All-day school schedules

Jose Wells3 said:Look, I’m asking you one more time: where exactly did you find this data claiming we're at the bottom of Europe? Because when looking at Euridyc, from education standards to workload norms, we’re basically identical to Finland. Teachers in Finland probably spend the least amount of time in the classroom daily. Sure, they have 190 working days while we have 175—I can't be certain if all their days include professional development, but my eyes are crossing just trying to research this.

Their number of holidays is almost the same as ours; they enjoy very long summer breaks too.

We have the exact same percentage of highly educated professionals in our teaching force.

Our numbers regarding minimum and maximum workloads are practically identical (17/14), and they spend up to 21 hours in school—though total working hours (including prep time...) aren't explicitly listed for them. Then again, I saw some figure of 35.5 from another study. Also, our max load isn't 20 hours; for some subjects, it's 24 (likely outdated data). My load goes up to 22, with a minimum of 18. I personally work 19 subject hours, plus 4 hours for DOD, advisory roles, and ExxonMobil tasks.

Have you even looked at salary scales? Because if we're talking about pay, then yes, we are absolutely at the bottom.

And honestly, I don't know if you realize the nature of the document you're reading. The data is incomplete, missing, or simply unrecorded. Our teachers are buried under administrative mountains, whereas the Finnish Teacher Administration seemingly deals with the absolute bare minimum of paperwork.

Just look at their academic calendar, please.

Go ahead, give us another 15 days. I’m more than willing to work them. Just stop claiming we work the least in Europe. It's simply not true.

I’m convinced that teachers in the US spend their time drafting reports for specialists using data pulled straight from the New York Times, just so those same specialists can reinvent the wheel by making new spreadsheets. Then, they pass all that work along to City Hall—where, frankly, nobody knows what they're doing. Despite all this supposed "digitalization," they still haven't figured out how to access a single piece of data on their own. So, you end up sitting at home after your actual workday is over, clicking through endless spreadsheets.
So then you go through the motions: clicking through all the consent forms, dietary requirements, waivers, permissions, cultural activities, health data, field trip authorizations, reports, excursions, the DOD program, the general curriculum, designing the ExxonMobil initiatives, keeping physical paper trails, and archiving everything on paper like it's still the 21st century.
You’re just calling out John, Mark, and the American Statistical Association for their total lack of action, but I guess that’s just how you operate. You feel compelled to write these long-winded manifestos every single time an incident occurs, mostly because if some high-and-mighty inspector shows up, you need to make sure your paperwork is flawless. It's always about the bureaucracy with you—as if we can easily just overlook the victims and the perpetrators once the files are in order.
I’m fairly certain that back during COVID-19, teachers here in the US were also forced to track every single positive test result. We’d be stuck messaging entire classes about isolation at 10 PM on our own personal phones. Once the local doctors stopped being able to manage the chaos, we were suddenly expected to log seating charts, calculate exact social distancing measurements, and track recovery timelines. It was all done on our own time, at our own expense, and it was an absolute mental drain. And let’s not forget those ridiculous suggestions from City Hall—like telling kids to wash their hands with ash if they ran out of soap and water. Or have we already forgotten about Bandit's company, Lawrence, and that "transportation expert" who somehow ended up running the whole education department? It was just one absurdity after another.
I’m certain that even in the US, if you hold onto "too strict" grading standards for your subject, you'll end up with parents threatening you or being pressured to loosen up. Then, paradoxically, everyone acts shocked when they see straight-A students who don't actually know anything. It just keeps going around in circles.
Oh, sure, here we go again with another reform. It’s predictably headed in a direction that completely ignores the reality on the ground and does absolutely nothing for the actual needs of our schools or society. I suppose this is just how it works—so those political appointees don't feel like they're just sitting around in their comfy offices for no reason. Maybe, just maybe, they could actually manage to ensure there's toilet paper in the kids' restrooms? My daughter tells me her school is out most of the time, and she’s being polite about it compared to the school where I work, which is basically bursting at the seams.

jadetinker85 said:What does it matter that we aren't Finland? Weren't you using the USA and the United Kingdom as benchmarks? We aren't either of those, either.
In Finland, given how much they invest in education, there's no question that both the curriculum and the teaching methods are tailored to age-appropriate developmental competencies. We could look to Estonia as an example; despite being a smaller post-communist nation, they successfully implemented the Finnish model.
But we aren't Estonia. 🙄

Look, in an open dialogue, you can bring up any country you want. I mentioned the US as a response to The Hague. You can't just jump from one thing to another and then try to lecture students on what they are or aren't allowed to mention, right?

