Items related to Schools That Do Too Much: Wasting Time and Money in...
Schools That Do Too Much: Wasting Time and Money in Schools and What We Can All Do About It - Hardcover
A sharp critique of radically misplaced priorities in schools
Etta Kralovec, whose acclaimed and controversial book The End of Homework showed the damage done by a culture of excessive homework, widens her lens and shows us vividly the fragmented, almost irrational shape of a typical school day, carefully, accessibly opening up the complex set of issues that lie behind it.
Schools That Do Too Much argues that American schools systematically misspend their two most precious resources: time and money. From class schedules that fragment students’ time, to budgets that sink money into dozens of activities —especially sports—that distract from learning, schools over and over try to do too much and end up delivering too little by way of real teaching and learning.
Kralovec argues that budgets and schedules are the crucial pivot points of school reform. All the new curricula in the world will be ineffective, she argues, if coupled with traditional school schedules and spending patterns. She argues for radical rethinking of the flow of time in a school day and for “zero-based” budgeting —an approach that starts with basic priorities first. Examples from schools and communities around the country illustrate the power of reorganizing these basic categories of school life.
At a time when the desire for change is opening up the possibility of experiments in public education, The Overburdened School is a guide to how best to take advantage of that opportunity. Etta Kralovec was a teacher and professor of education for more than twenty years and is the author of The End of Homework (Beacon / 4219-6 / $11.00 pb). She is currently vice president for learning with Training and Development Corporation, in Maine. She lives in Orland, Maine.
"The two dearest assets a school has are money and faculty time. Etta Kralovec shows how academic performance is sacrificed again and again as money and time are used for things that have little to do with how much or how well our children learn. She has done us all a great service."
--Marc Tucker, President, National Center on Education and the Economy
"If we want innovative, successful schools that break the dominant mold, we need exactly the kind of flexibility in changing traditional schedules and budgets that Etta Kralovec argues so well for here. Time and money are at the heart of what schools need to rethink, because thinking about them gets at the most important questions: 'To what end are we sending our children to school? What is it for?'"
--Deborah Meier, founder of the Central Park East Schools, and author of In Schools We Trust
Etta Kralovec, whose acclaimed and controversial book The End of Homework showed the damage done by a culture of excessive homework, widens her lens and shows us vividly the fragmented, almost irrational shape of a typical school day, carefully, accessibly opening up the complex set of issues that lie behind it.
Schools That Do Too Much argues that American schools systematically misspend their two most precious resources: time and money. From class schedules that fragment students’ time, to budgets that sink money into dozens of activities —especially sports—that distract from learning, schools over and over try to do too much and end up delivering too little by way of real teaching and learning.
Kralovec argues that budgets and schedules are the crucial pivot points of school reform. All the new curricula in the world will be ineffective, she argues, if coupled with traditional school schedules and spending patterns. She argues for radical rethinking of the flow of time in a school day and for “zero-based” budgeting —an approach that starts with basic priorities first. Examples from schools and communities around the country illustrate the power of reorganizing these basic categories of school life.
At a time when the desire for change is opening up the possibility of experiments in public education, The Overburdened School is a guide to how best to take advantage of that opportunity. Etta Kralovec was a teacher and professor of education for more than twenty years and is the author of The End of Homework (Beacon / 4219-6 / $11.00 pb). She is currently vice president for learning with Training and Development Corporation, in Maine. She lives in Orland, Maine.
"The two dearest assets a school has are money and faculty time. Etta Kralovec shows how academic performance is sacrificed again and again as money and time are used for things that have little to do with how much or how well our children learn. She has done us all a great service."
--Marc Tucker, President, National Center on Education and the Economy
"If we want innovative, successful schools that break the dominant mold, we need exactly the kind of flexibility in changing traditional schedules and budgets that Etta Kralovec argues so well for here. Time and money are at the heart of what schools need to rethink, because thinking about them gets at the most important questions: 'To what end are we sending our children to school? What is it for?'"
