A few years ago, the government of the Generalitat de Catalunya, in an attempt to reduce environmental pollution and road accidents, decided to set the maximum speed on access roads to the city of Barcelona at 80 km/hour, highways included. The move generated controversy, with many arguments for and against being heard; more against than for. There were some very reasonable ones, but the one that surprised me the most was the group of assistance towing companies, who said that they would lose business because there were fewer accidents and fewer cars to pick up.
By this same rule of three, we would have to oppose everything that means an advance or an improvement in our lives or in society if it harms any business sector; funeral homes would have to be against cancer research, firefighters would have to be against arsonists being jailed, or antidepressant manufacturers would have to be against the spa business.
Regarding the main topic of this article, the school day, I have also heard very “promising” arguments, such as saying that jobs will be lost in companies that provide school canteen services if the centers have a continuous day, or saying that people who If you work in the afternoons, you will have to hire babysitters or after-school services to take care of your children. Other types of more or less solid arguments have also been heard, both against and for, but has anyone stopped to think about what is best for students and for their academic performance?
Before discussing the school day and whether it is better to continue or start, we have to reflect on what role our society gives to the School and its educational system. For many years I have thought that in the Spanish State the School is seen and conceived as a nursery, a place where we can leave our children and adolescents while we are at work (who is lucky enough to have it) or do other things that with the children at home we could not do. It is only necessary to look at the concern in society when from the group of teachers and professors we call a strike; those who are seen as those harmed by the strike are not the students who will be left without the dose of knowledge and learning that day,
I have always been of the opinion that Education has to be at the base of our priorities as a society. We must have the best people and the best-trained working to educate and train the new generations. The educational system must be organized in the most optimal way to obtain the best performance and the best possible results, using the economic, human, and material resources that are necessary, enhancing its efficiency but without skimping on a penny. From here we can organize the rest of society: working hours, public transport hours, public resources allocated to other sectors, etc… I think that the day we understand that Education is the pillar of any society and that if this Education is of extreme excellence, society will be its reflection,
In order to be able to give an opinion on which day is the most appropriate, three types of factors should be taken into consideration: hygienic-biological, psycho-pedagogical and socio-cultural. It is the joint consideration of the three factors that will determine which is the best type of day.
The hygienic-biological variables are related to the fatigue curve and depend, above all, on the ages of the students and their work capacities, on the physical, environmental and sanitary conditions of the school and its facilities. The psycho-pedagogical variables have to do with the way the center organizes the different subjects and curricular contents, the way of grouping the students, the teaching methodology, etc… And finally, the sociocultural variables are those that depend on the habits, customs, and circumstances of each local community or of the center itself, such as local festivals, the climatic conditions of the area, or the majority economic activity among the families of the students.
Unfortunately, when discussing the type of school day, sociocultural factors prevail over the other two. The debate has been open for many years and no one has yet been able to state definitively and exhaustively which of the two options is the best. The decisions that are made depend, above all, on the social and economic circumstances of each territory.
My opinion has always been closer to a continuous school day. The fact that I was a student until relatively recently compared to most of my coworkers, combined with my experience as a teacher, has given me a series of arguments in favor of the continuous shift. Among other things, after eating, the concentration drops; the midday time slot is too long for a break between school hours. In addition, the student has the feeling of having been in the center all day, and this negatively influences when studying or doing homework. I think that with the afternoons off, our students, at least those in Secondary, could take more advantage of the hours of study and work at home, and combine it better with extracurricular activities.
It may be thought that a continuous school day of six hours is too long for the students, but with two breaks of half an hour (2 hours of class – 30 minutes of break – 2 hours of class – 30 minutes of break – 2 hours of class ) the morning can be made quite bearable. In addition, we can distribute the subjects in a more optimal way, putting those that require more attention at times when concentration is maximum, and those that do not require as much, such as physical education, at the last hours.
I know that in many educational centers in our country there is a lot of inflexibility when it comes to making timetables and that it is a complicated task. But all it takes is a change of mentality. It is not necessary to make the same schedule throughout the course, nor to distribute the subjects in rigid blocks of one hour, because this conditions the teaching task to time, and we would have to consider time as a tool and a resource in our service, and not at the reverse.
As an example, we could consider the possibility of establishing the school day according to the time of year. Beginning around the end of April, teaching classes in the afternoon in a classroom with twenty-five adolescents who are hormonal up to the eyebrows, added to the fact that the heat at this time of year begins to tighten, makes the development of a Secondary class quite difficult. Taking this circumstance into account, perhaps it would not be a bad idea to consider doing, for example, a continuous day from September to the beginning of November, and from Easter to June, doing a split day for the rest of the course.
I suppose that this flexibility in the proposal would not be well seen by a large part of society, since it would make parents organize differently throughout the course. In addition, many immobile sectors of Education would see a ” mess ” having to redo the schedules of teachers and students twice each year. And many teachers would see these measures as an attack on their labor rights.
But as I said before, the debate is still open and no one has been able to determine what type of day is the most appropriate. To begin with, in my argument in favor of the continuous shift, the assessment of the sociocultural variable has been lacking, without taking into account the type of families or the climatic conditions of the area, among other things. What I have taken into account have been the ages of the students and their work abilities, and I have thought, according to my experience, about the performance of the students and their possible academic results.