Paul Davis2 said:Look, in an open dialogue, you can bring up any country you want. I mentioned the US as a response to The Hague. You can't just jump from one thing to another and then try to lecture students on what they are or aren't allowed to mention, right?

It seems like whenever a country supports your point of view, mentioning the USA or the United Kingdom is fine (not sure why those two specifically), but if it doesn't fit your narrative, suddenly the argument is that we aren't Finland. Neither the USA nor the United Kingdom look like models we should be following—especially not the USA.
No, I encourage constructive debate, provided it stays within the bounds of decent communication. If it doesn't, then yes, you have to step in and set boundaries.

jadetinker85 said:It seems like whenever a country supports your point of view, mentioning the USA or the United Kingdom is fine (not sure why those two specifically), but if it doesn't fit your narrative, suddenly the argument is that we aren't Finland. Neither the USA nor the United Kingdom look like models we should be following—especially not the USA.
No, I encourage constructive debate, provided it stays within the bounds of decent communication. If it doesn't, then yes, you have to step in and set boundaries.

Exactly. Culturally speaking, Estonia shares much more in common with Finland than it does with us. We can try to emulate anyone we want, but school doesn't exist in a vacuum—it's a reflection of society. Whether teachers here in America have it the worst, whether they're overworked, whether the Department of Education ignores them, or if parents are just being irrational while everything is permitted... honestly, I haven't the slightest clue.

Paul Davis2 said:Exactly. Culturally speaking, Estonia shares much more in common with Finland than it does with us. We can try to emulate anyone we want, but school doesn't exist in a vacuum—it's a reflection of society. Whether teachers here in America have it the worst, whether they're overworked, whether the Department of Education ignores them, or if parents are just being irrational while everything is permitted... honestly, I haven't the slightest clue.

Everyone keeps bringing up cultural differences between Finland, now Estonia—which also lived under communism—and us.
What kind of massive cultural gap would actually make implementing a system like Finland's impossible?
Are first graders in Finland fundamentally different from ours in terms of competence or maturity?
At the end of the day, the goal should be healthy, happy kids and equally healthy, happy teachers—not just in America, but in any functional country.
Presumably, it matters that the people working with students are satisfied and motivated?

Jose Wells3 said:Yeah, I have that document—and the one they cite as the source, which is in English—plus I’ve read the annex too.

So, looking at the stats: a range of 14 to 17 hours, with about 21 teachers reporting availability at school. They list class periods as being either 45 or 60 minutes. We also see about 90 percent of teachers holding a Master's degree (High School Diploma level equivalence). The school year kicks off August 11th and wraps up June 3rd! I was browsing some of their brochures, and apparently, since many parents struggle to find childcare, they organize these organized camps. Their breaks run from December 22nd to January 8th, plus breaks in February and November. No other holidays are listed. Does that sound familiar?
Fair enough, our percentage of teachers with a High School Diploma isn't in that top 10 percent. I'll give you that.

We have the same percentage of people with pedagogical competencies, and there are a few alternative ways to get qualified there.

We have a minimum of 175 working days. This year we actually have more, and it seems like it's trending upward every year.

Why am I obsessed with Finland? Because they’re a homogeneous nation just like us—small population, similar struggles.

From what I follow, some of their newer ambitions are questionable, and they have some pretty heated debates about them. Honestly, they seem almost indifferent toward PISA testing; they argue there are better metrics and that they simply want what’s best for their students within their own context.

Estonia is a bit more direct, but their kids aren't stuck in school from dawn till dusk.

Personally? If I could just teach 25 hours of actual instruction without any homeroom duties, I’d be the happiest person alive. For me, the prep work is actually the fun part—I love designing lessons, grading essays, and playing around with new ideas. What kills me is the homeroom responsibility. The mountain of paperwork, the mediation, the endless emails, the constant contact with parents... sunny or not, just take the homeroom away from me.

And please, stop keeping kids in the classroom until 3:00 PM.

By the way, we aren't far off on that front either; my sixth graders only have 29 hours of regular instruction (not counting tutoring or after-school stuff). Classes end at 1:05 PM, with 15-minute breaks and 5-minute passing periods. In most other countries, breaks range from thirty minutes to an hour and a half—some are even longer, and in some places, they last 40 minutes.

I noticed below that it's actually 25 hours plus a second foreign language and social studies, but let's just say 29 since that's usually the bulk of it.

