. Imagine visiting the park with your six year old and telling them they could play with ALL their friends, but only for fifteen minutes. Then you corral 100 of them inside at once and tell them it’s time to focus on writing. That’s recess. What can you expect?
The school day would be shorter if we structured the days the way they do in Europe, with activities in the afternoon (run by a different team of people) but parents here would never agree to it. Whether they accomplished the same amount of academic instruction and practice or not would probably be irrelevant to public opinion. I don’t think things will ever change.

How much time do the kids take for lunch and recess? How much time is transition?

That's how you get to 6 hours.

That’s like saying you’re going to stop wasting time feeding your kids breakfast and getting them ready for school so you can get out the door in five minutes. It doesn’t make any logical sense and it takes time to transition between activities. You can’t subtract the time that it takes to prepare things, move from place to place, change clothes, eat, use the bathroom, or any of the other necessary but menial activities that we complete every day. The school day is still nearly eight hours long, regardless of how long it takes the kids to pack their backpacks.

Agreed, and the way the school and the day is structured can really impact how much time and energy is spent on transitions. For instance, at our current school (which we are working to make our former school for a variety of reasons including this), lunch is done on a strict rotating schedule with very little room for error, and then kids get recess after lunch on that same schedule. The school's layout sucks and my kid is currently in "the annex" which of course is about as far from the cafeteria as possible. This means my kid's class spends a good 20-30 minutes "transitioning" to lunch, because that's how long it takes to get 20 kindergarteners to the other side of the building with all their lunch stuff and into seats and eating. The other classes have similar issues. So what happens literally every day is that lunch does not start on time, for anyone, and kids wind up spending time standing around in the hallway waiting for the prior group to finish so that they can go inside and eat, and that pushes back their recess time. So about every 3 out of 5 days, my kid doesn't get outdoor recess because there isn't time, because she's spent the better part of an hour standing around in various lines or walking down hallways so that she can eat her lunch in the room she is supposed to eat it in the order she is supposed to eat it according to the school schedule.

It's not acceptable. The fact that crap like this is why my kid's school day is 8 hours long absolutely makes me want a different approach to school that might take less time but focuses more on how kids' experience the day and what will best facilitate learning and enjoying school (enjoying school is actually really important for student retention and helps decrease truancy and behavioral issues). A 3.5 hour school day where kids don't spend any time standing around in hallways waiting to be let into rooms, followed by a lunch and recess that can be longer and more relaxed, followed by an afternoon focused on arts, outdoor learning, physical activity, socio-emotional learning, and just play (all of which currently gets shoehorned into the margins of my child's 8 hour school day because they are at the bottom of the priorities list), sounds about perfect. And there is no reason, other than lack of will and disinterest in the experiences of children, that we can't do this in the US.

At my school, instruction starts at 9:10 AM and we start dismissal at 3:20. So it is 6 hours 10 minutes of instructional time, technically. Truly, we start packing the kids up at 3:00-3:10 or they would miss the buses, especially the little guys.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m confused about the people asserting that the current school day is 6 hours long. I’ve worked in three elementary schools and the shortest day was 7 hours, with my current school day clocking in at 7.5 hours long. The upper elementary students fare better, with productivity dropping around 2:00. Their day ends at 3:30. The younger students are a mess after lunch. Some of the kids come back crying, some are hyped up and sweaty, some kids are covered in mud. . .you get the picture. Imagine visiting the park with your six year old and telling them they could play with ALL their friends, but only for fifteen minutes. Then you corral 100 of them inside at once and tell them it’s time to focus on writing. That’s recess. What can you expect?
The school day would be shorter if we structured the days the way they do in Europe, with activities in the afternoon (run by a different team of people) but parents here would never agree to it. Whether they accomplished the same amount of academic instruction and practice or not would probably be irrelevant to public opinion. I don’t think things will ever change.

How much time do the kids take for lunch and recess? How much time is transition?

That's how you get to 6 hours.

That’s like saying you’re going to stop wasting time feeding your kids breakfast and getting them ready for school so you can get out the door in five minutes. It doesn’t make any logical sense and it takes time to transition between activities. You can’t subtract the time that it takes to prepare things, move from place to place, change clothes, eat, use the bathroom, or any of the other necessary but menial activities that we complete every day. The school day is still nearly eight hours long, regardless of how long it takes the kids to pack their backpacks.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Okay so how much is this aftercare going to cost? Sounds like a way to shift things to parents. The rich kids and then the poor kids (who get it free) get to take art, language, PE. Middle class kids just go to whatever aftercare they can afford or grandma picks them up.

I disagree with your assertion that school is too long. Most only run 8-3 anyways.

I think 8-3 is too long for early elementary. I loved my kids’ morning preschool. They got to learn and play with peers, have lunch at home, play at a playground or in the backyard in the afternoon, and I could cook dinner, get them bathed, and asleep by 7:30. I could then have a couple hours to be with my husband. Those were the days!

My kids are in bed at 8pm on school nights and they're upper elementary. There's no reason you can't do this with a full school day.

