Are Long School Days the Answer to Educational Concerns?

There has been recent talk of longer school days, but one mom doesn't believe it's the right option for children.

Lately there has been a lot of talk about increasing the length of time that students spend in the classroom each day. Recently, it was announced that a pilot program will be introduced in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Tennessee and Colorado that will allow some cities and towns to lengthen the school day. The goal is to determine if the move to a longer school day will help students to achieve more academically. Here in Massachusetts two towns, Lawrence and Fall River, are expected to participate in the program which will add approximately 300 hours of learning time to the school year. The pilot program is expected to continue for approximately three years. Now, let’s face it. As moms we do joke around a lot about dying for …

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Bob

1:03 pm on Wednesday, January 9, 2013

I agree Dave! We also need to look at the delivery system (ie teachers). We need to get the unions out of the education business. My kids have had great teachers in Tewksbury and they have had very bad teachers too. The bad ones never seem to get rooted out and some of the good ones have left. We need to get back to teaching American Exceptionalism in our schools and challenge our kids to be …   more ›

From The Heart of a Mom

Why Is Failure Not An Option?

If you want to succeed, you need to be willing to fail.

While catching up on-line recently, I noticed a lot of posts about football season starting. The pictures of friends with their little Pop Warner stars, and Soccer stars, got me thinking about school and sports, and brought back some good and not so good memories. I was never a jock growing up.  I participated in sports, but had other areas of interest that took my focus.  For example, I really enjoyed playing soccer.  But because I was not a typical jock, and therefore did not fit in, I allowed another girl on the varsity team to intimidate me into quitting. When that happened, I felt like a failure because I let the opinion of a bully spoil something I enjoyed. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it was a learning experience for me, one…

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