So, if a child has electives in their regular schedule, a sixth grader is looking at 6 hours of class every day, and 5 hours one day a week.
(That should apply to everyone now, since the second language will be mandatory and instead of social studies, it’ll be something like philosophy).
Ultimately, this really hurts the kids who don't want to take a second foreign language in school (even if the schedule can be adjusted so they aren't in the late shift or stuck with gaps in their day; maybe it's a language they simply don't like or don't feel ready to tackle yet—most haven't even mastered their first language properly).
As for the impact on students who don't choose religious education, there's an entire discussion about that... those lucky enough to have had it before or after regular classes (there are some) will now have to come to school earlier or stay later regardless.
From what I see with my own kid, and even more so with many children I work with, there is simply no physical way to get through all those projects, posters, and endless assignments during free time when there's a deadline. Especially when you factor in a 40-minute lunch break and the need for extra help for some students while simultaneously trying to foster gifted students in the same spaces with the same teachers—that's what the program calls "enriched and supported learning." Making posters isn't truly working with gifted students; you need much more than that... besides, everyone does projects and posters in school.
And yeah, sometimes you actually have to study for a test.
Anyone who hasn't had to do it so far certainly will be studying on the weekends from now on.
So, bravo to them for completely wrecking family life.

Basically, these bombastic headlines claiming kids will finish their homework at school don't hold up against my sixth graders' reality (especially if the curriculum and expected outcomes don't change).
And this "regular instruction" is being increased by one hour of math, one hour of English, and one hour of tech—that's three extra hours right there!

Free or partially free extracurricular activities should ideally take place after 3:00 or 3:30 PM.
But that's assuming the kids aren't already exhausted and worn out from sitting in a chair for so long, especially since the sixth-grade program only accounts for two hours of PE (and that's not even counting the recommendation that activities should be movement-based, which is a huge understatement).
Even though there's a "recommendation" that enrichment activities should mostly be physical (which isn't bad, unless you're talking about students who aren't interested in that or would rather be playing an instrument)....
And honestly, nobody knows what will happen to music programs and other specialized schools.
Will kids even have the energy to go to those after school? (Think about what isn't mentioned: a ballet school schedule might require 10–12 hours a week depending on the grade, or music schools might require 4 to 6 hours a week, plus daily instrument practice). In my opinion, if this goes through, those schools will either have to lock their doors or will become exclusive to the few who can afford it (because somehow, they'll have to keep staff employed at these schools, whose own family lives will be "happy" only if they work strictly from 3:30 PM to 8:00 PM, or more often from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM).

I honestly don't know how our policymakers (specifically the one who drafted the basis of this document back in 2020) concluded that our kids aren't spending enough time in school and that we need to increase the hourly requirements. Everything seems focused solely on adding more hours to the kids' days, and nothing else. Okay, her...jadetinker85 says "other kids are learning how to code, while ours will be learning how to knit")

And thanks for mentioning the sixth-grade curriculum. I feel like the people pushing this whole project/experiment mostly focus on the remote learning aspect—which can apply to plenty of things in schools that use digital platforms—but they aren't really talking about the actual subject matter itself. If we’re going to shake things up, the main thing should be modifying the scope of what's actually taught in the classroom.

I was curious about this,

How Much Does a Teacher make in the US?

A Teacher working in the US will typically earn around $60,000 per year,
though you’ll see a pretty wide spread—anywhere from a baseline of roughly $23,000 up to a high of $71,000.

USD Average Monthly Salary
$4,000 USD

comparing costs in Washington, D.C. vs Helsinki
Paper

jadetinker85 said:Everyone keeps bringing up cultural differences between Finland, now Estonia—which also lived under communism—and us.
What kind of massive cultural gap would actually make implementing a system like Finland's impossible?
Are first graders in Finland fundamentally different from ours in terms of competence or maturity?
At the end of the day, the goal should be healthy, happy kids and equally healthy, happy teachers—not just in America, but in any functional country.
Presumably, it matters that the people working with students are satisfied and motivated?

Forget this whole Finland obsession. We need to stop looking at Scandinavia as some blueprint and trying to force their model onto our way of life.
They have incredibly high rates of suicide and depression.
Are we planning on importing those statistics too?

Susan James said:Forget this whole Finland obsession. We need to stop looking at Scandinavia as some blueprint and trying to force their model onto our way of life.
They have incredibly high rates of suicide and depression.
Are we planning on importing those statistics too?

You're looking at outdated stats.

https://www.nytimes.com/news/help-resources...

https://www.cnn.com/news/health/elderly-care-trends...

We’re on the right track to taking this over.

Seriously, how is it even possible that Scandinavians have the best school systems out there, yet once they grow up, they just want to end it all?