--Deborah Meier, founder of the Central Park East Schools, and author of In Schools We Trust
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
Etta Kralovec was a teacher and professor of education for more than twenty years and is the author of The End of Homework (Beacon /4219-6 / $11.00 pb). She is currently vice president for learning with Training and Development Corporation, in Maine. She lives in Orland, Maine.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
Chapter 1
The Fractured School Day: Competing Interests, Competing Priorities
Once we know that some youngsters receive as little as eighteen minutes of
instruction per hour . . . what does the researcher who made the startling
announcement do for an encore?
Philip W. Jackson
As Alexandra drives onto the grounds of Willard High School she notices that
her soccer team"s game tomorrow with rival Wilson High is listed on the
Willard bulletin board. This board is the pride of the community, a large, well-
lit structure that the town spent three years raising money for and two years
fighting with the planning commission to build. It helps keep the town
informed about events at the school. Today it announces the wrestling team"s
meet, Alexandra"s soccer meet, and the junior varsity football game tonight.
The school play that Alexandra"s best friend is starring in is not listed;
Alexandra makes a mental note to say something to someone about that,
and picks up her speed in order to make the first bell, which rings at 7:28.
Alexandra mounts the steps as her fellow students struggle into their first-
period class to beat the final bell, which rings four minutes later. Some of
these students have been up since 6:15 getting ready for and getting
themselves to school; others look as though they just crawled out of bed.
Alexandra began her day with a swim practice from 5:15- to 6:00 and hurried
home to get ready for school, so unlike that of some of her classmates, her
day was well under way by 7:32.
The crackling of the loudspeaker signals the official opening of the school day
at Willard High School. In an uneven voice, the student of the day leads the
whole school in the flag salute, and then various students who have lined up
outside the front office announce the events of importance that day. Team
practice times, bus departure times for sports teams and fan buses, makeup
exam schedules, due dates for the junior raffle tickets, club meeting places
and postponements, reminders of popular students" birthdays, and a singing
of "Happy Birthday" for . . . well, someone; no one quite knows because the
student who is leading the song is laughing so hard the name of the honored
person is inaudible. Alexandra, a driven young woman who has her sights set
on life after high school, is a bit bored by the whole routine and has little use
for the students who participate in the daily ritual at Willard. By 7:39, the flag
salute over and the speaker quiet, the teacher begins to pick up where the
class left off the day before.
"When you read the last half of the chapter last night did anything strike you
about the similarities between the Hayes versus Tilden election and last
year"s election in this country?"
A few hands shoot up. Even though this is an honors- level history class,
many students slide to the back of the room and spend most of each period
trying to wake up. Of those awake, about half have kept up with the reading,
and it is these students" hands that wave eagerly in front of the teacher.
At 7:40 a bell sounds in the distance, signaling the start of physical
education classes. The PE bell breaks Alexandra"s concentration; she had
just formulated a solid answer to the teacher"s question, but the bell
reminded her that she left her PE locker unlocked last night and she hoped
that all her stuff would still be there today.
For sixteen minutes, the history class continues uninterrupted. At 7:56, the
door opens and the office aid enters to collect the roll sheets. Since the
teacher has forgotten to take roll that day, she quickly asks who is missing,
which turns into a group activity of "Where"s Celine?" "Who has seen Martin?"
After the roll-taking interlude of four minutes, focus is reestablished for two
minutes, until the PE bell rings in the distance again. This bell signals the
end of the PE class, which gives PE students twelve minutes to take a
shower and get ready for their next class. For many students in the history
class, this bell is the relief bell, signaling to them that the class is almost
over and that they have survived another period of not being called on for
answers they don"t have.
Alexandra"s day is divided into forty-two-minute class periods, so the bell
signaling the end of class rings at 8:14. Students have four minutes to
change classes and for those four minutes all hell breaks loose as students
hurry to classes and grab new books from their lockers, couples steal kisses
in the hallway, and unsettled scores are resolved with quick shoves and
threats of retribution. Alexandra hurries to her English class, stopping in the
bathroom, where there is a long line. She makes a quick calculation and
realizes that she won"t make it to a stall before the final bell rings; she leaves
the bathroom, vowing to get a hall pass during her next class. By the time
the final bell rings most students are in their classes. Period 2 begins at 8:18.
The flurry of activity between classes means that it takes the students in
Alexandra"s English class awhile to settle down. As the teacher takes roll,
students remark to each other about who is wearing what, who has dyed her
hair the night before, and who is holding hands with whom.
