The BOWTIEGUY & Wife Podcast

Episode 34 - Prisoners of Time (Case Study)

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How much time should students spend in school? How does time affect student engagement and learning? In this video, I reflect on an article from decades ago called, "Prisoners of Time."

FROM: https://www2.ed.gov/pubs/PrisonersOfTime/Prisoners.html

The degree to which today's American school is controlled by the dynamics of clock and calendar is surprising, even to people who understand school operations:

  • With few exceptions, schools open and close their doors at fixed times in the morning and early afternoon-a school in one district might open at 7:30 a.m. and close at 2:15 p.m.; in another, the school day might run from 8:00 in the morning until 3:00 in the afternoon.
  • With few exceptions, the school year lasts nine months, beginning in late summer and ending in late spring.
  • According to the National Center for Education Statistics, schools typically offer a six-period day, with about 5.6 hours of classroom time a day.
  • No matter how complex or simple the school subject-literature, shop, physics, gym, or algebra-the schedule assigns each an impartial national average of 51 minutes per class period, no matter how well or poorly students comprehend the material.
  • The norm for required school attendance, according to the Council of Chief State School Officers, is 180 days. Eleven states permit school terms of 175 days or less; only one state requires more than 180.
  • Secondary school graduation requirements are universally based on seat time-"Carnegie units," a standard of measurement representing one credit for completion of a one-year course meeting daily.
  • Staff salary increases are typically tied to time-to seniority and the number of hours of graduate work completed.
  • Despite the obsession with time, little attention is paid to how it is used: in 42 states examined by the Commission, only 41 percent of secondary school time must be spent on core academic subjects.

    • The results are predictable. The school clock governs how families organize their lives, how administrators oversee their schools, and how teachers work their way through the curriculum. Above all, it governs how material is presented to students and the opportunity they have to comprehend and master it.


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