All countries are different, but I can tell you how it is back in motherland, and pardon my limited English.
Children start school 7 years old, so it's not like prk4, K, and 1st graders pushed to read and write. These are much older kids who are indeed expected to sit down and pay attention for about 4-5 hours, but it's not non-stop. Many can already read which makes it easier on the teacher I'd say.
One class lasts 40 minutes and then they have a 10 minute break for bathroom or running or whatever they want to do, but are encourage to leave the classroom.
If the school is indeed 5 hours, which is only one day out of 5 (looking at the schedule of one school, but all follow same national curriculum,the country is small), there is a 30 minute lunch break before the 5th hour/class.
More importantly, the only 3 'hard subjects" are mother tongue, science, and math. The rest is P/E, music, art, IT mixed in. It is not a hard day at all for age 7-8. We all paid attention the 40-minute class, because there was plenty of time to play later and we knew it.
We were also masters of play because we were allowed to be in what we call "daycare" until age 7, which is completely separate from school. We don't confuse the two institutions and we don't mix play and learning like they do here. Kids learn when they play, but we don't pull out toys to explain a math concept. They are seven now and do not need toys in the classroom.
I was an aide in DCPS and the toys used to explain things got all the attention and nobody was listening. The kids were too starved for play and socialization in K. What they tried to do in K classroom here in one year, could be done in 2nd grade in one week. But how do you give the children back the playtime they missed out on in K and even grade 1?
About the aftercare. Our 7-8 year olds hardly ever need a babysitter. The parents see where the kids are (360) and most are allowed to walk home and stay home alone. Many go to other activities or stay in aftercare that has it's own activities.
Aftercare is cheap or free; nobody is left out. All paid by the local government and they have their reasons to do so. I think they'll get their money back tenfold.
They also have a teacher in aftercare that helps with homework if needed.
I'm not saying that such concentration is great for all kids, but rather, taking away two years of playtime is much worse. We even joke about childhood ending at 7, but that's nothing compared to what is done to kids here. I have two kids in DCPS and I wish they had been able to play more.
The hardest part of K was the 12-1:30 pm non-stop reading and writing. The rest of it was simply keeping children busy until parents could pick them up. Unless they are super smart, interested what the teacher has to say and can pay attention at 5, they learn nothing. While they learn nothing, they are denied play that would teach them something. Extremely bad for lower class kids. Bad for all kids and painful to watch. I quit in March as I couldn't take it anymore. I took that job seriously missing 0 days. K has to be the hardest year in US.
Ofcourse this is my humble opinion.

More focused. How so? You can't focus 5 year olds for 3 solid hours. That's WHY there is so much "lost time" in school. Crowd control certainly eats into things, as does serving lunch and moving around. But I find those "lost" moments are when kids are growing in other ways, making friends, staying away from the jerk in the line, learning manners.

So what you are seeing as "wasted time" is not, IMO, wasted time.

Anonymous wrote:There is far too little recess time for young kids.

Maybe the above is true at some schools, but it is definitely not true at our DC’s school.

There are also many areas of the world, OP, where kids go to school for 10 hours/day and that day includes a wide variety of experiences - academic, athletic, and cultural. Those countries tend to have much higher academic achievement rates than the U.S.

I personally would prefer that model - let my kids be with their peers most of the day, and give them brain enrichment, physical activity, and art/music/theater. That would be a lot better than the current situation, which involves paying for aftercare and rushing around like a madman to find and carpool to activities and sports.

Anonymous wrote:I’m confused about the people asserting that the current school day is 6 hours long. I’ve worked in three elementary schools and the shortest day was 7 hours, with my current school day clocking in at 7.5 hours long. The upper elementary students fare better, with productivity dropping around 2:00. Their day ends at 3:30. The younger students are a mess after lunch. Some of the kids come back crying, some are hyped up and sweaty, some kids are covered in mud. . .you get the picture. Imagine visiting the park with your six year old and telling them they could play with ALL their friends, but only for fifteen minutes. Then you corral 100 of them inside at once and tell them it’s time to focus on writing. That’s recess. What can you expect?
The school day would be shorter if we structured the days the way they do in Europe, with activities in the afternoon (run by a different team of people) but parents here would never agree to it. Whether they accomplished the same amount of academic instruction and practice or not would probably be irrelevant to public opinion. I don’t think things will ever change.

How much time do the kids take for lunch and recess? How much time is transition?

That's how you get to 6 hours.

I’m confused about the people asserting that the current school day is 6 hours long. I’ve worked in three elementary schools and the shortest day was 7 hours, with my current school day clocking in at 7.5 hours long. The upper elementary students fare better, with productivity dropping around 2:00. Their day ends at 3:30. The younger students are a mess after lunch. Some of the kids come back crying, some are hyped up and sweaty, some kids are covered in mud. . .you get the picture. Imagine visiting the park with your six year old and telling them they could play with ALL their friends, but only for fifteen minutes. Then you corral 100 of them inside at once and tell them it’s time to focus on writing. That’s recess. What can you expect?
The school day would be shorter if we structured the days the way they do in Europe, with activities in the afternoon (run by a different team of people) but parents here would never agree to it. Whether they accomplished the same amount of academic instruction and practice or not would probably be irrelevant to public opinion. I don’t think things will ever change.

The length of the day would be fine if they broke it up with longer sessions of free play time. There is far too little recess time for young kids.