In Alexandra"s English class, students are presenting their group projects on
Joseph Conrad"s Heart of Darkness. Each day for a week and a half, the
teacher has been drawing the name of a group that will be the first to present
for that day. Today, the first group for the day is assembled in front of the
class by 8:23 and is ready to begin. Three minutes into their presentation,
the PE bell again rings in the distance.
And at 8:32 the loudspeaker crackles on and the office secretary
says, "Sorry for the interruption, but would Mr. Mares please come to the
office."
The first group presentation is completed by 8:39 and the second group is in
front of the class and ready to begin by 8:45. As they begin, the PE rings in
the background and Alexandra sinks into her seats and appears to be
thinking, "Saved by the bell." The second group ends a bit early, so students
sit and talk quietly with their friends until the passing bell rings at 9:00.
Students have a fifteen-minute locker break until 9:15. Alexandra tries again
to make it to the bathroom. This time the line is longer. Alexandra waits and
talks to a friend on the swim team who is complaining about what the
chlorine is doing to her hair. Alexandra looks at her own hair and is thankful
that she has her mother"s thick, curly hair, which seems immune to chlorine
damage. The bell rings to call the students to period 3, but Alexandra is next
in line. At first she thinks she will wait it out, but when two minutes pass she
realizes that she will have to get a pass from her next class and try again.
She runs to class and slides in just as the final bell rings, only to remember
that today is the day her ecology paper is due and it is still in her locker.
The teacher calls the class to order, reminding students that their papers are
due today; a number of students are in Alexandra"s predicament of having to
ask to go to their lockers to get their papers. Mr. Parker is visibly disturbed
by the fact that well over a third of the students didn"t remember to bring their
papers with them this day. He tells them that they can bring their papers in
during lunch because he wants to begin a new unit today on water quality
and doesn"t want to lose all the time it would take for them to go and come
back. Roll is taken and four minutes into the class period, Mr. Parker has
captured everyone"s attention with a vial of very dirty water that he has
collected from the very pool where the swim team practices.
During the forty-two-minute class, two PE bells, the attendance taker, and a
representative from student government who is delivering a questionnaire
about the upcoming dance interrupt the class. The student asks Mr. Parker if
he would mind having his period 6 students answer the questionnaires and
assures him it will only take a few minutes. Absent-mindedly, Mr. Parker
agrees and puts the pile of questionnaires on top of the other pile of papers
on his desk and tries to get back to the water in the vial, which still has the
student"s attention. He has enhanced the lesson with a computerized
overhead that is showing the chemical makeup of swimming-pool water.
Luckily, Mr. Parker"s subject for the day and his cool computerized
projections have kept student attention focused on the subject at hand,
notwithstanding the fact that during his forty-two-minute period, a full twelve
minutes were taken up with interruptions and time needed to refocus. Mr.
Parker"s most common expression is "Where were we?"
Period 4, Alexandra"s math class, is a welcome break from the other
classes. All the students have their own computers and are working on
individualized programs in pre-calculus. The teacher moves from student to
student, troubleshooting, helping answer questions, and directing students"
attention to their mistakes. Toward the end of the period the loudspeaker
comes on to remind sophomores that today is AIDS education day and they
are all to report to their groups for period 7. For this semester, the entire
tenth-grade class spends one class period a week in AIDS education groups
led by teachers who have received intense training in a nationwide program.
Few students in the math class seem to notice that there is an
announcement on. Alexandra seems to have developed the ability to listen for
key words from the loudspeaker and listens only when she hears something
that pertains to her. All the students in this class are juniors or seniors, and
they all seem to be tuning out simultaneously.
Alexandra has "first lunch," the first scheduled lunch period. It is a forty-two-
minute feeding frenzy in a chaotic cafeteria with little air and less natural
light. Today, Alexandra spends her lunch period with her friends; on other
days she goes straight to the library to catch up on homework. Today they
laugh about their friend Martha, who has her first boyfriend and who now
spends her time in the hallway with him. The three girls on the swim team
who are also in the ecology class talk about the water in the swimming pool
and realize that the reason that Adriana is having so much trouble with her
hair is that she has recently bleached it and the chemicals in the bleach have
reacted negatively with the chemicals in the pool water. Since Mr. Parker
announced that they would have to do an ecology project this semester
Adriana tries to talk the rest of the girls into doing the project on her hair.
