Interesting suggestion. It’s not at all clear to me, though, that 5h/week of small-group time is really more effective than 25h/week or large-group time; it means a considerably longer interval between chances to get any sort of support on any given topic. And the children have to be doing something while they aren’t in those small groups—a major (though not always acknowledged) purpose of the school system is to keep children occupied in a reasonably safe way while their parents get on with their lives, so it seems like there would still need to be some kind of large-group supervision during the rest of the school week. How would you envisage this working out in practice so that it doesn’t end up costing twice as much as the system we have now?
Yeah, I don’t have a realistic plan for school reform :-) But if we’re talking wild speculation, let’s cut class size by 4x, cut the school day by half, and cut school years by half! Make it 3 hours per day for 6 years, most of it spent interacting with teachers. (Plus homework time.) Everyone in my family would be ecstatic with this, kids and parents alike. And I don’t think any child would need daycare after finishing this.
Interesting suggestion. It’s not at all clear to me, though, that 5h/week of small-group time is really more effective than 25h/week or large-group time; it means a considerably longer interval between chances to get any sort of support on any given topic. And the children have to be doing something while they aren’t in those small groups—a major (though not always acknowledged) purpose of the school system is to keep children occupied in a reasonably safe way while their parents get on with their lives, so it seems like there would still need to be some kind of large-group supervision during the rest of the school week. How would you envisage this working out in practice so that it doesn’t end up costing twice as much as the system we have now?
Yeah, I don’t have a realistic plan for school reform :-) But if we’re talking wild speculation, let’s cut class size by 4x, cut the school day by half, and cut school years by half! Make it 3 hours per day for 6 years, most of it spent interacting with teachers. (Plus homework time.) Everyone in my family would be ecstatic with this, kids and parents alike. And I don’t think any child would need daycare after finishing this.