4 day school week.

[srkruzich]

Students do better with less time in a classroom......


FORT VALLEY, Ga. (AP) — During the school year, Mondays in this rural Georgia community are for video games, trips to grandma's house and hanging out at the neighborhood community center.

Don't bother showing up for school. The doors are locked and the lights are off.

Peach County is one of more than 120 school districts across the country where students attend school just four days a week, a cost-saving tactic gaining popularity among cash-strapped districts struggling to make ends meet. The 4,000-student district started shaving a day off its weekly school calendar last year to help fill a $1 million budget shortfall.

It was that or lay off 39 teachers the week before school started, said Superintendent Susan Clark.

"We're treading water," Clark said as she stood outside the headquarters of her seven-school district. "There was nothing else for us to do."

The results? Test scores went up.

So did attendance — for both students and teachers. The district is spending one-third of what it once did on substitute teachers, Clark said.

And the graduation rate likely will be more than 80 percent for the first time in years, Clark said.

[Diane Amberg]

How long was the school day?

[Diane Amberg]

How about "unschooling" altogether. I keep waiting for some of you who hate traditional schools to bring that up. It's been around  for 6 years or so.

[srkruzich]

How long was the school day?

I think they extended each day by 1 hour.  But the extra day helps big time i have worked 4 day weeks before, and even 3 day workweeks and you do preform better.

[srkruzich]

How about "unschooling" altogether. I keep waiting for some of you who hate traditional schools to bring that up. It's been around  for 6 years or so.

Unschooling is homeschooling

[Diane Amberg]

Unschooling happens at home, but there are no set rules of any kind.  The kids run the show. It they don't want to partake in "school" for a few weeks, that's OK. Watch TV all day, no problem. Sleep 'til noon every day, why not? Study math at 3:00 am. ,go for it...or so the kids think. It does work after a fashion because the Internet is available and as you know you can find 'most anything on here. It's a little like Montessori but involves the child's whole life.The kids can jump from whim to whim.

[srkruzich]

Unschooling happens at home, but there are no set rules of any kind.  The kids run the show. It they don't want to partake in "school" for a few weeks, that's OK. Watch TV all day, no problem. Sleep 'til noon every day, why not? Study math at 3:00 am. ,go for it...or so the kids think. It does work after a fashion because the Internet is available and as you know you can find 'most anything on here. It's a little like Montessori but involves the child's whole life.The kids can jump fro whim to whim.

uhhh  don't know anything about that, Homeschooling involves a childs whole life.  Theres is no real set schedule as long as the work is done.  There is a curriculum that has to be completed, but no set hours in which they have to be sitting there.   If it takes them 1 hour to finish then its 1 hour, if it takes them 10 hours its 10 hours.  

As far as letting kids sleep to noon or later, If i had kids, their butts would be up around 7 am or so doing their chores and starting a day.  TV wouldn't be a option cause i don't have one now, and i find it is one of the biggest problems in kids being lazy these days.  They would rather sit in front of a tv than running around outside using their creativity and imaginations.  
As far as jumping from whim to whim, no i wouldn't support starting something then when bored quitting before its finished to start some other whim to not finish it.  

I don't believe in the regimental setup that schools have, but i do believe kids need structure and boundries.   I also believe that children need goals set by the adults so that they reach higher than they would themselves.  Its called settning the bar higher.

My boys were reading by age 3 or 4, started out reading a bible, which is the best because it teaches not only reading comprehension but proper sentence structure and spelling.   It is a bit difficult but they learn.
They were on my computers at age 6, mind you this was before computers were the norm in a household.   they were also helping me work on them at that age handing me parts and tools and watching and learning.

Spent a lot of time learning how to hunt, fish, how to survive in the forest, how to navigate the forest, (BTW that requires math and geometry).  This was before they got into 1st grade.   3 of my boys were invited to duke at the age of 12.  One son was invited to the legislature at age 12 to serve as a page. I refused to allow that.  But it makes a statement on his abilities. How did he get that request?  He informed the good senator that the senator was wrong when the senator told the 12  year old students the 2nd amendment protected the rights of hunters to hunt.   My son immediately informed him and said Sir you are incorrect on that, the 2nd amendment was written into the constitution in order to preserve the ownership of arms by the people to overthrow a government that has become tyrannical.

My kids weren't taught by the Government school system.  And it shows!

[Mom70x7]

There is truly a movement called "Unschooling" - it is not at all like homeschooling.

Unschooling teaches that kids will learn what they're interested in - the kids set any agenda. (There usually isn't one.)

In home schooling, parents set an agenda and decide what a child is to learn.

[Diane Amberg]

 Steve, some day it's going to hit you that you and yours are unusual and what works for you absolutely would not work for everyone. I think it's fine that your kids turned out well. You can't expect all families to act or react or be successful doing education your way. By the way, I thought your sons were due home from the Marines in May. Any word on them?  Mom, I 'm glad you've heard of unschooling. Personally I'm a little skeptical.

[srkruzich]

Steve, some day it's going to hit you that you and yours are unusual and what works for you absolutely would not work for everyone. I think it's fine that your kids turned out well. You can't expect all families to act or react or be successful doing education your way. By the way, I thought your sons were due home from the Marines in May. Any word on them?  Mom, I 'm glad you've heard of unschooling. Personally I'm a little skeptical.

Well personally, if you don't set goals for kids, and let them essentially do nothing, then its not a good thing.  IF given the choice children will choose the path of least resistance.   Now homeschooling doesn't necessarily bar them from learning waht they want. It in fact allows greater freedom for the kids to explore what interests them. Everything you do can be a lesson, and instead of being locked away in a building 5 days a week, the classroom is anywhere.  no need for 4 walls and a chalk board to learn.

My kids are not that unusual Diane, I can point out couple hundred kids that went to the same schools that my kids did that are just as good or even better at things, have higher education that my boys.  So yes it does matter setting education at a level where kids will achieve. Not lowering the educational standards so that the slower kids can feel good about themselves.  The slower kids will learn and maybe they won't achieve that bar, but they will get as high as they can go.,