This discussion reminds them that they have to get their papers to Mr.
Parker during lunch, so Alexandra quickly packs up and is off to turn her
ecology paper in before she goes to her sixth-period art class.
Period 6 begins with midday announcements. Since the art class is next to
the cafeteria, the voice of the secretary making the announcements has to
compete with the noise from second lunch as she tells the wrestling team
that their match has been canceled. Everyone in the art room is asking
everyone else what has just been said. No one much cares when they hear
the words "wrestling," since only six students in the whole school are on the
wrestling team, but a full four minutes of period 6 has been taken up with
news of the wrestling team. Alexandra"s art project, a series of self-portraits,
is just completed; all that is left is to do the final shading and then she can
hang them in the student gallery. Since all students in the state must take
an art elective, the class is overcrowded with students and art projects.
Today a number of students are absent, but there are still twenty-six. Masks
are hung from the ceiling; collages are stacked up all over; the ceiling tiles
are being painted by one student as a project. Glue, paste, scissors, wire
cutters, wood scrapes, flat files, and piles of papier-mâché figures lie around.
Some students are working hard; others sit clustered around work tables
talking softly and avoiding the work at hand. Alexandra is a bit put off by the
classroom—annoyed by the noise in the room, the lack of respect of some of
the students for art, and the general chaos. The teacher is a favorite of many
students and since many students are on their lunch break, they wander in
and out of the art classroom at will. Alexandra is certain that she could have
finished the project long ago if it hadn"t been for the interruptions and disorder
in the classroom. She asks students at the next table to turn down their
Walkman. Even though they are listening through headphones, the music is
so loud that Alexandra can hear the driving beat of music she hates. They tell
her to "chill out," and she turns her back to them, trying to get some peace.
As the class settles down, Alexandra and the other students begin some
serious work and for eight minutes the art class is a delightful art studio with
students working hard. The loudspeaker interrupts the hard-won
concentration with a reminder about the student government questionnaires
on the upcoming dance. The teacher"s attention, which had been focused
fully on one student"s project, is drawn to the loudspeaker.
"Did anyone hear what they said?"
"Yea," yells a student, "something about questions about a dance."
"Who cares?" yells another.
Alexandra knows what was said, but prefers to focus down even harder on
her art piece instead of answering the questions.
A questionnaire shows up on Alexandra"s table, so she knows that the
teacher has figured out what he was asked to do. The rest of the period is
lost to students talking about the questionnaire and the dance and the last
dance and the car accident that happened after the last dance and the music
that sucked at the last dance and the new school policy about not being able
to leave dances once you enter. And on and on until the passing bell rings.
Period 7, Alexandra"s PE class, is designed to be the warm-up period for the
girl"s soccer team. The class time flows naturally into the after-school team
practice. Today during the class period they watch a video of the last game
and talk about the upcoming game with an archrival. For some reason there
are no loudspeakers in the gym or team rooms, so the class period is not
interrupted by the end-of-the- school-day announcements. The practice
officially begins as the final bell of the school day rings. For two and a half
hours the girls focus intensely on their practice. No bells ring, there are no
attendance takers interrupting the coach, the loudspeaker never draws the
attention of the students and coaches away from the task at hand. There are
nineteen girls on the team and three coaches. The coaches break the girls
into practice teams, work one on one with each girl on her individual
strengths and weaknesses, and have small groups practice particular skills;
today the groups are working on passing.
When Alexandra makes it home for the evening, it is 6:15. She has been on
the go since her early-morning swim practice, giving her a solid thirteen-hour
day. As she enters her room, she drops her thirty-two-pound back...
The Fractured School Day: Competing Interests, Competing Priorities
Once we know that some youngsters receive as little as eighteen minutes of
instruction per hour . . . what does the researcher who made the startling
announcement do for an encore?
Philip W. Jackson
As Alexandra drives onto the grounds of Willard High School she notices that
her soccer team"s game tomorrow with rival Wilson High is listed on the
Willard bulletin board. This board is the pride of the community, a large, well-
lit structure that the town spent three years raising money for and two years
fighting with the planning commission to build. It helps keep the town
informed about events at the school. Today it announces the wrestling team"s
meet, Alexandra"s soccer meet, and the junior varsity football game tonight.
