The Cure for All Educational Woes

As I have been reading other people’s blogs, I have noticed that inviting a guest author to appear on another blog, to quote my daughters, is a thing. Not wanting to be left without a guest author on my blog, I have searched for one, and finally found someone willing to do a guest post.

Middlest, also known as Hannah, just finished her Advanced Placement Test for English Composition and her instructor assigned her to write a satirical essay. When she finished, she had Eldest, Kaleigh, who is an English Major, proof read it; which she did. Then she read it out loud to the entire family. In between belly-aching laughs and wiping tears from our eyes, I knew I had found my guest author. Even better, she couldn’t say ‘no’. Well, she could have, but I am her father.

Here is what she wrote:

Countless people have tried, and tried again, to find the solution to all education woes. I mean, let’s face it, you can walk into any high school around the country, and you’ll see the same problems and the same bleary-eyed, sleep-deprived, over-stressed, slightly-depressed teenagers. All high schools are, in essence, exactly the same, and in every one of these high schools, lurks every Education Administrator’s worst nightmare: students who are failing. These nightmares tarnish the reputation of Education Administrators around the world, and so they work feverishly, night and day, in their offices, far removed from an actual school environment, in an attempt to make sure that these nightmares cease to exist.

And they think they’ve found the solution. They’ve proposed a new schedule, in which classes will be longer, and everyday certain periods will rotate out, so that each student can take more classes. The new schedule even has a solution for all the students who are going to be stressed out over their increased course load: every student is required to have a lunch. It’s mandatory free time. It’s actually quite brilliant when you think about it. In fact, when asked if they approved of the new schedule, 100% of those asked agreed. It should be noted that students, teachers, and parents were not included in this survey; they were not even consulted, but those Education Administrators, with all of their doctorates and superior knowledge, would know better than the lowly students, many of whom are failing anyway, and as such, their ability to form logical and coherent opinions is in question. So, it’s good they did not consult students and teachers who have to use the schedule every day, as they may not be well learned in the workings of student’s minds and learning patterns.

The only way to make sure that the under-educated children, who are falling behind in classes catch up, is to give them more time in class per day and give them more classes per day. This way, they can spend even more time learning in an environment that’s moving far too quickly. If you didn’t understand 45 minutes worth of trigonometry, then you are definitely going to understand 60 minutes worth of it. It’s brilliant. Give them more class time, so that when they don’t understand something, the teacher can continue teaching; the class rotates out tomorrow anyway, so students don’t even have class. By the time they come back in two days, they will have forgotten all about whatever it was that was confusing them. You can’t beat that logic.

However, if classes are longer, and there are more classes, but the school day is not getting any longer, then where is all of this extra time coming from? Well, there are going to be 11 less days of class instruction than there were with the previous schedule, and I can’t think of anything more beneficial to the students. Students will now be forced to learn this material in the comfort of their own home, at their own pace. Students can move through it as slowly, or as quickly, as they like.  Some may choose to not move through it at all. They won’t know it for the final, and they may even fail the final, but they’ll be fine, because at least they all got to have a lunch period every day.  Also, having fewer class days will eliminate stress, because students have less material to cover in class. Instead, they will be learning about it at home, without a teacher’s help, and they will learn it mere days before a final exam, so it will still be fresh in their minds when they sit for the test. Really, we should just get rid of all teachers and their distracting explanations, and just cram the entire year into one night of studying before an exam.

This new schedule will vastly improve the quality of our nation’s nightmares. Children will have an increased workload and more class time per day, but less class time overall, so they don’t get too stressed out about their new workload. This new schedule, although it may sound confusing, will actually eliminate the number of students who are confused by giving them more time to think through the problems by themselves on days when they do not have class. It will also ensure that students have less instruction time, so that they can work at their own pace, at home, free from the distractions of teachers.  But most importantly of all, every child will have a lunch period.