Fischbowl Best of 2007 "180 days" April

I found this post that Karl Fisch wrote to be very interesting. I had never really gave much thought to how the 180 days of school were actually spent each year. The powerpoint that was made really showed me all the avenues of what is expected of students during the school year. There are alot of things expected out of school children. And a 180 days can seem like a long time when students do nothing but school work day in and day out.

There is alot of planning by the teachers and the staff members to make sure that a day will run by smoothly. It is very important for teachers and students to be on task to make the day seem a little shorter. Teachers have to pack so much material into those 180 days that may seem overwhelming to the students.

Also all the test that are given to students during the year is very surprising to me when I look at it. It seems very necessary but does that take away from much needed class time for learning new ideas? I don't know!! It has been along time for me since I was in a classroom where we had to constantly take a test for something.

Today, it seems that students are overwhelmed by all of the material that they have to go over. But it is necessary for their educational progress. Also, to take some of these test a half a day of a whole day is devoted primarily to test taking. That seems a little outrageous to me. And most students don't even know why they need the test material that is given to them. The question that comes to my mind is are the test really revelant to a student's progress? It was really interesting to find out that classes are shortened in these 180 days of school that could have been used for instruction. On average 60 out of 180 days are actually wasted. Can you believe that!! So as a future educator I hope that all the days that my students are there in class we will have full instruction.

Check out this post and the powerpoints: http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2007/04/180-days.html