The school play that Alexandra"s best friend is starring in is not listed;
Alexandra makes a mental note to say something to someone about that,
and picks up her speed in order to make the first bell, which rings at 7:28.
Alexandra mounts the steps as her fellow students struggle into their first-
period class to beat the final bell, which rings four minutes later. Some of
these students have been up since 6:15 getting ready for and getting
themselves to school; others look as though they just crawled out of bed.
Alexandra began her day with a swim practice from 5:15- to 6:00 and hurried
home to get ready for school, so unlike that of some of her classmates, her
day was well under way by 7:32.
The crackling of the loudspeaker signals the official opening of the school day
at Willard High School. In an uneven voice, the student of the day leads the
whole school in the flag salute, and then various students who have lined up
outside the front office announce the events of importance that day. Team
practice times, bus departure times for sports teams and fan buses, makeup
exam schedules, due dates for the junior raffle tickets, club meeting places
and postponements, reminders of popular students" birthdays, and a singing
of "Happy Birthday" for . . . well, someone; no one quite knows because the
student who is leading the song is laughing so hard the name of the honored
person is inaudible. Alexandra, a driven young woman who has her sights set
on life after high school, is a bit bored by the whole routine and has little use
for the students who participate in the daily ritual at Willard. By 7:39, the flag
salute over and the speaker quiet, the teacher begins to pick up where the
class left off the day before.
"When you read the last half of the chapter last night did anything strike you
about the similarities between the Hayes versus Tilden election and last
year"s election in this country?"
A few hands shoot up. Even though this is an honors- level history class,
many students slide to the back of the room and spend most of each period
trying to wake up. Of those awake, about half have kept up with the reading,
and it is these students" hands that wave eagerly in front of the teacher.
At 7:40 a bell sounds in the distance, signaling the start of physical
education classes. The PE bell breaks Alexandra"s concentration; she had
just formulated a solid answer to the teacher"s question, but the bell
reminded her that she left her PE locker unlocked last night and she hoped
that all her stuff would still be there today.
For sixteen minutes, the history class continues uninterrupted. At 7:56, the
door opens and the office aid enters to collect the roll sheets. Since the
teacher has forgotten to take roll that day, she quickly asks who is missing,
which turns into a group activity of "Where"s Celine?" "Who has seen Martin?"
After the roll-taking interlude of four minutes, focus is reestablished for two
minutes, until the PE bell rings in the distance again. This bell signals the
end of the PE class, which gives PE students twelve minutes to take a
shower and get ready for their next class. For many students in the history
class, this bell is the relief bell, signaling to them that the class is almost
over and that they have survived another period of not being called on for
answers they don"t have.
Alexandra"s day is divided into forty-two-minute class periods, so the bell
signaling the end of class rings at 8:14. Students have four minutes to
change classes and for those four minutes all hell breaks loose as students
hurry to classes and grab new books from their lockers, couples steal kisses
in the hallway, and unsettled scores are resolved with quick shoves and
threats of retribution. Alexandra hurries to her English class, stopping in the
bathroom, where there is a long line. She makes a quick calculation and
realizes that she won"t make it to a stall before the final bell rings; she leaves
the bathroom, vowing to get a hall pass during her next class. By the time
the final bell rings most students are in their classes. Period 2 begins at 8:18.
The flurry of activity between classes means that it takes the students in
Alexandra"s English class awhile to settle down. As the teacher takes roll,
students remark to each other about who is wearing what, who has dyed her
hair the night before, and who is holding hands with whom.
In Alexandra"s English class, students are presenting their group projects on
Joseph Conrad"s Heart of Darkness. Each day for a week and a half, the
teacher has been drawing the name of a group that will be the first to present
for that day. Today, the first group for the day is assembled in front of the
class by 8:23 and is ready to begin. Three minutes into their presentation,
the PE bell again rings in the distance.
And at 8:32 the loudspeaker crackles on and the office secretary
says, "Sorry for the interruption, but would Mr. Mares please come to the
office."
