180 Day?

Out of the "Best(?) of the Fishbowl" the blog that I chose to talk about was from the month of April entitled 180 Days? . The reason why I chose this one is because I have often wondered myself "Where do all of the days go?" Barry Bachenheimer is a professor that used the Did You Know?/Shift Happens videos to provoke conversation in his class.

These discussions later caused Mr. Bachenheimer to raise this question himself. Which, naturally lead him to create a video of his own entitled 180 Days? . Following is the video:



Mr. Fisch thought it was a great idea so he borrowed Bachenheimer's to assist in creating his own for his school. If you follow this link and scroll down to the fourth paragraph you will be able to see Mr. Fisch's version. Overall the message is the same. There are a ton of school days that are wasted on all sorts of non-educational materials. So. does that make those days any less important or should we re-evaluate our thought process? Perhaps make some adjustments?

I think that both of these men are on to something here. I know that this is very controversial but, why not? Why not have year round school??? The whole reason we have summers to begin with is so that the children could come home and help in the fields and with the livestock. How many of us are still doing that? There are schools here in the US that are year round already! According to the American Library Association : "Over the past fifteen years there has been a 544 percent increase in the number of public schools that have implemented year-round education in the United States."

As I said this is a very controversial topic of discussion. This is a wonderful site to help explain the various tracking schedules involved with year-round school. This site also list the pros and cons of both. If you have never thought of this before this would be a wonderful place to get just your basic info on the subject.

I personally believe that we should go to year-round school. Don't get me wrong I love my summers, but it is the year 2009. When are we going to adjust ourselves to fit in with the rest of the world? The track schedules give us ample amount of time off. No, it is not all in one big chunk. But, the kids are not the only ones who "forget" information learned from the previous year - the teachers do too.