After reading the original article and Lauren’s response, I would have to agree with her opinion and say that I do not think that adding more days onto a school year is necessarily beneficial to students or teachers. The rationale behind the plan is to expand the hours students and teachers spend together as well as provide more professional development and planning time. Lauren makes a good point when referencing Weinstein’s research that shows that more days will not equal more time actually spent engaging in worthwhile learning. Even if teachers and students are together in the classroom for more hours, it will not help the school reach their goals if time is not already being used efficiently. In addition, I am glad that she commented on the role of teachers in these changes. The teachers are not the ones trying to implement the longer school year, but it seems like they should have some say in whether or not they think additional days are necessary, what the extra time would be used for, and, if it comes to pass, and what kind of professional development would take place in the extra time allotted, as well as having time to plan engaging activities as Lauren suggested.
A statement made by a student in the article brings up another good point about the effects of a school year that lasts almost a month longer than usual. The student notes that a longer school year would interfere with summer programs that he attends- while those who plan these types of changes may not be taking it into consideration, there are a lot of important learning experiences that happen outside of the classroom, and students should have the ability to take advantage of those opportunities. Students may go to music or sports camps and learn about cooperation and teamwork, to service camps to help the community, or to leadership, international, or countless other programs that would benefit them in some way during the summer more than three or four additional weeks in school.
Lauren brought up one more issue in the article which I thought was very important as well, and this is the fact that students actually need sufficient time away from school to rest and pursue their own interests. I know from experience that a full load of homework plus a couple of extracurricular activities used to leave me exhausted and in bad need of a break from the nonstop action of the school year. While there is nothing wrong with working hard and it paid off for me personally, a longer school year would have made my attitude towards school a lot more negative, especially if I lost an entire month of summer. I definitely think that a substantial summer break serves a purpose for students of all ages, whether they are in third grade and spending time playing baseball or eleventh grade and spending time visiting colleges.
