Life Bits!

025

If we want to make kids more motivated to go to school and get their  school work done quicker, why don't we turn school into a race?

I don't have the full logistics, but I think it would work something like this:

You have a certain set of classes, each taking up a timeblock of one hour (so say your classes start at 8 and end at 3, you would have 6 subjects a day, including a 1 hour timeblock for lunch/study).

You go to your first class, and listen to an information-rich lecture preferably 20 minutes long or less. And then you are given assignments in class that really get to the "meaty" information (so many schools these days just assign you "fluffy" work that doesn't do anything for you except make you look like your being productive). This assignment should take 20 minutes on average. Once you are done with the lecture and assignment, you can leave the classroom, and go to your next class. There you repeat the process for a different subject (20 minutes lecture, 20 minute assignment, etc) then move on, and you would do that again and again until you are done with your last subject.

My hope would be that this would ensure an active participation in learning, because in order for the kids to get what they want (more free time) they have to really listen to what's being taught and get their assignments done in order to move on. Rather than it being "Oh well I'm going to be here for an hour no matter what I do, so I guess I can lack off" they have to work at it in order to see a result.

Now, I'm definitely not saying that all kids are slacking off these days (I am a student myself that loves learning and working hard at my schoolwork). I just see so many other students these days that have little or no motivation to learn, or because of our school system that they can non-chalantly shirk their responsibilities. It makes me really sad, so I was thinking up with a hypothetical system to solve this problem, and came up with this solution.

"But Author-chan, you said that each class was on a 1-hour timeblock, but a 20 minute lecture + a 20 minute assignment = 40 minutes of class time, what about the other 20 minutes?"

Good question! This is where the motivation comes in. If the kids follow the schedule and only take 40 minutes of each 1 hour timeblock per subject, this means that they would get out of class 2 hours early. So, by definition, the more efficiently they work, the sooner they get out of school. Also, I know that every kid is different, so while so kids work super fast (honestly I think they are flash's kids I swear to blue cheese), there are also kids who are very slow, and take their time (like me!). So that extra 20 minutes serves as a buffer for the slower kids.

"Author-chan, what if the kids take more than an hour?"

No matter what, the bell would ring at the one hour mark and the kids would have to move on. If the kids happened to not complete the class for that day, the teacher would hand out instructions pre-made before hand that they would complete at home, and turn in the next day.

"Wait wait wait... Author-chan, like you said, all kids are different, so if they're all leaving the classroom at different times and going to their next class in frenzied non-sensical waves, won't the teacher have to start over the lecture again, and again
And again
And....again?"

"Yet another good question! For this roadblock I make a proposal: the lectures are on a computer that the kids watch. That way if they miss something, all they have to do is rewind, and just makes everything smoother and easier."

"But what about the teachers? And what if the kids have questions or something the don't understand from the video? If the lectures are on the computer, doesn't that make teachers useless?

"Another great question, to which I may have a plausible answer. The teachers would be procters in the class to make sure the kids don't goof off or cheat, but they also are the ones that make the lecture beforehand, that way they keep their jobs, and they are familiar with the material so they can help answer any questions of confused students.

"Author-chan, I know everyone is gonna hate me for asking this, but what about...homework?"

"Ah yes, I might have an idea for this one. I was thinking that maybe the kids have some sort of project for each subject that they can choose  from a list of things. That project has to be turned in by the last school day of the week. This way the weekend  doesn't have to be filled with excess homework, because their homework was due before the weekend. And another idea would be to somehow relate the project to their hobbies to make it more enjoyable, but they still learn something (some examples would be a musician making a sort tune for Newton's Laws for Physics, or maybe an artist drawing a little cartoon about a red blood cells travels' through the cardiovascular system for  Anatomy and Physiology). I think that relating the homework with something they enjoy would make the subject all the more enjoyable. But this is just a suggestion, it might vary by school.

"Dear Author-chan,

What about those kids that might skip through the lecture and do the homework really fast and rushed to cheat the system and get out of class super early?

Love,

Question Asker the Author Made Up"

I was thinking about this a bit too. Since the lecture is on the computer, the teacher could monitor the students progress as they are completing the class. I was thinking that a computer program creates a sort of outline of what the student did for the day by piecing together how long they were on the computer in each class and such. Maybe the assignments are completed on the computer too, that way the teacher could see how long they took on the assignment. And any suspicious activity the teacher sees could be discussed with the student, principal, or parents as need be.

So that's basically my idea! Props to my sister LadyElsaBug for proof-reading this and telling me, and I quote,

"Yeah, like you should take this to some school president person thingy and get them to do this."

If you have any additional questions let me know in the comments. Bai!