Do you think schools should shorten or extend school hours in a day?

[learnin2hack]

My school day is from 9:00 to 3:45. We have 9 forty minute classes a 15 minute break after the first three then we have threemore then half an hour of lunch. On Friday we have six classes abd we go home at 1:15

 

[MegaBassBX]

My school day is from 9:00 to 3:45. We have 9 forty minute classes a 15 minute break after the first three then we have threemore then half an hour of lunch. On Friday we have six classes abd we go home at 1:15

How many days do you go to school in a week ?

Do you like the current system or want it to be changed ?

 

[ilman]

I think that our school times are fine (6 or 7 classesper day, 40 minutes each, 5 days per week), but I get extremely bored in school not because of the length or number of classes, but from the classes themselves. Every day we have 3-5 English classes and that gets very boring (considering that I've been learning English since first grade and that this year we started from the ABCs). If I had programming classes instead, it'd have been a lot more helpful.

 

[MegaBassBX]

I see so you thi

I think that our school times are fine (6 or 7 classesper day, 40 minutes each, 5 days per week), but I get extremely bored in school not because of the length or number of classes, but from the classes themselves. Every day we have 3-5 English classes and that gets very boring (considering that I've been learning English since first grade and that this year we started from the ABCs). If I had programming classes instead, it'd have been a lot more helpful.

I see,so you think mixing classes would be better,and you don't have a problem with school hours.

I think that there should be a limit for each subject like the maximum amount of English you get per day is 2 class a day, do you think this idea is good ?

 

[ilman]

I see so you thi
I see,so you think mixing classes would be better,and you don't have a problem with school hours.

I think that there should be a limit for each subject like the maximum amount of English you get per day is 2 class a day, do you think this idea is good ?

Yup, 2 English classes per day would be perfect and filling the empty classes with some physics, biology, maths, anything else, would be awesome.

 

[emigre]

When I was at school, I had zero hours a day. Mainly because I never went.

 

[Clydefrosch]

as far as germany goes, i believe the hours are fine. school days usually go from 7:30 in the morning to 1 pm, sometimes (in rare cases, twice a week) up to 3pm. depending on the system, thats usually classes of 45-90 minutes. with a bunch of 5-10 minute breaks and one thats 30minutes (another one on the long days), though usually useless, as german schools rarely offer anything that resembles a mensa/cafeteria where food is served. the 30 minute break doesn't work to take a nap, it doesnt work to get a healthy fill of energy, as you can only carry so much food to school, its really more of a chance to waste money on snacks at the schools kiosk or to quickly do forgotten homework.

the hours in general are ok and manageable, however, as schoolday starts early, most children have to get up at 6, some even earlier. considering some kids got to take a 30-60 minute busdrive, i've always thought they should move the days start to 9 or even 10. huge problem of kids in school-age, they are lethargic in the morning and completely spent after 12. and i believe that is often due to a lack of sleep.

well anyway, completely unrelated to all of that, i believe the real problem with the german schooling system isnt even the wakeup time or the number of breaks and subjects. its all the time that is wasted on subjects and teaching-plans that are useless for between 60 and 90% of all kids. subjects try so forcefully to broarden pupils interests and knowledge, that by the end of 10th class, few kids have any particular interests left. kids start school with special interests in nature, or physics, or sports or music or even reading books, but natural science is only teached after about 7 years of other crap, while music and art lessons are part of the early years and get cut completely by year 8 or 9. and thats terrible in an economy and a society, that really only has a place left for the highly specialized individual.
to this day, i'd say it would be so much more reasonable to get kids to some basic level of understanding in language and maths, and even a few other classes like history and politics, but instead of broadening all of the subjects, they should be able to specialize after that. pretty much, the system thats been working for universities forever, should be brought to the early school years.