In Scandinavia, there’s this deep-seated cultural drive to actually follow the rules rather than constantly looking for loopholes or trying to outsmart the system.
Even the former Secretary of Education isn't out here claiming that cheating is just some baked-in part of our national tradition.
That fundamental difference alone tells me why the Finnish model would never fly in America—we just don't have the built-in safeguards to stop people from gaming the system and cutting corners.

nimblelynx7 said:We’re on the right track to taking this over.

Seriously, how is it even possible that Scandinavians have the best school systems out there, yet once they grow up, they just want to end it all?

I suspect it’s a climate thing for them. No matter how much effort they put into making their countries livable, the weather there is still pretty brutal. You can't really use the weather as an excuse for what we deal with here.

I just hope this extra hour of American language arts doesn't give some genius the bright idea to "enrich" the curriculum with more useless filler. Kids really need to master the basics: reading, writing, listening, and speaking.

I don't know why people act so shocked that today’s teenagers are actually more fluent in English than their own native tongue. You see high schoolers struggling to string a sentence together, relying on awkward, literal translations from English slang that just don't work in formal speech.

They struggle to get through even a decent-length article because they honestly don't grasp the vocabulary.

What does "scathing" mean?
What about "nullify"?
How about "paradigm"?
Or "trajectory"?

With this new afternoon block being added to the school day, one activity absolutely has to be reading. I’m talking about setting up a cozy little nook with beanbags and armchairs, stocked with everything from Lionel Messi biographies to chick lit.

Honestly, I’d implement a reading corner like that in EVERY single school, and keep it open all day long. If a student is having a hard time focusing during a lecture, they could—with permission—head over to the reading room where the Wi-Fi is totally blocked. Then they can just sit there and read. Or, you know, stare at the ceiling.

Susan James said:Forget this whole Finland obsession. We need to stop looking at Scandinavia as some blueprint and trying to force their model onto our way of life.
They have incredibly high rates of suicide and depression.
Are we planning on importing those statistics too?

If we’re talking about the long-term outlook, I suppose we might actually be heading in the right direction.

hiddendriver34 said:I just hope this extra hour of American language arts doesn't give some genius the bright idea to "enrich" the curriculum with more useless filler. Kids really need to master the basics: reading, writing, listening, and speaking.

I don't know why people act so shocked that today’s teenagers are actually more fluent in English than their own native tongue. You see high schoolers struggling to string a sentence together, relying on awkward, literal translations from English slang that just don't work in formal speech.

They struggle to get through even a decent-length article because they honestly don't grasp the vocabulary.

What does "scathing" mean?
What about "nullify"?
How about "paradigm"?
Or "trajectory"?

With this new afternoon block being added to the school day, one activity absolutely has to be reading. I’m talking about setting up a cozy little nook with beanbags and armchairs, stocked with everything from Lionel Messi biographies to chick lit.

Honestly, I’d implement a reading corner like that in EVERY single school, and keep it open all day long. If a student is having a hard time focusing during a lecture, they could—with permission—head over to the reading room where the Wi-Fi is totally blocked. Then they can just sit there and read. Or, you know, stare at the ceiling.

I feel like kids here don't read enough, don't write enough essays, and barely express themselves anymore...
And yeah, they speak English instead of American, even though those phrases, while sometimes funny, are actually pretty terrible. When MM was working from home, he used to quote our local kids with his colleagues, and even the kids would refer to it as "that weird language."
It’s fun for the first few times, but the longer you listen, the more you wonder if he’s working with aliens and how much it's changing our language.
I think change is okay (there's something kind of beautiful about evolution), but at the same time, kids today don't know basic terms.
So, instead of enriching their own language, we're forcing a second language on them.

By the way, when are kids supposed to get through their required reading in a full-day school schedule?
With the way grades are structured, they might only manage to finish a book on a Saturday morning.

Susan James said:I noticed below that it's actually 25 hours plus a second foreign language and social studies, but let's just say 29 since that's usually the bulk of it.

So, if a child has electives in their regular schedule, a sixth grader is looking at 6 hours of class every day, and 5 hours one day a week.
(That should apply to everyone now, since the second language will be mandatory and instead of social studies, it’ll be something like philosophy).
Ultimately, this really hurts the kids who don't want to take a second foreign language in school (even if the schedule can be adjusted so they aren't in the late shift or stuck with gaps in their day; maybe it's a language they simply don't like or don't feel ready to tackle yet—most haven't even mastered their first language properly).
As for the impact on students who don't choose religious education, there's an entire discussion about that... those lucky enough to have had it before or after regular classes (there are some) will now have to come to school earlier or stay later regardless.
From what I see with my own kid, and even more so with many children I work with, there is simply no physical way to get through all those projects, posters, and endless assignments during free time when there's a deadline. Especially when you factor in a 40-minute lunch break and the need for extra help for some students while simultaneously trying to foster gifted students in the same spaces with the same teachers—that's what the program calls "enriched and supported learning." Making posters isn't truly working with gifted students; you need much more than that... besides, everyone does projects and posters in school.
And yeah, sometimes you actually have to study for a test.
Anyone who hasn't had to do it so far certainly will be studying on the weekends from now on.
So, bravo to them for completely wrecking family life.