The first group presentation is completed by 8:39 and the second group is in
front of the class and ready to begin by 8:45. As they begin, the PE rings in
the background and Alexandra sinks into her seats and appears to be
thinking, "Saved by the bell." The second group ends a bit early, so students
sit and talk quietly with their friends until the passing bell rings at 9:00.
Students have a fifteen-minute locker break until 9:15. Alexandra tries again
to make it to the bathroom. This time the line is longer. Alexandra waits and
talks to a friend on the swim team who is complaining about what the
chlorine is doing to her hair. Alexandra looks at her own hair and is thankful
that she has her mother"s thick, curly hair, which seems immune to chlorine
damage. The bell rings to call the students to period 3, but Alexandra is next
in line. At first she thinks she will wait it out, but when two minutes pass she
realizes that she will have to get a pass from her next class and try again.
She runs to class and slides in just as the final bell rings, only to remember
that today is the day her ecology paper is due and it is still in her locker.
The teacher calls the class to order, reminding students that their papers are
due today; a number of students are in Alexandra"s predicament of having to
ask to go to their lockers to get their papers. Mr. Parker is visibly disturbed
by the fact that well over a third of the students didn"t remember to bring their
papers with them this day. He tells them that they can bring their papers in
during lunch because he wants to begin a new unit today on water quality
and doesn"t want to lose all the time it would take for them to go and come
back. Roll is taken and four minutes into the class period, Mr. Parker has
captured everyone"s attention with a vial of very dirty water that he has
collected from the very pool where the swim team practices.
During the forty-two-minute class, two PE bells, the attendance taker, and a
representative from student government who is delivering a questionnaire
about the upcoming dance interrupt the class. The student asks Mr. Parker if
he would mind having his period 6 students answer the questionnaires and
assures him it will only take a few minutes. Absent-mindedly, Mr. Parker
agrees and puts the pile of questionnaires on top of the other pile of papers
on his desk and tries to get back to the water in the vial, which still has the
student"s attention. He has enhanced the lesson with a computerized
overhead that is showing the chemical makeup of swimming-pool water.
Luckily, Mr. Parker"s subject for the day and his cool computerized
projections have kept student attention focused on the subject at hand,
notwithstanding the fact that during his forty-two-minute period, a full twelve
minutes were taken up with interruptions and time needed to refocus. Mr.
Parker"s most common expression is "Where were we?"
Period 4, Alexandra"s math class, is a welcome break from the other
classes. All the students have their own computers and are working on
individualized programs in pre-calculus. The teacher moves from student to
student, troubleshooting, helping answer questions, and directing students"
attention to their mistakes. Toward the end of the period the loudspeaker
comes on to remind sophomores that today is AIDS education day and they
are all to report to their groups for period 7. For this semester, the entire
tenth-grade class spends one class period a week in AIDS education groups
led by teachers who have received intense training in a nationwide program.
Few students in the math class seem to notice that there is an
announcement on. Alexandra seems to have developed the ability to listen for
key words from the loudspeaker and listens only when she hears something
that pertains to her. All the students in this class are juniors or seniors, and
they all seem to be tuning out simultaneously.
Alexandra has "first lunch," the first scheduled lunch period. It is a forty-two-
minute feeding frenzy in a chaotic cafeteria with little air and less natural
light. Today, Alexandra spends her lunch period with her friends; on other
days she goes straight to the library to catch up on homework. Today they
laugh about their friend Martha, who has her first boyfriend and who now
spends her time in the hallway with him. The three girls on the swim team
who are also in the ecology class talk about the water in the swimming pool
and realize that the reason that Adriana is having so much trouble with her
hair is that she has recently bleached it and the chemicals in the bleach have
reacted negatively with the chemicals in the pool water. Since Mr. Parker
announced that they would have to do an ecology project this semester
Adriana tries to talk the rest of the girls into doing the project on her hair.
This discussion reminds them that they have to get their papers to Mr.
Parker during lunch, so Alexandra quickly packs up and is off to turn her
ecology paper in before she goes to her sixth-period art class.
