K-12 is based on a fill up the bucket model. You start with 13 years and then fill it up with topics or subjects. If you have an empty space you can fill it up with a home room or study hall. The same holds true for a 4 year degree in college or even a two-day training program in business. The calendar is the boundary and filling it up is the goal.
What would happen if you flipped things around and said, “we have a goal and we are going to try and reach it as fast as we can?” For example, we are going to teach you how to read at 500 words per minute with 90% comprehension as quickly as possible…And when you’re there, you’re done. We aren’t going to fill up your time with busy work or confuse you by loading another dozen subjects at the same time.
If by this approach, you are able to complete k-12 in 12 years or less, the entire system can literally save billions of dollars.
In business training, you find that after a certain number of days that you reach a saturation point where there’s no more room in anyone’s head. Staying focuses and accomplishing the goal will end up taking less them without wasting time.
So my slogan for improving public education, is..stop filling the bucket and focus on the goal.
Photo Uploaded on August 13, 2009
by DABlanco69
I love it. I have actually thought of this more for G/T students than for the entire population, but I agree that we need to change schools into goal-oriented rather than time-oriented institutions. I just hope that people in the comments section, or you in a future post, can lay out more of what this would actually look like in the classroom. For example:
Say we give every child a computer. Then we need a math website that we trust to take students through every topic they need to know at a particular grade level. As soon as they conquer the website’s levels, they move on up. Is that what we’re headed toward?
People are so use to the current system that it’s not likely to change any time soon. To me it seems that you take as much time as you need to get to the goal instead of letting a preset amount of time be the driver.
There may have been many reasons initially for K-12 but no the only reason is that it’s always been that way. It’s not enough time for some and way to much for others.
I’m very impressed to Mr. Steve Rosenbaum