Who's winning the "hearts and minds" of American youth?
This is from Chester Finn, Jr., former Asst. Sect'y at the Dept of Education:
Quote:
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The typical young American, upon turning 18, will have spent just 9% of his or her hours on this planet under the school roof (and that assumes full-day kindergarten and perfect attendance) versus 91% spent elsewhere. As for the rest of that time, the Kaiser Family Foundation recently reported that American youngsters now devote an astounding 7.5 hours per day to "using entertainment media" (including TV, Internet, cellphones and videogames). That translates to about 53 hours a week—versus 30 hours in school.
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We become what we behold.
Mr. Finn's entire essay is
here. He makes an interesting case for "high performance" schools even as some of our nation's schools go to a 4-day week. One of his arguments is that countries with longer school hours and greater expectations have less discipline problems.
-Susan
Edited to say that I'm not advocating that teachers and our education system take over the duties of parents. (Which seems to be the case these days.) I'm only pointing out that a busy child is (usually) a well-behaved one.