that way, one would at least hope to bring out people with distinguished skillsets, that still have any interest left to learn at all. because as it is right now, i dont think there is any child leaving 10th grade that really feels like learning more. that really wants more of the last 10 years. in my class back then, we were pretty much divided into the group that left the school system to earn money and never come back, and those that went on to 13th grade, because they didnt know what to do outside of school and because it would open up more chances later. people stay in school out of rational thoughts, not out of interest. there is only ever a few people that go on with school out of interest in a certain subject, and sadly, those have to go through 13 years of this, until they finally aquire the right to go to university and specialize in something. and the sad thing is, the only thing that has any value at this point, is the ability to read and any kind of social skill they might have picked up by accident until then. you spend 13 years learning, being stressed to the point where kids get stomach ulcers, and you dont even have anything to show for it as far as abilities go. yes, you get a set of grades, that for some reason is vital to every job application you ever write, even though the knowledge thats represented by those grades has no value at all to anything you will ever do in any job...


obviously, things wont change. politics, both germany, the eu and pretty much worldwide seems to think that kids comming out of school need to be comparable to each other. thats why teaching plans become bigger, more similar to each other and most often, less useful for any individual. all of this can only end badly.

 

[MegaBassBX]

When I was at school, I had zero hours a day. Mainly because I never went.

So you didn't fail,but why didn't you go what did you not like in general ?

 

[ComeTurismO]

So you would like it to be like 5 to 6 hours instead,also I never knew that you have school 7 days a week so you study the whole week this's bad, YOU READ THE Quran I'm proud of you .

Haha, thanks Although, I have no school on Saturday, and Sunday. But, usually sometimes I would waste it on doing long projects or studying. I have a test on Monday.
I don't know why my teacher knows; that she's stressing us! One test after another, then we study... Gives us ton of a homework.. Gives us assignments after another... It's taking over our lives!

 

[MegaBassBX]

as far as Germany goes, I believe the hours are fine. school days usually go from 7:30 in the morning to 1 pm, sometimes (in rare cases, twice a week) up to 3pm. depending on the system, that's usually classes of 45-90 minutes. with a bunch of 5-10 minute breaks and one that's 30minutes (another one on the long days), though usually useless, as German schools rarely offer anything that resembles a mensa/cafeteria where food is served. the 30 minute break doesn't work to take a nap, it doesn't work to get a healthy fill of energy, as you can only carry so much food to school, its really more of a chance to waste money on snacks at the schools kiosk or to quickly do forgotten homework.

the hours in general are ok and manageable, however, as schoolday starts early, most children have to get up at 6, some even earlier. considering some kids got to take a 30-60 minute bus drive, I've always thought they should move the days start to 9 or even 10. huge problem of kids in school-age, they are lethargic in the morning and completely spent after 12. and i believe that is often due to a lack of sleep.

well anyway, completely unrelated to all of that, I believe the real problem with the German schooling system isn't even the wake-up time or the number of breaks and subjects. its all the time that is wasted on subjects and teaching-plans that are useless for between 60 and 90% of all kids. subjects try so forcefully to broadens pupils interests and knowledge, that by the end of 10th class, few kids have any particular interests left. kids start school with special interests in nature, or physics, or sports or music or even reading books, but natural science is only teached after about 7 years of other crap, while music and art lessons are part of the early years and get cut completely by year 8 or 9. and that's terrible in an economy and a society, that really only has a place left for the highly specialized individual.
to this day, i'd say it would be so much more reasonable to get kids to some basic level of understanding in language and maths, and even a few other classes like history and politics, but instead of broadening all of the subjects, they should be able to specialize after that. pretty much, the system that's been working for universities forever, should be brought to the early school years.

that way, one would at least hope to bring out people with distinguished skillsets, that still have any interest left to learn at all. because as it is right now, I don't think there is any child leaving 10th grade that really feels like learning more. that really wants more of the last 10 years. in my class back then, we were pretty much divided into the group that left the school system to earn money and never come back, and those that went on to 13th grade, because they didn't know what to do outside of school and because it would open up more chances later. people stay in school out of rational thoughts, not out of interest. there is only ever a few people that go on with school out of interest in a certain subject, and sadly, those have to go through 13 years of this, until they finally acquire the right to go to university and specialize in something. and the sad thing is, the only thing that has any value at this point, is the ability to read and any kind of social skill they might have picked up by accident until then. you spend 13 years learning, being stressed to the point where kids get stomach ulcers, and you don't even have anything to show for it as far as abilities go. yes, you get a set of grades, that for some reason is vital to every job application you ever write, even though the knowledge that's represented by those grades has no value at all to anything you will ever do in any job...


obviously, things wont change. politics, both Germany, the eu and pretty much worldwide seems to think that kids coming out of school need to be comparable to each other. that's why teaching plans become bigger, more similar to each other and most often, less useful for any individual. all of this can only end badly.