Period 6 begins with midday announcements. Since the art class is next to
the cafeteria, the voice of the secretary making the announcements has to
compete with the noise from second lunch as she tells the wrestling team
that their match has been canceled. Everyone in the art room is asking
everyone else what has just been said. No one much cares when they hear
the words "wrestling," since only six students in the whole school are on the
wrestling team, but a full four minutes of period 6 has been taken up with
news of the wrestling team. Alexandra"s art project, a series of self-portraits,
is just completed; all that is left is to do the final shading and then she can
hang them in the student gallery. Since all students in the state must take
an art elective, the class is overcrowded with students and art projects.
Today a number of students are absent, but there are still twenty-six. Masks
are hung from the ceiling; collages are stacked up all over; the ceiling tiles
are being painted by one student as a project. Glue, paste, scissors, wire
cutters, wood scrapes, flat files, and piles of papier-mâché figures lie around.
Some students are working hard; others sit clustered around work tables
talking softly and avoiding the work at hand. Alexandra is a bit put off by the
classroom—annoyed by the noise in the room, the lack of respect of some of
the students for art, and the general chaos. The teacher is a favorite of many
students and since many students are on their lunch break, they wander in
and out of the art classroom at will. Alexandra is certain that she could have
finished the project long ago if it hadn"t been for the interruptions and disorder
in the classroom. She asks students at the next table to turn down their
Walkman. Even though they are listening through headphones, the music is
so loud that Alexandra can hear the driving beat of music she hates. They tell
her to "chill out," and she turns her back to them, trying to get some peace.
As the class settles down, Alexandra and the other students begin some
serious work and for eight minutes the art class is a delightful art studio with
students working hard. The loudspeaker interrupts the hard-won
concentration with a reminder about the student government questionnaires
on the upcoming dance. The teacher"s attention, which had been focused
fully on one student"s project, is drawn to the loudspeaker.
"Did anyone hear what they said?"
"Yea," yells a student, "something about questions about a dance."
"Who cares?" yells another.
Alexandra knows what was said, but prefers to focus down even harder on
her art piece instead of answering the questions.
A questionnaire shows up on Alexandra"s table, so she knows that the
teacher has figured out what he was asked to do. The rest of the period is
lost to students talking about the questionnaire and the dance and the last
dance and the car accident that happened after the last dance and the music
that sucked at the last dance and the new school policy about not being able
to leave dances once you enter. And on and on until the passing bell rings.
Period 7, Alexandra"s PE class, is designed to be the warm-up period for the
girl"s soccer team. The class time flows naturally into the after-school team
practice. Today during the class period they watch a video of the last game
and talk about the upcoming game with an archrival. For some reason there
are no loudspeakers in the gym or team rooms, so the class period is not
interrupted by the end-of-the- school-day announcements. The practice
officially begins as the final bell of the school day rings. For two and a half
hours the girls focus intensely on their practice. No bells ring, there are no
attendance takers interrupting the coach, the loudspeaker never draws the
attention of the students and coaches away from the task at hand. There are
nineteen girls on the team and three coaches. The coaches break the girls
into practice teams, work one on one with each girl on her individual
strengths and weaknesses, and have small groups practice particular skills;
today the groups are working on passing.
When Alexandra makes it home for the evening, it is 6:15. She has been on
the go since her early-morning swim practice, giving her a solid thirteen-hour
day. As she enters her room, she drops her thirty-two-pound back...
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherBeacon Pr
- Publication date2003
- ISBN 10 080703150X
- ISBN 13 9780807031506
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages176
- Rating
Buy New
Learn more about this copy
US$ 65.89
Shipping:
US$ 4.00
Within U.S.A.
Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace
Stock Image
Schools That Do Too Much: Wasting Time and Money in Schools and What We Can All Do About It
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_080703150X
Buy New
US$ 65.89
Convert currency
Stock Image
Schools That Do Too Much: Wasting Time and Money in Schools and What We Can All Do About It
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Seller Inventory # think080703150X
Buy New
US$ 94.70
Convert currency
Stock Image
Schools That Do Too Much: Wasting Time and Money in Schools and What We Can All Do About It
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Seller Inventory # Wizard080703150X
Buy New
US$ 95.50
Convert currency
Stock Image
SCHOOLS THAT DO TOO MUCH: WASTIN
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: New. New. In shrink wrap. Looks like an interesting title! 0.7. Seller Inventory # Q-080703150X
Buy New
US$ 95.28
Convert currency