Basically, these bombastic headlines claiming kids will finish their homework at school don't hold up against my sixth graders' reality (especially if the curriculum and expected outcomes don't change).
And this "regular instruction" is being increased by one hour of math, one hour of English, and one hour of tech—that's three extra hours right there!

Free or partially free extracurricular activities should ideally take place after 3:00 or 3:30 PM.
But that's assuming the kids aren't already exhausted and worn out from sitting in a chair for so long, especially since the sixth-grade program only accounts for two hours of PE (and that's not even counting the recommendation that activities should be movement-based, which is a huge understatement).
Even though there's a "recommendation" that enrichment activities should mostly be physical (which isn't bad, unless you're talking about students who aren't interested in that or would rather be playing an instrument)....
And honestly, nobody knows what will happen to music programs and other specialized schools.
Will kids even have the energy to go to those after school? (Think about what isn't mentioned: a ballet school schedule might require 10–12 hours a week depending on the grade, or music schools might require 4 to 6 hours a week, plus daily instrument practice). In my opinion, if this goes through, those schools will either have to lock their doors or will become exclusive to the few who can afford it (because somehow, they'll have to keep staff employed at these schools, whose own family lives will be "happy" only if they work strictly from 3:30 PM to 8:00 PM, or more often from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM).

I honestly don't know how our policymakers (specifically the one who drafted the basis of this document back in 2020) concluded that our kids aren't spending enough time in school and that we need to increase the hourly requirements. Everything seems focused solely on adding more hours to the kids' days, and nothing else. Okay, her...jadetinker85 says "other kids are learning how to code, while ours will be learning how to knit")

And thanks for mentioning the sixth-grade curriculum. I feel like the people pushing this whole project/experiment mostly focus on the remote learning aspect—which can apply to plenty of things in schools that use digital platforms—but they aren't really talking about the actual subject matter itself. If we’re going to shake things up, the main thing should be modifying the scope of what's actually taught in the classroom.

Let me try to wrap my head around the logic here:
So, the idea is that today, when kids finish school at 1:05 PM, they go home, say they'll handle their homework and study for tests by 3:00 PM, and somehow they won't need to study over the weekend and won't have a ruined family life? But if they are expected to do that same homework and studying at school instead, they won't have time, so they'll end up doing it on the weekend and ruining family life anyway... because apparently, time moves slower at home? Is it assumed that you can't fit the same amount of work into 120 minutes at school as you can at home?

Another fascinating theory is that we can't "do everything in the same rooms with the same teachers." This implies that schools and teachers are incredibly incompetent; that even if we set up remedial classes for one subject at one time and advanced classes for another, they wouldn't be able to coordinate it. It suggests the entire class would be forced to stay together constantly and could never split up—like having some students attend advanced Math while others attend remedial English. Isn't that exactly how schools function right now?

Look, we aren't being dense here—it’s literally what the document says. It specifies that this whole "enriched and supported learning" thing (which is just a clunky way of saying extra help or advanced stuff, since those other terms always sound so cheesy) has to happen right there in the classroom, with everyone in the class doing it at the exact same time. If we want to actually group kids by their interests, we only have a two-hour window once a week to make that happen.

And just like that, the old saying about the school of hard knocks has flipped entirely on its head, where life itself becomes the classroom. 🍿

School is life, and you don't have any other life besides school.

Sarah Hall53 said:Look, we aren't being dense here—it’s literally what the document says. It specifies that this whole "enriched and supported learning" thing (which is just a clunky way of saying extra help or advanced stuff, since those other terms always sound so cheesy) has to happen right there in the classroom, with everyone in the class doing it at the exact same time. If we want to actually group kids by their interests, we only have a two-hour window once a week to make that happen.

So, there is one specific thing that really needs an overhaul in this proposal. Asking for a change here actually makes sense. On the other hand, making a massive scene about how adding extra hours will completely destroy everyone's family life just because school might run until 3:00 PM? Well, that feels a bit much, doesn't it?