A few thoughts about time.
I have always appreciated the adage: “Time was invented by humans to keep everything from happening at once.” Given that we can only experience now, time is our way of organizing our many concepts of “nows” into a useable sequence (and if that isn't enough to give anyone a brain knot, particularly first thing in a morning, I don't know what is).
I introduce this not to cause widespread existential terror, but rather to challenge some of our assumptions when it comes to time and learning. Does more time automatically translate to better learning? I'm certain that everyone reading this can quickly bring out the stack of digital articles showing that both longer and shorter school time is the key to student success. I take from this not that there is a universal truth, but that people make many things work.
I do think that if we are going to be looking at significant structural school change that there is a need to become more flexible with time. Many of the activities we will discuss take time, and if they are worthwhile, we will need to find ways to create that time. However, I don't want to start with the assumption that longer blocks of time create better learning.
I'm going to stop and publish this one here for two reasons. First, because I'm already behind and need to write three more to catch up. Second because I think I don't have a grasp on this topic yet. Clearly this is something we need to talk about?
As always, I invite your comments.
Image: http://pixabay.com/p-534267/?no_redirect
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