So the breaks are short and insufficient , and NO cafeteria just wow , some children suffer from lack of sleep, but you say it is manageable but I do agree moving the time to 9 or 10 , I do agree that Germany has lots of highly specialized individual, that's also the reason that a lot of great hackers appeared in Germany.

Don't be pessimistic about the future it will change eventually.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

I remember writing an essay on this about a hundred thousand times because it was the generic "practice essay" topic along with school uniforms.

Being a college student now I say "Let them die!"

 

[MegaBassBX]

Haha, thanks Although, I have no school on Saturday, and Sunday. But, usually sometimes I would waste it on doing long projects or studying. I have a test on Monday.
I don't know why my teacher knows; that she's stressing us! One test after another, then we study... Gives us ton of a homework.. Gives us assignments after another... It's taking over our lives!

Usually teacher do this because they don't want you to be to relaxed this might seem bad but some teacher over do it and then the student get burned out mentally.

I think a school system where a student study for 5 to 6 hours a day 50 minutes a class with mid-high level of home work , is good it would start like 9 in the morning.

 

[Hells Malice]

Our highschool day lasted 8:30 to 3pm, though they changed it to all this weird shit after I graduated, like 8:32 and ending at 3:06 (i'm not joking, the times are retarded, and they change yearly now).

But it worked good honestly. Even as a lazy kid I could easily survive the day and just go nap after school if I felt like it.
Well...most of the time. My social studies teachers always caught me napping mid class, and my German teacher nearly poured water on my head seeeveral times. Thank god for spidey senses telling me to wake the hell up.

Class
15 min break
Class
Lunch (40 minutes? I think. Could swear it was 11:20 > 12:00)
Class
15 min break
Class
Home

Any longer and school would just have dragged on far too long.

EDIT: It's hard to make definitive answer of "should schools change X" because pretty much every school has its own system. We have 4 highschools in this town, and not one of them has the same system.

 

[Flood]

Now that I'm in college, I fully support extending K-12 school hours.

this.

 

[YayMii]

I'd be fine if they left the length of a school day as is, but it'd be better if first period started at 10:00 instead of 8:30.

 

[Xenirina]

It all depends on where you are located.
France has ridiculous hours (8.15 - 6.15), whilst Australia is 9 'till 3. So yeah, it depends on where you go.

For Australia, I'd say stay as is. It wastes the day and the day is long enough to learn some stuff.
I can't really speak for France, but I'd say shorten the times. Just a bit.

 

[GamerzHell9137]

Well we have 7 lessons of 45 min a day and i think that's ok.
But i hate when i have 3 classes in a row of the same subject >.>.

 

[emigre]

So you didn't fail,but why didn't you go what did you not like in general ?

Nothing terribly amazing, I didn't fit in, I thought the teachers were shit, the school rules were suffocating.

I'm very certain, I received a better education from wikipedia than secondary education.

 

[Kouen Hasuki]

In Norway the school hours are so short, the breaks so long and often and all the holidays I have yet to work out how they learn anything

GF's daughter is home by about 1:30... her son by about 1:45 and they start at like 9am

 

[shortz1994]

Here in the states, school should be extended.
School needs to be more of a challenge.( no phones/ipads or shit like that.) I'm not going to get into my own schooling. 1980's-1992.( shit i was a flunky, dropped out three days before getting that paper/diploma.).
We had 7 periods. 45min each one. 1 hour lunch. 7:45- 3:45. the crap they have now SUCKS. it's not even "school" it's more of a daycare now.
American kids have gotten spoiled an rude an it all swings back to the parents an school. ( If i ever talked to my mom/dad, the way these kids do now. )urday
I'm also all in for school on a Saturday.( why not most kids just sit in front of there babysitters.( computer/ tv/ video games.) they don't get out an "play" like my generation.

 

[mr allen]

I think that in the US school times are fine where they are at. The only thing i can really see about extending school time is more time time study. The way i saw it is if the kid really needs help they can see a teacher after school and they can always study at home. I say this though as someone who passed calculus in high school by staring at the book instead of working on problems in class.