by Shelly Campbell-Harley

Created on: July 29, 2009   Last Updated: July 30, 2009

The school year should be lengthened, but not so much in the respect of added days as in taking away the extra time that is being used for unnecessary pull-outs (assemblies, days off for parent conferences, etc.). As a teacher for the past 20 years, I have been more than annoyed at the constant interruptions to the flow of the teaching day. If we could eliminate a lot of this 'wasted time', we could increase the school year and get back to what we're here for: teaching!

Some people are against lengthening the school year for a variety of reasons. I just want to say that we need to get back to the point of being allowed to teach our kids. Lengthening the school year will help us do that, but we also need to revamp our way of thinking. Some of the excuses for not lengthening the year included: alienation of the students (from who?!), pressure on the teachers, and poorer exam results. I want to add that though I don't agree with those excuses, I would agree that more time away from family, friends, and free/imaginative play is not good and not the answer. This is why I believe we should reevaluate the days we have and use them more wisely.

We became teachers (well, at least most of us) because we wanted to make a difference in the lives of kids. We wanted to give them that edge in life, that feel of success so they would continue to strive for it. It is a tough job, especially when they come to us at the age of 6 already feeling like failures and without hope of anything but a life of violence ahead of them. I've been in the rough schools and I've been in the cushy schools and I'll take the rough schools over the cushy any day of the week. It's there that my teaching makes a positive difference. It's there that lengthening the school day/year makes a positive difference. Some of these kids would rather spend 24 hours at school than back out in their world. At school they have a safer place to be, people that are there for them, food to eat, and a place to sleep. They can get help for injuries, people to care about them and talk with them, encouragement, protection, love, respect.

Teachers have pressure put on them everyday from parents, administration, government, and from themselves. That's right - we put pressure on ourselves all the time to be the best we can be, to try harder, to make that one connection with that one child that will make a difference. Will it make more work for us? No. We already over plan and can't teach what we need to teach. Lengthening the year will hopefully give us the little extra time we need to reach our kids. Maybe then we can improve test scores.

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